A few years ago I became interested in the mechanics of athletic performance. A friend plays volleyball and has exceptionally long arms and legs. This is a great advantage for parts of the sport and can be a disadvantage for others. Different sports have different demands, so we have a range of body sizes and proportions that becomes obvious at elite levels of play.
A simple analysis treats the body as a collection of joints and rods. These lever arms have weight, usually a uniform distribution, and are moved by muscles - but little thought goes into how the muscles work. This level of analysis will tell you a compact gymnast is favored and a good baseball pitcher is usually tall.
As you look at the weight and muscle distribution, the type of muscle and how it works, surprised emerge.
For example - elite sprinters have very different heels than average people.
Fascinating stuff, but there is a down side. Many of the advantages only become apparent when the level of play is very high. You see parents and coaches moving kids into sports when they twelve based on assumptions about body types for given sports. A huge percentage will never play at an elite level and a better strategy is to have the kid go into the sport s/he prefers.
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