Vitruvian Man

I read an interesting book recently called, The Sport Gene, written by  David Epstein. Why do some excel in athletics and some don't - even with seemingly equal amounts of training? I always have liked to think that effort made all the difference. Anyone could be a great musician, a great high jumper, a great quarterback if one is just willing to put in the work.

Work is part of the equation for certain, but it turns out it's not the whole thing by any means. Some are just born with certain advantages.

Ted Williams was a great baseball player and some think maybe the best hitter of all-time. I'm sure he worked at hitting, but he didn't work at having 20/10 vision, which seemed to be a major help to him.

Muhammad Ali "reacted to light in 150 milliseconds, near the theoretical limit of human visual reaction time". Again, this is probable something innate and not developed.

The head of a athletic performance center said, "We've tested over ten thousand boys, and I've never seen a boy who was slow become fast."

What does it take to become an NBA player. One thing that helps your chances is height. The average NBA player is 15% taller than the average male. But it's more complicated than that.

The Vitruvian man is a famous drawing by Leonardo DaVinci. One can see that by Leonardo's placement of the man in the square is his assumption that a man's arm span is the same as his height. Is this always true? A class might try taking measurements and see if there is indeed a ratio of 1:1. Likely it will come quite close to that. I did my own measurement - exactly 1:1.

The book makes the point that in the 2010-11 season, there were only two players under that ratio. NBA players have an average ratio of 1.063:1. One of the current stars of the league is Anthony Davis. He is tall - 6 feet 9.75 inches, but his arm span is 7 feet 5.5 inches. That is a ratio of 1.095. He is tall, but effectively taller than his height would suggest.