You must ride the short bus to school.
n age and among a people characterized by an almost idolatrous regard for speed of all kinds, it is only natural that great interest should attach to rapidity of locomotion, and especially the locomotion of man himself. For while man has, by utilizing the forces of the natural world, invented mechanisms that greatly exceed him in swiftness, he is still the most wonderful motor machine of them all. The rate at which, unaided, he can run for short distances, moreover, bears favorable comparison with that attained by motor vehicles at the present day. The express train going a mile a minute moves eighty-eight feet a second: Michael at a two-minute clip wheels forty-four feet during the same time, beating Cresceus, the world’s fastest trotter.
The cross-roads-stopping local train, making twenty miles an hour, cover’s twentynine and three tenths feet in a second as compared with thirty and six tenths feet advanced by the fastest sprinters. Marvelous it seems, but true, that Bernard Wefers, in his palmy days, could give this local a handicap of ten yards and a flying start, and catch it in two hundred and thirty-six
yards. The average tyro, without special training, finds it difficult to negotiate one hundred yards in less than thirteen seconds, which is only twenty-three feet in a second.
How it is that the best sprinters can run a whole third faster than this has been a source of wonder to the laity and a problem for trainers. Wherein does the sprinter’s great speed lie? It cannot be purely a matter of training, for, under the same methods, some men develop much more speed than others. Does some bodily peculiarity, length of limb or lightness of frame or certain rare combination of these, make the achievement possible? Or is it, after all, that which lies at the basis of success everywhere, nerve power, to which we must look for the solution.
Many and often curious are the theories held by trainers on this interesting subject. Some of them have been handed down from the dim past, and not seldom the views of equally celebrated coaches are diametrically opposed to each other. For example, one attributes the sprinter’s fleetness, in great measure, to the length of his lower limbs, another to his length of body; many select for trial youths with a long thigh and a short leg, while a noted trainer of my acquaintance likes those with “a short quickacting thigh and a long leg for increased stride.” Arguments from fact are presented on the one hand in favor of the high instep and short foot, and on the other for the long foot and light ankle. The theory of a certain increase in leverage gained by more advantageous attachments of muscle tendons to bones has obtained perhaps as widely as any. This latter idea is hard to disprove which are the more tenaciously held because of the mystery which enshrouds them.
In exercises of speed the expenditure of nerve force is quite out of proportion to the work done. Hence some have inferred that, given proper nerve power, any one may become a great sprinter, regardless of his build—a quite unwarranted conclusion. Nerve is undoubtedly the important factor for success in athletics, but, while predominant here, does not abrogate the law of the survival of the anatomically fittest. Given an equal amount of such potential in a number of human machines, that one will accomplish most which is best adapted to the purpose.
A glance at the girths taken at various parts of the body discloses the interesting fact that though in size of chest and abdomen the sprinter exceeds the normal, and in the circumference of upper arms, forearms, thighs, and calves rises still higher above it, yet his elbows are only about normal, and his knees and wrists fall considerably below. The girth of elbows would doubtless be less,
also, were it not that certain muscles run past the point where the joint is measured.
The excess of half an inch in the girth and hips, too, may be attributed to the muscular development behind them, for they are narrower than normal. Thus virtually all the girths of muscle are above the average, and all those of bone below it. Our sprinter then follows the race-horse in this regard.
Curiously enough, while the neck is above the average in size, the head is smaller in girth, being normal for a man but five feet six inches in height, though in breadth it is above normal. The indications here are for a type with a thick neck and a short, broad head. Anthropologists claim that men with heads of this shape are usually men of action, while those with a long and narrow cranium are rather men of thought. These figures seem to add weight to their claim. The tape shows us again that the instep is larger than normal, a result which settles the argument for strength and elasticity in the high arch.
It is hardly necessary to enter into a detailed statement of the results of the strength tests on fast runners. Suffice it to say that they are far ahead of the average in all of them. Especially—as we should expect—in strength of legs. The leg lift of the average man is three hundred and eighty-one pounds, of the sprinter five hundred and fifty. What at first sight seems strange, however, is that strength of back rises so high, in the ratio of three hundred and ninety-six to three hundred and twenty-three pounds. But, as we recall how the back must assist the action of both legs and arms and simultaneously keep the body steady, the reason becomes evident.
The capacity of the lungs is an important item, though not of such moment here as in distance runners. We find it, as one would guess, somewhat above par. What, then, does this investigation show to be the physical characteristics of the typical sprinter! Not, surely, that any abnormality or any mysterious relation existing between the bodily parts is responsible for his excellence; rather that a certain combination of qualities makes it possible. These are: a bony framework somewhat taller than the average and of superior lightness; a short, broad head; narrow hips; high insteps and short feet. Clothe this with a muscular system above the normal in size and strength, and you have a human motor machine, the most perfect which nature has yet evolved for high speed. If sprinting continues popular in the generations to come, this may be still farther elaborated until speed becomes largely a matter of pedigree in men as in horses. Given equal nerve force and equal training, with other types, and this one will surpass them all in rapidity of locomotion.
