Re: your sig. Are you *time[/]? Nice wound/wound.
Actually, this seems rather unlikely to me. Don’t most muscles come in pairs, sort of opposing each other (one muscle to move your foot forward, another one to pull it backward)?
So the idea of a “one in each leg” just seems a bit odd to me. What happens to it after this “extra” muscle contracts? Makes this sound even more like some kind of a racist urban legend.
I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get a cite from my friend in track who told me this, but…
He claims that the great sprinters of the modern era, be they Americans, Britons, Canadians, or Jamaicans of African decent, are all decended from the same area in West Africa. And, for whatever reason, the people in this area have the ultimate genetic make-up for sprinting. The reason that people who still live in that region aren’t tearing up the track is that the countries in that area tend to be impoverished and war-torn.
Africans on the whole make up many highly divergent ethnics groups so saying all the peoples of sub-saharan African decent have atribute x is going to turn out wrong. But by breaking it down to small localized ethnic groups, you can find signifigant variations. But, as far as I know, no extra muscles.
p.s. It’s a big pet peeve of mine, so I’ve got to say something: “African American” is a very specific term used for Americans of African decent. Please don’t use it as a catchall replacement term for “black people” when you mean “people of African decent.” Once the Atlanta Journal ran an ad about a circus with “african-american preformers from around the world.” Wow, I didn’t realize so many ex-pats went into the circus.
As far as marathons go, they seem to be absolutely dominated by Kenyans. I’d really have to see an in-depth study as far as the descent thing. Anybody know where Michael Johnson, Donovan Bailey, and Carl Lewis’s ancestors were from, for a start?
There seems to be a certain amount of repressed racial tension in this thread.
** Akuma **, I don’t think that it is a ‘racist or jealous’ athlete who coined this. Perhaps it is just somebody trying to figure out this question: ‘How come black people run faster over short distances than white people’? In general, this is fairly evident when looking at the final 100m Olympics. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that ALL black people run faster than ALL white people, just that the normal distribution (Bell) curve is shifted for the different racial categories.
In reality, the question is as inane as asking ‘Why do Chinese people have slitty eyes?’ or ‘Why do Indians have black hair’?
Or long distances. But I do agree with quicken, asking the question isn’t racist. I think the extra muscle thing is bunk so far, but I’m not sure it makes sense to look at the way Africans and people of African descent seem to dominate these events and then chalk it up to coincidence.
Now that just aint true. For a board dedicated to fighting inorance it’s a bit worrying that people throw around these sorts of statements with no evidence.
I also remember reading a very contreversial article in “Sports Illustrated” that mentioned that West African natives have a higher percentage of “fast-twitch” musculature than most other ethnicities. The article also mentioned that the high mountainous areas of Nigeria were perfect for long-distance runners and the natives of this area had a much lower percentage of “fast-twitch” musculature but had great stamina and a very high red blood cell count due to the high altitude and the fact that most of them ran several miles to and from their schools and workplaces. As I mentioned, this article was controversial to say the least, but it seemed very well researched and thought out to me at the time.
Hey, guess what. I just found a link to the article which was also published in “Scientific American” and was written by Jon Entine here .
Argh. I hate it when you type a post, hit reply and a post just… disappears!!
The Extra Leg Muscle In African-Americans Myth is bull, unless we’re talking about Ben Johnson’s pumped up enhancers.
Here’s my take. It’s mostly socioeconomic factors, not physiological ones, that account for black strengths in sports. Most black athletes who grew up in poverty thrive in sports that feature modest equipment investment, high social/cultural approval, and fame and wealth in professional ranks.
That’s why young urban black athletes who are strong in sports keep gravitatating to the same five: basketball, football, baseball, track & field and increasingly tennis. The fundamentals can be learned at a very young age, thousands of hours can be logged playing and practicing with your peers in the streets, and the rewards for top talent can be scouted and developed from middle school on. You just don’t get the same community support or interest if you’re black and happen to be good at ice hockey. (Like me growing up in Michigan.)
If there was big money and cultural approval in professional bowling, blacks would dominate that, too.
Note: World champion marathoners Gezahenge Abera of Ethiopia and Catherine Nderebaof Kenya are East Africans, so the altitude advantages aren’t just in Nigeria and other West African nations.
Oops. My mistake was confusing Kenya and Nigeria (now don’t ask me how I can confuse two countries on opposite sides of the continent. I think I need more coffee). The article I remember actually mentioned Kenya being the breeding ground for long distance runners. There was a time when the Kenyans were completely dominating most events longer than 5000 meters.
Agree. And I would go so far as to say that it seems reasonably clear that some subset of black folks likely has, on average, a genetic advantage in sprinting.
Mycroft. That’s cool. I checked a map myself before I posted. I would also like to add “soccer” to my list of low-cost entry sports – I did in my original post.
But it’s NOT genetic. You’re not just “born” fast, you train over decades to get that way in an environment that encourages top performance. It’s likelier environmental causes with strong socioeconomic motives. Like how Strong Man competitions are dominated by Eastern Europeans.
Right.
And Ice Hockey records are dominated by white Canadians and Americans from the northern Great Plains area. No doubt people from there have extra muscles in their feet that make the ice skates turn faster.
Wouldn’t be a bit more sensible to expect that the local environment has a lot to do with what sports events people in that area play. And if a lot of people in the area play a sport, you’re likely to see a number of super-stars emerge from that area.
Canada has a lot of hockey super-stars because tons of kids up there play hockey.
West Africa may have a lot of super-star runners because a lot of people there run. (Like you say, it’s a war-torn & impoverished area – running can be done by an individual, cheaply, little equipment needed. What other sport can they afford to play? I doubt there are many olympic-sized diving pools, or gymnastics auditoriums, or equestrian stadium jumping courses in the area.)
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- Blacks don’t have any extra muscles, but (in the US) the muscles of some blacks are proportioned differently than whites and most other ethnic groups. You notice this a lot in the calves: one of these groups tends to have short, broad calf muscles. The other tends to have longer, narrower calf muscles. One type seems better for one sort of pysical competitions, and the other type seems better at another----just judging from what is commonly the top performers in both types of competitions.
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- People around here have a problem with ethnic-group related questions, so please: before you spout ignorant politically-correct responses, please take off your blindfolds and go forth and take a few looks look at different peoples, and see if you can tell which of the two groups I mentioned above is which.
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Well, to throw another rumor out there, the reason I’ve heard that blacks tend to dominate in sports where a lot of anaerobic activity is required is because they have a higher proportion of fast-twitch muscles in their bodies (or perhaps just legs) than whites.
Ahem:
Oh, and “contreversial” is a typo. 
:smack: D’OH!
That’s what I get for skimming…
Just as a reminder, genetically speaking there’s no such thing as ‘Black’. Certainly very dark skin is genetically inherited, but those with very dark skin aren’t a real group, genetically.
Remember, both pygmies and very tall (what, Bantus?) have dark skin. As do many from India.
There’s more genetic diversity among dark-skinned people of Africa than among everyone else in the world, so saying "Black’ people as a whole have some genetic characteristic is kind of ridiculous.
Some populations may have some genetic variation that makes them more suited to certain athletic events. Sherpas for instance, are IN GENERAL, better suited to high-altitude events than most other groups. But of course, there’s no such thing as an ice-hockey gene.
DougC – People around here are very careful about ethnic related questions because there’s a lot of ignorance about them (and fighting ignorance is what we’re all about, right?), and because some completely wrong ideas about race were – and still are – used to justify doing incredibly horrible things (and minorly horrible things,too), so it’s doubly important to get it right.
A “genetic advantage” for sprinting or “ultimate genetic makeup for sprinting” doesn’t have to mean “extra leg muscles”. I would daresay that Greyhounds have a distinct sprinting advantage over, say, Bloodhounds even with the exact same number of muscles. Limb proportion, body fat levels, cardiovascular performance, etc., can all add up to a “genetic advantage”, and it may simply be that groups that people generally identify as “black” come from a gene pool that tends to have these traits in combination.