During my years of Parkour training I’ve seen numerous times that women have trouble with the sport. Guys usually learn all the vaults quickly and proceed to learn flips too. On the other hand, girls tend to have trouble with most vaults, especially the monkey vault. It’s easily attributed to lower relative upper body strength. The issue is obvious when we look at climb-ups. When we look at flips, girls often stay with flips that take less strength and power to execute.
The differences are expected and observed not only in parkour but in all other sports. On average, men tend to be stronger, faster and more powerful. Most of us know this and it’s easily observed in the world records of different sports. It’s interesting to observe by how much.
My hypothesis is that there will be larger differences between the sexes in areas where more strength or power is required to excel. Also, there should be smaller differences where endurance and non-strength skills are required. I looked at the data and this mostly seems to be the case. Powerlifting and weight-lifting are both very dependent on strength. Events like the long jump are still dependent on it but not as much. Then we have the running events which are even less dependent on it.
We’ll first look at powerlifting. I looked at the 148, 165 and 181 pound weight classes. These classes are somewhat in the middle. I picked records for drug-tested athletes whenever I could. I also picked records for squats with no wraps. All lifts are in-meet lifts. For squats the ratios are 1.56, 1.25 and 1.27. For the bench press, the ratios are 1.46, 1.35 and 1.42. For the deadlift the ratios are 1.30, 1.26 and 1.45. For the totals we have 1.30, 1.27 and 1.21. The average between the classes is about 1.32 for squat, 1.41 for bench, 1.34 for deadlift and 1.26 for the total. The errors in this data are probably somewhat high but it’s clear that there are large differences.
Next, we’ll look at weight-lifting. The men’s and women’s division do not have the same weight classes but by plotting the records it seems like they fit a quadratic relationship.
I took the men’s 56, 62, 69 and 77 kg weight classes and the women’s 58, 63, 69 and 75 kg classes. Using quadratic fits for the men’s records, I adjusted them to what they would be like if the classes were the same as the women’s. The the snatch’s ratios for the four classes are 1.29, 1.32, 1.29 and 1.27. For the clean and jerk’s they are 1.23, 1.29, 1.24 and 1.27. For the totals they are 1.26, 1.32, 1.27 and 1.28. I trust this data because the judging rules are stricter.
Now, let’s look at the running events. I picked the records for 50 m, 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 800 m, 1 km, 1.5 km, 2 km, 3 km, 5 km, 10 km, 15 km, 21 km (half marathon), 25 km, 30 km, 42 km (marathon), 100 km. The ratios do not seem to follow any obvious relationship but the average is 1.11 and they are between 1.05 and 1.14.
Interestingly enough, the 50, 100 and 200 meter races lead to ratios of 1.07, 1.09 and 1.11. I repeated the analysis for the 100 m, 200 m, 400 m and 800 m races with the top 5 best times in each category. The resulting ratios were quite close to the ones derived earlier. If I have more time I might look at more data to see what’s going on.
Finally, I looked at some other track and field events. For the broad jump the records are 3.71 m for men, 2.92 m for women, and the ratio is 1.27. For the long jump the numbers are 8.95 m, 7.52 m, 1.19. For high jump, 2.45 m, 2.09 m, 1.17. Triple jump: 18.29 m, 15.5 m, 1.18. Pole-vault: 6.14 m, 5.06 m, 1.21. Looking at the top 10 performers of each event, we have the following ratios 1.19, 1.16, 1.18, 1.18
To summarize, this is the data I’ve gathered on the differences between male and female elite athletes. As expected, the differences are greater when strength sports are concerned. The difference is smaller when endurance and technique are concerned, even in events like the 100 meters. I think there is some great analysis that can be made on this data but I have to save this for next time. For example, the numbers suggest that absolute strength plays a major role in weight-lifting and standing long jumps, a somewhat major role in field events, and only somewhat of a role in track events.
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