How high could I jump if my legs were as powerful as a house cat's hind legs?

[obfusciatrist]

I know the argument is pretty much done, but to use Blake’s favorite source (Knut Scmidt-Nielson) against him, check out his book Scaling: Why Is Animal Size So Important?.

Starting on page 177:

“The conclusion is that similar animals of different masses should jump to the same height, provided that their muscles contract with the same force.”

"When it comes to actual animals, the situation is not far from the theoretical. . . A man can clear about 1.6 meters in a standing jump. His center of mass, however, is not lifted over this distance; it is lifted over less, because it is not at ground level when he jumps . . . the height of the standing high jump for the man is only 60 centimeters.

“The body masses of the animals in Table 14.2 differ by a factor of more than 100 million, but, nevertheless, the height of their jumps range over no more than a threefold difference.”

So, 1 meter is about normal, but while the ranges vary by up to a factor of 3, this isn’t nearly the huge range you might expect.

How is it possible for the galago to make standing jumps more than times as high as a human athlete? Under well-controlled conditions, a galago has jumped to 2.25 meters. . . the superior performance can be explained only by a larger muscle mass involved in the jump (more energy for takeoff contraction) and possibly a more favorable mechanical structure of the limbs.

Essentially, this section of his book has two points, that all things otherwise being equal, you would expect all animals to jump the same height (because of theoretical tradeoffs between additional muscle and additional mass).

However, since that isn’t the case you have to look at two factors to explain the range (which isn’t as big as you’d think) in jumping ability:

1. Size of animals – really small animals (such as fleas and grasshoppers) can not jump as high as you would expect because of air resistance issues (a flea only jumps about 27% as high as it could in a vacuum). And

2. Various mechanical advantages in different muscle formations.

I didn’t read this whole thread carefully (it got a little painful) but I hope this is still of some interest and hasn’t been repeated too many times. And hopefully that Amazon link above works (search inside the book is the best thing since peanut butter).