Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons^™

Allometric Variation In Modern Humans And The Relationship Between Body Proportions And Elite Athletic Success, Tesla A. Monson, Marianne F. Brasil, Leslea J. Hlusko

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

In many sports, greater height and arm span are purportedly linked to athletic success. While variation in body proportions has been explored across an array of scientific disciplines, studies focusing on humans of tall stature outside of clinical cases are limited. We investigated body size proportions in a sample of elite athletes, employing data on recruits for the National Basketball Association (NBA, n=2,990), mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters (mixed-sex, n=1,284), as well as a control sample of healthy young adults who are not professional athletes, represented here by male (n=4,082) and female (n=1,986) recruits for the United States Army, to …