I think I have long arms. I’m pretty sure about it, actually, because I have a 3/4 sleeve button-down shirt and I have to unbutton the sleeve buttons to be able to bend my arms.
So I read somewhere that your arm span roughly corresponds to your height ie the distance from fingertip to fingertip with your arms spread should be about the same as your height. My friends have tried it, and it’s usually fairly accurate (an inch difference at most).
So I’m 5’8 (68 inches) and my arm span is 71 inches… That’s a pretty big difference. So how about you guys?
That might explain why I always tied my friend (who’d been on the swim team for years) when we raced.
And I just measured my height, because I remembered that it says 5’7 on my drivers’ license… damnit, I really hoped I had grown since I was 16. But I’m more like 67.5 inches, which means my arms are 3.5 inches longer- I’m almost the albatross.
omnipresent–
You’re either doing something wrong or you’re a giant-sized dwarf. (sorry, no offense intended.) I suspect that you’re not including the distance across your torso. The ‘armspan’ is the inclusive distance from fingertip to fingertip with both arms stretched out to the side.
I’m 5’8", 5’8", or thereabouts.
I can think of some basketball players who were notable for their exceptional ‘wingspans’, sorry I don’t have any exact numbers, but I’ll bet someone here could put their hands on the stats of Scottie Pippen, Dennnis Rodman, and Charles Barkley, among many other NBA players, and we’d see some impressive differences between height and span.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Step right up and see the incredible shrinking Omnipresent.
He starts at 82", then he goes to 70"–all without the benefit of steroid abuse or procrustean measures! How low can he go?! And look at the wingspan changes! Isn’t he amazing!
(just kidding around, you know; my first cup of coffee is clearly affecting me)
Kevin Garnett (who’s just about 7’) of the Minnesota Timberwolves has a freakishly long wingspan of I’m guessing around 7’4" or 7’5". Elton Brand is 6’10" and has a 7’5" wingspan (link)
According to this site, Aussie swimmer Ian Thorpe has a nearly nine-foot wingspan. Good Lordy.
Canadian boxer Sam Langford was only 66" tall but had an arm span over 72". He should have been a world champion at the start of the twentieth century but no-one was willing to fight him. His hands hung below his knees.
Teófilo Stevenson the Cuban triple Olympic Gold medallist had an arm span of 84" more than 6" greater than Ali.
Lots of boxers have arm spans greater than their height and it is an enormous advantage.
A nine-foot wingspan on a six-foot-five-inch human would put him in the realm of orangutans and sideshow freaks. That would put his arms at about fifteen inches longer, on each side, than the average proportional human. I think the site you found blew things out of proportion. The only other site I could find that mentioned his armspan in numbers put it at about 6’6". And to think that was a website from the much vaunted Stanford!
There’s something really wrong with that site. We’ve already covered Thorpe, who’s feet probably have more to do with his speed then his arm span. But three men on his back? I don’t think so, no polo player in their right mind would triple team someone, well not usually. Plus there’s no way in hell he swims even close to three miles in a waterpolo game. Hell the best swimmers in the world do around 14:50 for a 1500 meter swim. Are they trying to say he’s 4 minutes faster then them?!
As for me I don’t have a tape measure with me but I know I’m pretty close to 6’2" and 6’2" for both. I did have a teacher in college who had a huge wingspan, plus he was huge too, must have been 6’6". Small skinny legs though.
I am well proportioned! I’d like to know the wingspan of my physics professor. He’s really tall, but his wingspan always seems even larger than is proportional. I don’t know how to go about asking a relative stranger for their wingspan, though.
Oh, come on, folks! The rule is a generality. If your body doesn’t conform, that doesn’t make you a freak; it just makes you a little different. It might make you a better goalie or piano player, but certainly not a freak.
