Humans Have Reached Their Athletic Peak
French scientists from the Biomedical and Epidemiological Research in Sport have discovered that dramatic improvements in world records will stop in more than half of the classic athletic disciplines 20 years from now, given that athletes are already nearly reaching the absolute limits of the human body. These include track and filed, swimming, speed skating, cycling and weightlifting.
These records span from 1896 when modern Olympics was revived and made use of accurate timekeeping, through 2007. During these times, especially from 1996 to 1968 (sans the 2 world wars), world records were routinely and substantially broken on a frequent basis.
However after 1968, it has been observed that the pace of record breaking had slowed down to a significant case, while some even ceased completely. An example of a stagnant record is Florence Griffith-Joyner's 10.49 seconds for the women's 100 meters, made in 1988, and remains unchallenged to date.
2007 records (observed by scientists' statistical models) have shown that athletes have made use of 99% of human physical limits. The trend has been confirmed for a full range of physical activity regardless of whether the exertion was aerobic, anaerobic, used lower limbs, used upper limbs, was explosive or focused on endurance.
Scientists think that by 2060, with the assumption that conditions do not change markedly, human limits will reach its peak and new records will not have leaping differences from the previous ones.
