Jan 28, 2011

Human Endurance vs Physical barriers - How far it can go ?



I happened to read this http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/01/23/peaked_performance/?page=full   recently..
It got me thinking deep.. I used to follow athletics closely about a decade back.. Of late, nothing much has happened in terms of breaking the world records..  And really how far it can go.. Just take Long jump & High Jump  .. Mike Powel's long jump record has been there from 1991 ( In between, i guess Ivan Pedroso broke it, but that was probably annulled ) .. Javier Sotomayor's record has stood there from 1993..

As the article claims, unless someone invents a better Fosberry flop technique, high jump may stay for some time.. But, no matter whatever technique is being used, aren't there practical limits which human beings cannot simply scale.. ? For eg: , can we ever think of someone running 100m race in some 8.5 seconds ? ( Given the fact that the current record is 9.58 by Usain Bolt ) . Won't that be a sort of physical barrier ?