How much is biology, how much is physics? How much is inherent ability, how much is technique? Does every individual runner have a maximum possible speed over a certain distance? Basically, what exactly does Usain Bolt do better than anyone else?
In: Biology
Usain Bolt and other top athlete in any sport, is a combo of genes, and skill.
Other people could practice more than them, but never be able to compete at that level.
There are things people can do to run faster: work on their strength, work on their stamina, lose weight (if needed), and work on their running mechanics to improve their speed and efficiency. Doing all those things will allow a person to reach their maximum running speed.
However, this is where the genetic and body structure aspects others mentioned come in – two people could do identical training regimens, but the one with the ideal genes and structure would have a higher maximum running speed than the one with less-than-ideal traits for running.
So basically, Usain Bolt was already built for speed, and training and practice helped him realize his full potential.
As to the main question, genes, body structure and physical training are very important. Some of those things can be improved upon and overcome. However, developing mental strength to take it to your limit is also important.
There are a lot of exercises that athletes can use to get faster. Mainly they fall into 3 categories, building stronger stronger muscles, getting used to moving your body faster than you are comfortable, and increasing endurance so you don’t immediately tire out. Building muscle and endurance are fairly straightforward, but learning to move fast can be pretty interesting. One drill that coaches had me do when I was in track and field was to strap on a big elastic belt around your waist, which would be tied to like a 50 ft long elastic strap. The other end of the strap would be tied to another runner. That runner would take off running away from you while you stood there waiting for the tension to build on the elastic strap. Once there was enough tension on the strap pulling you towards the other runner, you would take off running towards the other runner. The strap would pull you forward much faster than you’re used to running on your own. The point of the drill was to learn how to pump your arms and legs faster than you’re used to so that you can break through mostly mental barriers and just get used to the feeling of going that fast. The hardest part of course is to keep your legs underneath you and not completely bust your ass at high speed. You could also do a very similar drill by just finding a long downhill slope to sprint down.
I guess…
Muscle memories, genetic memories, sort of.
Muscle memories: the trained areas get destroyed more often, so strengthened to reduce damage. Improved.
Genetic memories: the surviving evolution prevades, the fail one eliminated from next gene pool.
Techniques: Efficiency in doing it. To use the born memories, longer without early tiring out.
Combine all of them.
Faster people take less steps to get to the same distance work on stamina doesn’t take long to get used to it if you keep the time your running the same but increase the speed focus on the stride
I don’t want to involve race but the truth is some athletes like yao ming tall basket baller been through selective breeding
Genetics and body does matter. But unless you are competing in elite tournament, strength and stamina training will take you quite ahead.
It happened with me as well. I used to be the slowest guy in school but built up my training and it helped a lot. Others might still train and get better but most aren’t going to invest that much time.
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