Why are blacks so good at track and field?

People often use the term black to refer to all Africans and people of African descent, which is not accurate.

The theory of African origins holds that Africa is the birthplace of mankind, and that modern humans only began to come out of Africa one by one across the world roughly 100,000 years ago. Genetic diversity is at its richest in a species' place of origin.

While we see black people on the podiums of track and field competitions, there is a huge physical difference between those living in the East African highlands and West Africans along the Ivory Coast and Gold Coast, due to the natural isolation of the East African Rift Valley.

Athletes from West Africa are strong and incredibly explosive, and have a great advantage in sprinting, long jumping and ball sports.

Many fans use the term "black and hard" to describe strong, explosive African athletes. Most of these muscular black athletes come from West African countries such as Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire, and are typically West African.

In the sprinting program to occupy a dominant position in the majority of black people of West African descent: the United States and Jamaica have won the most awards in sprinting black people, mainly from West Africa in the history of the West African slave trade over the descendants of black West Africans. The West African native due to the more backward economic development, lack of adequate training conditions, in the sprinting program is still behind the United States and Jamaica, but there is still no shortage of strong athletes.

The 100-meter race, for example, can run to within 10s of the earth only 100 people, located in West Africa, Nigeria has at least 5 people in the country 100 meters can run to within 10s, which does not count two naturalized Qatar Nigerian athletes, and no West African ancestry a **** no more than 5 people.

The explosive power of West African athletes can be largely attributed to the higher production of androgens in their bodies. Exogenous androgens are doping drugs explicitly banned by the International Olympic Committee. But West Africans bring their own stimulants.

Androgens promote muscle and bone growth. African Americans on average have higher androgen levels than Europeans and Asians. West Africans also have higher bone and muscle density than any other race, which makes their speed on land unrivaled.

But they also consequently need to exert more force to keep themselves afloat in the water, and it's less easy for black athletes to capitalize on their athletic strengths in swimming events that also require explosive power.

Evolutionarily speaking, the strong physiques of West Africans may be the product of natural selection. The region has a predominantly rainforest and savannah climate, and people here have always maintained a more primitive lifestyle. Nomadism and warfare made it possible for the strongest to survive.

The East Africans, on the other hand, are more slender, with thin, long legs that make them look like matchsticks compared to the burly West Africans. However, their endurance is very good, 800 meters and above all kinds of long-distance running events, all the way to the marathon long-distance running, are Kenya and Ethiopia two East African countries in turn. These two countries take almost all the prizes in urban marathons.

The current world record for a full marathon (42.195 kilometers) is 2 hours, 2 minutes and 57 seconds, which was set by Kenyan athletes in East Africa. 2011 Athletics World Championships, the Kenyan women's marathon team even set a record of sweeping the gold, silver and bronze medals.

Kenya's only rival in the marathon is their neighbor Ethiopia, who is best known to the Chinese for taking first and second place in both the men's and women's races at the 2014 Beijing International Marathon.

East African athletes' dominance of long-distance running wasn't beaten by the Japanese until the extreme marathon at the 100-kilometer level, where both the men's and women's world record holders for the 100-kilometer run are Japanese, though they rely more on strong willpower than physical prowess.

East Africa is situated on a plateau, and people who live here for a long time have a big advantage in lung capacity, but altitude doesn't explain it all. The physique of black East Africans is another advantage; on average, one of their calves is 400g lighter than a white European's, which equates to an 8 percent savings in energy expenditure when running.

And because they live near the equator, they have well-developed sweat glands that dissipate heat quickly when they run, which is a big reason for endurance.

This fitness for long-distance running could also come from evolutionary selection. Many of Kenya's long-distance runners come from a nomadic tribe called the Kalenjin. People in this tribe have the ability to outrun cattle on two legs.

There's a long tradition here that stealing cattle is legal: Stealers can keep them for themselves, as long as they aren't caught by their owners. They usually need to drive the cattle for dozens of kilometers in a row. Some scholars have argued that this tradition gives people who are good runners a very strong evolutionary advantage.

Expanded:

In all human races, the inability to combine extreme levels of endurance and explosive power are universal.

All human skeletal muscle consists of a mixture of different muscle fibers, which can be roughly divided into two categories: those that contract at a slower rate, called slow muscle fibers (ST), and those that contract at a faster rate, called fast muscle fibers (FT). The slow muscle has a high fatigue resistance and is suitable for aerobic exercise programs with low force and long duration. Fast muscles contract with great force and speed, but fatigue easily.

Marathon runners have more than 90% of slow muscle fibers in their muscles, while top 100-meter runners have mainly fast muscle fibers and no more than 5% slow muscle fibers in their muscles.

Distribution of fast and slow muscle fibers in endurance and explosive athletes, with endurance on the far left, explosive on the far right, slow muscle fibers in red, and fast muscle fibers in light red.

For ordinary people, through training can increase both kinds of muscle fibers, but for professional athletes, only according to the nature of the participating projects, targeted selection of a direction for exercise to improve.

The ACTN3 gene encodes a protein found only in fast muscle fibers. Australian researchers studied the genes of more than 300 athletes, all of whom had participated in various international sporting events. The results found that 95 percent of the sprinters carried at least one allele encoding this protein.

The assorted strength testing program included tests for the rs1815739 locus of the ACTN3 gene, the rs2854464 locus of the ACVR1B gene, and the rs1805086 locus of the MSTN gene.The ACVR1B gene and the MSTN gene are also associated with muscle development and can affect a person's muscle strength.

The GABPB1 gene encodes a group of transcription factors that regulate mitochondrial respiration and has a strong influence on the durability of muscle movement. The assorted endurance testing program includes three variant loci on this gene, rs12594956, rs8031031, and rs7181866.

References: