This might be related to the soccer thread that's going on now.

A couple friends and I were discussing this over e-mails yesterday and I found what might be the answer to why it took Roger Bannister so long to break the 4 minute and now it's routinely broken, even by highschoolers.

It's the same reason today's automobiles go faster, accelerate faster, and get better gas mileage than the cars we drove in our younger days and why todays airliners fly faster and higher than those airliners like the DC-6s and L1049G Siper Connies some of us were passengers on. 

In a word it's technology.

I found this interesting article on modern athletes.

https://creatorvilla.com/are-athletes-really-getting-faster-better-stronger-david-epstein/

But using the old airliners we flew on when service was the watchword and the stewardess asked if you wanted steak of chicken for lunch has technology caused a decline in service?  How many of you remember pulling up to a gas pump in a filling station and having a young man run out with rag hanging out of his back pocket and asking you how many gallons you wanted. Then he would proceed to check your oil and clean your windshield.  Now we pull up to a gas pump, stick a credit card in the slot. and pump our own gas.  Haven't we lost something?

But back to athletes.  I do remember watching Lou Groza of the Ceveland Browns kick a 60 yard field goal against the San Francisco 49s in Kezar Stadium when I was in high school.

Noel

 

30 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Haven't we lost something?

I think we have.  I'm just old enough to remember when my parents would pull into a full service gas station and the guy filled her up and even cleaned the windshield.

Everything has become so impersonal, from shopping to communicating.  When I was a kid, I had to talk to my friends on the landline phone, and calls were limited because we only had one line and my parents would make me get off after a few minutes.  Kids frequently got together on their bikes and rode around the neighborhood together.  I rarely see kids out and about any more.

I'm sure folks your age must really be shocked at how much things have changed since you were a kid.  I imagine that older folks back in the early 20th century were also taken aback when the 1910-20 period came around with automobiles, electricity, radio, and moving pictures, not to mention the roaring 20s with the wild music and dancing and women actually showing a bit of leg.

There are advertisements on TV now that would have been considered appalling and scandalous just 25 years ago.

Society has always changed, but the change has definitely accelerated over the past 120 years or so.

Dave

39 minutes ago, birdguy said:

How many of you remember pulling up to a gas pump in a filling station and having a young man run out with rag hanging out of his back pocket and asking you how many gallons you wanted. Then he would proceed to check your oil and clean your windshield.

If my memory serves, (I don't live there) manual pumping by attendants is still mandated in NJ.

Also, I remember reading an article where it was mentioned that the reason services like this went away was originally more economic than technological, though that later changed.

Ok, found the article: https://petroleumservicecompany.com/blog/brief-history-self-serve-gas-stations/

Are athletes better today? Well yes, records have been broken. Excercise science, better training, better nutrition. And then of course there's the elephant in the room, a huge elephant. Anabolic steroids, HGH, and all manner of concoctions. 

I used to train with a guy that  was on "the gear". In his opinion I would have put on a stone, with an 8 week cycle... Muscular Hypertrophy was something I was into and studied... but I obviously wasn't that stupid.

Athletes can be quite skilled when it comes to avoiding a positive test result.

The moderators might not be too fond of discussions relating to roads, if so, I'll say no more.

HiFlyer, Technology drives economics.  The more machines can do the work people do, the less you need people.  Automobile assembly lines were full of working people in the 50s and 60s.  Now they are full of roots.  Robots don't eat or need hospitalization.

Dave, we live three blocks from a school and across the street from a park.  When we moved here almost 30 years ago we used to see kids walking to school through the park and playing in the park after school.  They are gone now but every afternoon when school is out the street is lines with cars picking up the kids.

A lot of it has to do with the fear of child molestation.  There are no pickup touch football games or softball games after school in the park now where we chose up sides and played unsupervised.  Now those games are played on Saturday mornings with organized teams and adult supervision.

Noel

When I was a kid in the sixties, I was a big football fan (NFL). Those players were good role models for young people. Bart Star, Johnny Unitas, Tom Horn, Jerry Kramer, Dick Butkas, clean cut looking family men. These guys dressed and looked like Mercury and Gemini astronauts. I know some of them were bad boys behind the scenes, but they weren't in your face with it. Now seems it's too often domestic abuse charges, animal abuse, DUI, even bar fights and gang shootings. Maybe there's just wider coverage now since everyone with a phone is a live reporter and sure, I was full of the idealism of youth. But yea, seems a big difference but you can say that for society as a whole.  

Drugs have changed everything..................................

4 hours ago, birdguy said:

why it took Roger Bannister so long to break the 4 minute

Roger Bannister, like all track and field athletes at that time, was an amateur athlete. He was primarily a medical student then a neurosurgeon. These days, it seems all athletes are professional who devote full time to training so it's natural that performances have improved.

But technology has a lot to do with it too.  

Take pole vaulting for instance.  In my day poles were semi rigid and make of bamboo or wood.  Today fiberglass poles are engineered for performance.  A single pole vaulter might have three or four poles to suit the conditions of the track, wind, or how the athlete is feeling today.  Typically the vaulter is judge on the best three attempts.  After the first attempt he or she may select a different pole fro his or her collection for the next attempt

Noel

 

 

In most organized sports there is drug testing. A few major league baseball players will not make the HOF because of steroid use.

 

Bill W

11 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

When I was a kid in the sixties, I was a big football fan (NFL). Those players were good role models for young people. Bart Star, Johnny Unitas, Tom Horn, Jerry Kramer, Dick Butkas, clean cut looking family men. These guys dressed and looked like Mercury and Gemini astronauts. I know some of them were bad boys behind the scenes, but they weren't in your face with it. Now seems it's too often domestic abuse charges, animal abuse, DUI, even bar fights and gang shootings. Maybe there's just wider coverage now since everyone with a phone is a live reporter and sure, I was full of the idealism of youth. But yea, seems a big difference but you can say that for society as a whole.  

Yeah I remember when I was a kid in the late 70’s and 80’s when pro athletes were more of roll models than they are now. Not that all of them are bad guys, but a lot are more unsavory than they used to be back in the day. A good friend of mine is one of the team doctors for an NFL team and he’s told me about some of players being like thugs and some of the shenanigans they’ve gotten into, usually revolving around strip clubs, women, drugs, crime, etc. He said there’s usually a lot more going on behind the scenes with these guys that you would ever publicly know about.

Speaking of athletes of yesteryear, the size of these guys now is amazing. Remember when William Perry from Chicago was the biggest player at 335? Now that weight isn’t uncommon at all. Lots of these guys are 6’5” - 6’6” and weight 340 or more. I can’t imagine a guy being that tall and being more than twice my weight and still being pretty quick to move around.

The other biggest difference between today's athletes and the athletes in decades past are in the endorsements. Today's athletes have become half athlete and half super model because the amount of money their endorsements bring in is astronomically higher than the paycheck from their sporting abilities.

I grew up with role models like Mary Lou Retton when image wasn't as important, recent NCAA rule changes means young athletes today get to collect money from, providing autographs, wearing branded clothing or accessories, making personal appearances, appearing in ads, monetizing social media etc, which means the athletes of today are already become millionaires even before their first appearance at the Olympic Games.

 

Edited December 15, 20223 yr by Matthew Kane

I'm not sure whether water intake plays perhaps a small role. My grandpa always said water is for horses, but he'd get seemingly enough water by drinking a few cups of coffee and tea each day, plus a bit of rum he liked occasionally in the evenings. He was I'd say very fit up until around 97 and lived to 99.

Obviously athletes 100 years ago drank water, but I wonder if they drank less. Little gulps from small paper cups vs huge gulps from large bottles? I got pretty dehydrated in Malaysia recently. Around 30C and high humidity, I wasn't carrying any water, and kept thinking I'd find a vending machine or a convenience store, but I didn't. I was actually looking for a waterfall it showed as an attraction on my phone. When I finally abandoned my pursuit, and a little later did find a vending machine, I think I was close to passing out.

Just wondering if the modern drink like a gallon or more per day drinking bottle culture has any affect on performance. According to my grandfather maybe not, but according to me, I normally like to drink a lot of water, maybe a bit.

9 hours ago, BillW said:

In most organized sports there is drug testing. A few major league baseball players will not make the HOF because of steroid use.

 

Bill W

 

it is Bill. But the tricks they get up to in order to avoid being caught are very inventive. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303720717300412#:~:text=Athletes use masking agents and,avoid detection of anabolic steroids.&text=Serial monitoring of individual athlete's steroid profile allow detection of doping.&text=Use of epitestosterone%2C hCG and,detection of anabolic steroid use.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/star-athletes-rarely-caught-steroids-drug-tests/story?id=19887238

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Antipodeslonghaul said:

According to my grandfather maybe not, but according to me, I normally like to drink a lot of water, maybe a bit.

I drink plenty of liquids.  You're supposed to drink 7 or 8 glasses of water a day.

I have a large cup of coffee I nurse for an hour before making my breakfast.  The, with breakfast, a half tumbler of vegetable juice and a large cup of Lapsang Souchong tea.   After breakfast I usually have a half cup of tea left.  I pour what's left in the coffee pot into it and heat it up in the microwave.  That's called 'dirty tea'.  By noon I am ready for plain tap water.  Probably two glasses before dinner.  A glass of water with dinner and another couple glasses of water...or at least a glass and a half during the evening while watching TV.

Yes...I P a lot.

Noel