Tesla A. Monson1,2, Marianne F. Brasil1,2, Leslea J. Hlusko1,2, , ,
1Human Evolution Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA
2Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA
3
Allometric Variation in Modern Humans and the Relationship Between Body Proportions and Elite Athletic Success
J. Anthr. Sport Phys. Educ. 2018, 2(3), 3-8 | DOI: 10.26773/jaspe.180701
Abstract
In many sports, greater height and arm span are purportedly linked to athletic success. While variation in body proportions has been explored across an array of scientific disciplines, studies focusing on humans of tall stature outside of clinical cases are limited. We investigated body size proportions in a sample of elite athletes, employing data on recruits for the National Basketball Association (NBA, n=2,990), mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters (mixed-sex, n=1,284), as well as a control sample of healthy young adults who are not professional athletes, represented here by male (n=4,082) and female (n=1,986) recruits for the United States Army, to test two hypotheses: 1) There is a significant difference in arm span to height ratios between elite professional athletes and the control population, and 2) There is a significant relationship between arm span to height ratio and athletic success within the NBA and MMA. We find that NBA players are significantly taller, with absolutely and relatively wider arm spans than MMA fighters and the control population. Additionally, we find that basketball players are significantly more likely to be drafted earlier in the NBA, and MMA fighters are significantly more likely to have a better loss to win ratio, if their arm span to height ratio falls above the regression line. However, we note that arm span and height, as well as athletic success, are impacted by a myriad of factors, and some of the most successful professional athletes do not have particularly long arms relative to their height.
Keywords
Arm Span, Height, Body Size, Basketball, Mixed Martial Arts, Stature
View full article
(PDF – 1079KB)
References
Ackland, T.R., Schreiner, A.B., & Kerr, D.A. (1997). Absolute size and proportionality characteristics of World Championship female basketball players. Journal of Sports Sciences, 15(5), 485-490.
Auerbach, B.M., & Sylvester, A.D. (2011). Allometry and apparent paradoxes in human limb proportions: implications for scaling factors. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 144(3), 382-391. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.21418
Beamon, K., & Bell, P.A. (2002). “Going Pro”: the deferential effects of high aspirations for a professional sports career on African-American student athletes and White student athletes. Race and Society, 5(2), 179-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.racsoc.2004.01.006
Cureton Jr., T.K., & Hunsicker, P. (1941). Body Build as a Framework of Reference for Interpreting Physical Fitness and Athletic Performance, Research Quarterly. American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, 12(2), 301-330. https://doi.org/10.1080/10671188.1941.10624688
Davies, J.H., & Cheetham, T. (2014). Investigation and management of tall stature. Archives of Disease Childhood, 99, 772-777. https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2013-304830
Formicola, V., & Giannecchini, M. (1999). Evolutionary trends of stature in Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe. Journal of Human Evolution, 36(3), 319-333. https://doi.org/10.1006/jhev.1998.0270
Golliver, B., & Mahoney, R. (2017, September). Top 100 NBA Players of 2018. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved March 2018 from https://www.si.com/nba/2017/09/14/nba-top-100-players-2018-lebron-james-stephencurry-kevin-durant.
Gordon, C.C., Blackwell, C.L., Bradtmiller, B., Parham, J.L., Barrientos, P., Paquette, S.P., Corner, B.D., Carson, J.M., Venezia, J.C., Rockwell, B.M., & Mucher, M. (2014). 2012 Anthropometric survey of US Army personnel: methods and summary statistics (No. NATICK/TR-15/007). Army Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center MA. Retrieved June, 2017, from http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a611869.pdf
Gryko, K., Kopiczko, A., Mikołajec, K., Stasny, P., & Musalek, M. (2018). Anthropometric variables and somatotype of young and professional male basketball players. Sports, 6(1):9. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports6010009
Harrell, F.E., & Dupont, M.C. (2012). Package ‘Hmisc’. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved February 2018, from https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Hmisc/Hmisc.pdf
Huffman, L.T., & Cooper, C.G. (2012). I’m taking my talents to...an examination of hometown socio-economic status on the college-choice factors of football student-athletes at a southeastern university. Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, 5, 225-246.
Jungers, W. L. (1985). Chapter 16-Body size and scaling of limb proportions in primates. Chapter taken from Size and Scaling in Primate Biology ISBN: 1489936491 Advances in Primatology (pp. 345-381).
Kirk, C. (2016). Does stature or wingspan length have a positive effect on competitor rankings or attainment of world title bouts in international and elite mixed martial arts? Sport Science Review, 5-6, 334-349. https://doi.org/10.1515/ssr-2016-0018
Lindner, K.J., Johns, D.P., & Butcher, J. (1991). Factors in withdrawal from youth sport: A proposed model. Journal of Sport Behavior, 14(1), 3-18.
Lordkipanidze, D., Jashashvili, T., Vekua, A., Ponce de León, M.S., Zollikofer, C.P.E., Rightmire, G.P., Pontzer, H., Ferring, R., Oms, O., Tappen, M., Bukhsianidze, M., Agusti, J., Kahlke, R., Kiladze, G., Martinez-Navarro, B., Mouskhelishvili, A., Nioradze, M., & Rook, L. (2007). Postcranial evidence from early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. Nature, 449, 305-310.
McCauley, J. (2018, April). NBA teams paying closer attention to players’ wingspan. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 13, 2018 from http://www.latimes.com/sns-bc-bkn--nba-wingspan-fascination-20180410-story.html
Meadows, L., & Jantz, R.L. (1992). Estimation of stature from metacarpal lengths. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 37(1), 147-154. https://doi.org/10.1520/JFS13222J
Miller, S.G. (2005). Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven: Yale University.
Nadankutty, J., Lu, L.A., Liang, T.Y., Stephen, J.A., Anuar, M.A.R.K., Yusuf, Y.A. (2014). Correlative study of wingspan (armspan) length and body length in students of SEGi University, Malaysia. Open Science Repository Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.7392/openaccess.45011801
Norton, K., & Olds, T. (2001). Morphological evolution of athletes over the 20th century. Sports Medicine, 31(11), 763-783.
Nwosu, B.U., & Lee, M.M. (2008). Evaluation of short and tall stature in children. American Family Physician, 78(5), 597-604.
Popović, S., Bjelica, D., Tanase, G.D. & Milasinovic, R. (2015). Body height and its estimation utilizing arm span measurements in Bosnian and Herzegovinian adults. Montenegrin Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 4(1), 29-36.
R Core Team. (2015). R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved January 2018 from http://www.R-project.org/.
Rappold, G., Blum, W.F., Shavrikova, E.P., Crowe, B.J., Roeth, R., Quigley, C.A., Ross, J.L., & Niesler, B. (2007). Genotypes and phenotypes in children with short stature: clinical indicators of SHOX haploinsufficiency. Journal of Medical Genetics, 44(5), 306-313.
Reeves, S.L., Varakamin, C., Henry, C.J.K. (1996). The relationship between arm-span measurements and height with special reference to gender and ethnicity. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 50, 398-400.
Revelle, W. (2015). The psych package – CRAN. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved January 2018 from https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/psych/psych.pdf
Ruff, C. (2002). Variation in human body size and shape. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 211-232. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085407
Sellers, R.M., & Kuperminc, G.P. (1997). Goal discrepancy in African american male student-athletes’ unrealistic expectations for careers in professional sports. Journal of Black Psychology, 23(1), 6-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/00957984970231002
Shea, B.T., & Bailey, R.C. (1996). Allometry and adaptations of body proportions and stature in African pygmies. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 100, 311-340.
Stulp, G., & Barrett, L. (2016). Evolutionary perspectives on human height variation. Biological Reviews, 91(1), 206-234. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12165
Torres-Unda, J., Zarrazquin, I., Gil, J., Ruiz, F., Irazusta, A., Kortajarena, M., Seco, J., & Irazusta, J. (2013). Anthropometric, physiological and maturational characteristics in selected elite and non-elite male adolescent basketball players. Journal of Sports Sciences, 31(2), 196-203. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2012.725133
Yang, J., Benyamin, B., McEvoy, B.P., Gordon, S., Henders, A.K., Nyholt, D.R., Madden, P.A., Heath, A.C., Martin, N.G., Montgomery, G.W., Goddard, M.E., & Visscher, P.M. (2010). Common SNPs explain a large proportion of the heritability for human height. Nature Genetics, 42(7), 565-569.
Young, N.M., Wagner, G.P., & Hallgrímsson, B. (2010). Development and evolvability of human limbs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(8), 3400-3405.
Walker, A., & Leakey, R. (1993). The Nariokotome Homo erectus Skeleton. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wickham, H. (2009). ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. Houston: Springer.
Zetterberg, B., & Hallmark, J. (2011, September). NBA Basketball: What Qualifies as a “Freakish” Wingspan in the League? Retrieved April 2018 from http://bleacherreport.com/articles/864549-nba-basketball-what-qualifies-as-a-freakish-wingspan-in-the-league