Yes of course they can compete. My argument is that females will be forced to compete as males which is an unhealthy thing. Athletic females will rightly strive
for the best they can possibly attain, and the male bar will ultimately be a candy.
Futile as it may seem now, our top female athletes in 10 years will look like young males!
When you don’t say anything, we have to fill in the gaps. State your case clearly and all this confusion will go away. You’ve backtracked and changed your statements a few times in this thread, so forgive us if we try to make sense out of chaos.
Please point out specifically where I have distorted or manipulated anything. I have quoted you directly and refuted those statements directly. If my responses do not address what you think you said, then you need to reassess what you intended to say vs what you actually said.
The bolded part, where olympic runners are the youngest, thinnest, and most aggressively trained female athletes. No. Gymnasts and figure skaters (and some divers and swimmers) are Olympic performers at 15, and that is after they changed the rules so 14 year olds are too young. They also had to publish guidelines for minimum weight limits because girls were starving/being starved to keep weight down. Olympic runners are in the 18 to 30 yr old range, and while they have aggressive work out schedules and weight training and such, they typically eat the proper calories to support their workload.
This is a completely new claim to what you have said so far. And completely unsupported. Are you suggesting that the sports will eliminate competition by sex? Or are you just speculating that since men do better than women, the women will push themselves harder to try to achieve the male performance levels? And that by doing so, they will somehow overcome their biological differentiation?
So not posting to other threads makes me a computer! Curious assumption!
You see now don’t you, how you have let your high standards down?
I appologize for my atrocious grammar. (didn’t think it was that bad).
Restated as you requested it is this…
A female athlete if she has large breasts is unlikely to make it to world class level.
You and others have forced me to modify my original statement which I admit was provocative.
I think what may have offended you most was the last sentence.
I think you are right, and unless I can find statistical evidence, (there doesn’t seem to be much around about elite female atheletic breast size) I should let it die.
Thanks for your indulgence anyway. (Sorry you will probably never read this).
First thing you’ve said so far I agree with. Just sayin.
Certainly large breasted women can compete against small breasted women (at a certain level) but it seems obvious not at world class level, and yes of course intensive training accounts for most of that, but not all. I can’t prove it though, so I will let it die.
As already posted in this thread - Dawn Harper - Silver medal in the 100 meter hurdles.
So, we have women with fairly large breasts competing successfully at the world class level. Your premise is incorrect. Any conclusions you attempt to draw from them will also be incorrect.
I believe my original statement made reference to 2012 and though I have now modified it, and agree that Dawn Harper is a wonderful exceptional example, can you give me a percentage of athletes in 2012 amongst world class female athletes that fit that category?
No, I can’t, but I’m not trying to make a claim here. You said it was obvious, posters presented counter examples, and now we’re back to square one. Since your premise was something about genetics preventing busty athletes from competing at world class level a single counter example should be sufficient.
Everyone agrees that female athletes with low body fat will tend to have smaller breasts. Some sports require very low body fat to perform at elite levels so the majority of competitors will have smaller breasts, but not all of them. This isn’t really controversial. You seem to be claiming something above and beyond all that, but we don’t know exactly what your claim is.
You say you modified your original statement; what is your new claim? Your post from this morning is pretty much the same as your original post, and it’s still factually wrong.
This thread has almost run it’s course but while it’s still twitching may I offer Olympic Beach Volleyball as exhibit A in countering the OP?
Other than the part I already bolded? No.
Point taken. I believe now that genes should not be evaluated any more than personal memories.
“Everyone agrees that female athletes will tend to have smaller breasts”
Your two important words are “everyone” and “tend”.
Mind explaining “everyone” and your more illusive “tend”.
I will if you will?
I don’t think so. no matter how nice they are to look at the breasts are in hypersuspension!
I can not agree with your conclusion. You make misguided concepts in my opinion.If the entire Olympic womens track team stopped training they would not resemble the rest of the nation as far as breast size. I can’t prove it, but if I had to and the means, I would make you recant, and apologise forsuch a rediculous statement.
I can not understand that, except that I am logged on as a guest. ( I must get the hang of this) Can you help>?
What is “hypersuspension”? I tried google, but I don’t think volleyball players are jacking up their breasts with car parts.
At the top of the window is a blue menu bar. Go over and select “search”. A drop down opens. Go down and select “advanced search”.
A new page will open. On the right near the top is a field for “User Name:”. Type in “rustyrunner”. Leave all other settings default (no keywords, Threads With at least, Post From any date, Search All Open Forums).
Only one result returns - this thread.
rustyrunner, you have taken a valid observation and projected and over extended it into unsupported supposition. Do female athletes appear to have smaller breasts than average, especially in track and field? Yes. But the why is where you discount known causes. It is known that high performing athletes monitor their diets and have rigorous workouts. Those two factors keep body mass index low, i.e. low fat storage. Some of breast size is from fat storage, some of it is glandular tissue. The percentage varies across individuals, so there’s no easy answer, but since fat makes up a fair percentage of many women’s breast size, and athletes have little body fat, their breast tend to be smaller.
Factor two is that breasts are not well anchored. They are weighty tissue held in place by skin - no muscles, tendons, etc to support them. Bouncing around is thus uncomfortable and can be painful. Therefore, efforts have been made to create garments to aid women be athletic. These include sports bras and compression garments, which are essentially elastic materials. The garments put pressure on the soft tissue, and thus smear it flatter against the body and hold it tight rather than leave it suspended outward and unsupported. Because breast tissue is soft, the breasts get mushed down. A lot less jiggle, a lot less protrusion.
Those two factors contribute a great deal to female athletes looking flat chested. But have you even tried looking for pics of them when not wearing their performance gear? Like afterparty casual shots and such?
Here’s the thing: there is a selection pressure against women with genes for oversized boobs, but it is not direct. Women with oversized boobs tend to come from families with oversized bodies, i.e. predispositions to be obese. These women are not likely to be olympic level athletes, both from genetics but also likely from lifestyle issues learned from their family.
But here’s why you cannot assert that the pressure is genetic and that women athletes will continue to change until they look like men: women athletes are still women, and they are drawn from the same gene pool as everyone else. There is no special “athlete” community that interbreeds with each other to the exclusion of non-athletes. They marry non-athletes as often as other athletes. Ergo, there is no exclusion of genes to do the selecting.
The only way your supposition would have any merit is if olympic level athletes are so eager to improve their performance to reach male performance that they are willing to cheat by using male hormones. Extended use of male hormones will affect their bodies. This is seen from the program that the East Germans had in the 70s and 80s. However, that kind of cheating is difficult because it is tested for. I honestly don’t know enough to know how effective the testing is. We see from the latest results with Lance Armstrong that some forms of cheating have been easier than others.
It is possible that the top level performers are cheating. It is also possible that they are not. I cannot say how likely it is either way, but my gut feels that the bulk are not using high doses of androgenic steroids. Ergo, they are not being hormonally changed.
Therefore, women athletes will continue to look a bit more flat chested than the average population (especially when the average population has implants and tends toward obesity), but there will not be a downward spiral in female athlete chest size.
In other words, “I don’t have any proof, and I refuse to acknowledge the contrary evidence presented to me, but I see no reason to change my position.”
My niece’s daughter is a junior in high school and I just was pleased to see her off to her first formal prom date. I was amazed as to how beautiful and graceful she handled the moment and could see how a young man would be taken by her attributes. I noticed that she had a amble cleavage which I had not noted even when she was wearing a bathing suit. I mentioned it to my Sister-In-Law, her Grandmother, and she said that push-up and padded bras could enhance even the smallest of breasts. I guess I’m dumb in the womanly of matters but I thought she looked so heavenly for her date and hoped she had a wonderful time. She may not be World class in sports but she is World class in life!
Well, her breasts would hardly walk off while she was swimming.