Exploring Sprinting Physiology and the Advancement of Strength and Conditioning

A year after breaking his own world record time in the 100 meter sprint at the 2008 Olympic Games, Usain Bolt broke the world record again with a time of 9.58 seconds. Using world record progression data, mathematicians have forecasted the lowering of the world record to a floor of around 9.45 seconds. Physiologists predict times under 9.3 seconds and others believe that human limits are impossible to predict, especially with breakthroughs in performance-enhancing techniques on the horizon. With gene therapy and continuing progression in strength and conditioning techniques, it is likely that the world record in the 100 meter spring will fall to levels that are hard to imagine at the current time.

At the 2012 Olympic Games, Bolt crossed the finish line in 9.63 seconds and won the gold medal again, but he fell short of lowering his own world record. Bolt won a record third straight gold medal in the 100 meter race, but once again was not able to eclipse his world record time. The world record has not seen an improvement since 2009 and one might suspect that Bolt’s performance in 2008 and 2009 could be the peak of human athleticism. Mathematicians and scientists that have studied the progression of world record times and the physiology of sprinters do not hold this view. Prior to 2008, Reza Noubary, a mathematician at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, and other researchers had predicted that 9.45 seconds would be the bottom limit of how fast a human being could run the 100 meter sprint. Bolt’s 9.69 second performance at the 2008 Olympic Games increased those expectations because their statistical model predicted that 9.69 seconds would not be seen until around 2030.

Jeremy Richmond, an Australian sports scientist, believes that new training techniques is likely to result in a world record time that dives lower than 9.3 seconds by the 2020 Olympic Games. Along with other sports scientists and physiologists, human limits are restrained by physiology, which can be improved upon with training routines that include things like plyometrics. This type of training involves box jumps that strengthen the soleus muscle, which is correlated with sprinting performance. Studies have shown that faster runners strike the ground more forcefully than slower runners. It is unclear why this is the case and how a sprinter’s ground force can be improved. Unlike other forms of athleticism, scientists still have not gained a clear physiological picture of what makes a good sprinter. Usain Bolt is a good example of this in that 100 and 200 meter sprinters were mostly the domain of smaller athletes because taller sprinters like Bolt could not accelerate off the blocks as quickly as shorter athletes. Bolt changed this long-standing belief when he began demolishing records in the 100 meter sprint.

Along with new discoveries in sprinting physiology and new strength and conditioning techniques, the long-term breakthrough is likely to come in the form of new performance-enhancing drugs and gene therapy. While physiologists believe that 9.3 seconds could be the human limit, gene therapy that could theoretically create super humans will likely surpass natural human limits by a large margin. At around the 70 meter mark, sprinters tire and their stride slows down. This is the case for every sprinter and those that appear to be accelerating in the last 30 meters of the race are actually slowing down at lower rate than their competitors. It is likely that medical science will invent a way for sprinters to not tire and exhibit super human cardio where sprinters will not slow down in the last 30 meters of the race. This is where several tenths of seconds are surely to be dropped if sprinters no longer slowed down in the last quarter of the race.

While the world record has not been improved upon in the last two Olympic Games, we are far from seeing the peak of human limits in the 100 meter sprint. Even with the progress made in strength and conditioning and new ways to analyze sprinting physiology, there is still much improvement to be made. Most agree that the current world record of 9.58 seconds is highly unlikely to stand for long, but how low can the world record go? It is impossible to predict how low the record can go with emerging performance-enhancing technologies and improvements in our understanding of sprinting.