state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
We are very close to the limit of what human bodies can do without cheating. Genetic outliers who can slightly push these limits might exist, but they won’t suddenly jump 10m, rather narrowly crack the 30 year old record of 8.95m, for example. And someone might run a clean 2 hour marathon, but there won’t be anyone running it in 90 minutes. Until we do genetic manipulation or allow doping, the old records will stand or will only increase marginally.
gustofwind@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Kinda but also maybe not
Records are continually broken and we do not know the limits when there is so much undiscovered talent and bodies combined w future technique and technology improvements
It’s kinda pointless to talk about but there are many genetic outliers who could dramatically push these limits but we will never know about them or get them in a position to train and try
state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
We do know what human bodies are physically capable of. You can literally calculate that. With genetic outliers you can push this slightly, but not by a huge margin. There is a reason why so many records are still standing after 30-40 years. For a marathon, 2 hours is about the limit of human bodies. We reached that in 2023. Maybe someone can eke out a minute or two more, but without genetic manipulation or doping that’s it. The world records for long jump were set in 1988 for women and 1991 for men. The record for high jump was set in 1993. For these sports we have reached what human bodies are capable of. If they are ever broken, it will be by a few centimeters. No human will suddenly jump 10 meters.
polotype@lemmy.ml 19 hours ago
And we can calculate that bumblebees can’t fly and cangaroos can’t jump
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well there is always the Bannister effect, where when somebody breaks some arbitary record previously tought as unbeatable, multiple people start to beat soon.
Also i want to point out that before the 1991 long jump record was made in 1968. So it took 23 years for the record break that time and for those 23 years people also said we have found the human limit. Until the now standing record destroyed the previous one with 5cm. A huge increment.
gustofwind@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Some records may only be capable of marginal improvement but those are still significant to break
I’m really not sure what point you’re trying to make
These are world records so the people involved absolutely care about small breakthroughs and that literally proves the human body was capable of more than we thought, even if just by a little
Who cares if it’s just by a little? We are operating at the absolute limit of performance where a small gain is actually huge
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Humans are not set in stone, we’re constantly evolving. An ostrich can run 70km/h on 2 legs. Who’s to say we won’t one day have humans running that fast?
state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
I don’t think you understand how evolution works. There is no evolutional pressure on humans to run long distances, jump far or high. And even if there suddenly were, it would take generations for noticeable changes. It’s much more likely that some parents let their kids be CRISPRd to create more red blood cells which would grant them an endurance boost or other such changes. That will probably happen in our lifetime.
Besides, your ostrich example is not helpful. A snow albatross is as tall as a small human and also has two. Maybe we will grow wings and fly!
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 1 day ago
Kinesiologists and mechanical engineers are the who. Ostriches have a radically different body plan than humans, one that’s mechanically much more suited to running fast. Add long, lightweight legs which bend the other way and hence have advantageous leverage and a stride length of 3 to 5 meters. (Usain Bolt has a stride length of less than 2.5 meters, and he’s an outlier among humans.) Even if we genetically engineered a hyper-fast-twitch muscle fiber and springy tendons, those would just tear apart our joints when paired with the body mechanics and locomotion style we’re working with.