The Relationship between Body Habitus, Oxygen Consumption, and Distance Events in Olympic Runners

Toshio Yuki^* & Sarah Legge, B. A.

Lexington High School, 251 Waltham Street, Lexington, MA, 02421, USA

*Correspondence to: Toshio Yuki, Lexington High School, 251 Waltham Street, Lexington, MA, 02421, USA.

Copyright © 2023 Dr. Toshio Yuki, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction
Running has become an increasingly popular sport with many distance events to compete in, each with its specialized training. The wide variety of running events is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the most recent Olympics hosted about fifteen different running events. For instance, races ranging from 100 meters to 800 meters are considered short-distance events, and require more speed training. In contrast, races of at least 5 kilometers in length are regarded as long-distance events and primarily focus on endurance training. Mid-distance events are a hybrid between these two categories. The relationship between weight and success in track and field event was previously reported in male runners [1], where short-distance runners were much bulkier in the study. This poses the question: Is there an ideal runner’s body habitus for a certain event? Although there are many crucial factors such as training, recovery, genetics and diet in improving a runner’s time, understanding if there is a relationship between body habitus and distance can help act as a guide for a runner to try to achieve a faster time by building an ideal body. Body habitus describes the physical characteristics of an individual, and there are many different quantitative measurements including body mass index (BMI) and body surface area (BSA). BMI is by far the most common parameter as an indicator of body mass, and is derived from height and weight. Oxygen consumption (VO2) is an important metabolic parameter to be considered, because oxygen is critical for the combustion of carbohydrates, amino acids, and fats [2]. In study, we hypothesized the followings. 1) If short-distance runners expend more energy than long distance runners per time, they will have a higher VO2 because oxygen is a necessary component in cellular respiration. 2) If muscle is one of the major tissues in the body consuming oxygen and short distance runners have more muscle mass than long distance runners, they will have a higher BMI and BSA. There will also be a strong positive correlation between BMI and VO2, because BMI is an indicator of body mass. With the assumption that Olympic medalists are considered elite athletes who have perfected their body habitus, we examined the relationship between body habitus and distance events in recent Olympic medalists.

Method
Data Collection
The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board. The results of running events in the past six summer Olympic games (2000 ~ 2021) were sought at the World Athletics [3], and the top three finishers of each event (100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m, 5,000m, 10,000m, and 42,195m) for both males and females were identified for the data collection. The identities of runners were removed once the data were collected, and their gender, age, height, and weight at the time of event were extracted from Eurosport [3]. The collected raw data were presented in Supplementary Table 1. These data were used to calculate BMI, BSA, and VO2. The following formula was used to calculate BMI, BSA and VO₂, respectively.

BMI = Weight (Kg)/Height² [4]

BSA= 0.007184 x Weight (Kg)^0.425 x Height (cm)^0.725 [5]

VO₂ = 157.3 x BSA + 10 x a (a=1 for male, a=0 for female) - 10.5 x ln (Age (year)) + 4.8 [6].

Statistical Analysis
Statistical analysis was performed using the software Prism version 9 (Prism Software, Irvine, CA). Normality of the data was examined using the Shapiro-Wilk test and the data were present as mean +/- standard deviation when normally distributed, and as median with 25% and 75% tiles when not normally distributed. One-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc analysis was used for statistical analysis. P< 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Furthermore, linear regression analysis was performed between BMI and VO₂. The coefficient of determination (R²) was calculated.

Results
The Relationship Between Age, Height, Weight and Running Distance Events in Olympic Athletes
In this study, we included a total of 289 medalists (male 146, female 143) from the Sydney Olympics (2000) to the Tokyo Olympics (2021). The cohort’s overall characteristics were shown in Table 1. Median ages for both male and female athletes were very similar, while males were taller and heavier on average. Age, height, and weight distribution per distance event for males and females were shown in Figure 1a-c. The average age was also quite similar in both male and females across all the distance events except marathon events. Marathon medalists’ ages were higher compared to those in other events (Fig. 1a), and longer-distance runners tended to be shorter and lighter in both males and females (Fig. 1b-c).

The Relationship Between BMI and Distance Events in Olympic Medalists
The relationship between male BMI and distance events per Olympic was shown in Figure 2a. In the majority of Olympics, there was a clear trend that BMI values were higher in short distance runners in males, which was also similar in female athletes (Fig. 2b). We combined the data from all the Olympics we examined, and presented BMI values per distance events (Fig. 2c). We observed a clear pattern that BMI values were significantly lower in shorter distance events in both males and females. Overall, BMI values decreased as the distance became longer. The average female BMI was lower than average for males in most of the distance events examined (Figure 2c), which might be indicative of a difference in muscle mass between males and females. The difference between male and female BMI was more evident in short distance events.

The Relationship Between BSA and Distance Events in Olympic Medalists
BSA, another body habitus parameter examined in this research, is used particularly in the health care setting. We showed the relationship between BSA and distance events per Olympic (Fig. 3a). In male athletes, greater values of BSA were seen in short-distance runners compared to long distance runners at most of the Olympics, which was similar to the BMI result. Female runners’ BSA also followed this trend in most of the Olympics (Fig. 3b). When all the Olympic event data were combined, greater BSA was clearly seen in male and female short-distance athletes compared to long-distance counterparts (Fig. 3c). BSA was higher in male athletes than in females in the same distance event. The difference of BSA between short and longdistance runners was very narrow in females (Figure 3c). Different from the trend of BMI, the average BSA had peaked at 400m and 800m events in females (Fig.3c).

The Relationship Between Oxygen Consumption and Various Distance Events in Olympic Medalists
We hypothesized that short distance event runners would have a higher oxygen consumption than long distance runners because they were heavier. To examine this hypothesis, we examined the relationship between oxygen consumption and various distance events in elite runners in each Olympic. In both male and female athletes, there was a clear trend to show higher oxygen consumption in short-distance runners compared to long distance runners in most of the Olympic events we examined (Figure 4a-b). When we analyzed all the Olympic events together, the trend became clearer in male athletes (Figure 4c). In females, there was no significant difference in average oxygen consumption among different distance events, although the trend showed statistical similarity.

The Relationship Between BMI and Oxygen Consumption in Elite Olympic Runners
From the analysis above, both BMI and BSA demonstrated as an useful parameter to predict optimal body habitus in both males and females. From calculation standpoint, BMI is easier to calculate. We examined the relationship between BMI and oxygen consumption. A good correlation between BMI and oxygen consumption was observed in male elite athletes per Olympic (Figure 5a), while the correlation was rather limited in female athletes (Figure 5b). Combined data showed similar trend (Fig. 5c). Female athletes’ oxygen consumption was clustered in a narrower range compared to male athletes, and the difference in oxygen consumption between female short and long-distance medalists was very small.

Discussion
Here we showed that 1) short-distance runners had higher BMI compared to long-distance runners in both males and females, 2) BSA also showed a similar trend, 3) male short-distance runners had higher oxygen consumption than long-distance runners, but there was not a large difference in oxygen consumption between female short and long distance runners, and 4) the correlation between BMI and oxygen consumption was strong in males, but not in females.

Our result of BMI trend versus distance events in male and female athletes was consistent with the previous report by Sedeaud et al. [7]. In both males and females, BMI values went down as distance events became longer. An important thing to note is that female BMI values were more concentrated and less diverse. We also examined BSA as a second parameter for body habitus. The BSA result was similar to the BMI result, but the downward trend vs distance event was not that clear in female athletes. In fact, BSA peaked around 400m and 800m in female athletes. Thus, BMI may be a better parameter to follow for training.

We also examined the relationship between oxygen consumption and distance events, because the use of oxygen is critical for the utilization of body nutrients to form ATP. Oxygen consumption was overall significantly higher in male athletes compared to females. This can be explained by the fact that males tend to develop more muscle than females, which may be in part explained by the hormone, testosterone. Males naturally have a greater amount of testosterone than females, leading to greater muscle mass. More muscle mass could require more oxygen. This is consistent with the fact that male short-distance runners had higher oxygen consumption than long-distance runners. This may suggest that building appropriate muscle mass for short-distance events is important in male athletes [8]. Interestingly, female elite athletes did not necessarily show any large difference in oxygen consumption across the different distance events. Therefore, it is unclear how to explain the relationship between higher BMI and short-distance events in females from a metabolism standpoint. This could potentially be because BMI does not differentiate weight based on fat, muscle, or water. Although the range of oxygen consumption was relatively narrow in females across various distance events, it is still possible that a small difference in oxygen consumption may play a significant role.

We have to acknowledge the limitations of our study. First of all, this is a retrospective analysis. Prospectively examining athletes over time to examine the relationship between BMI and speed progression in running events should be done in the future to make a clear statement about body habitus and distance events. Second, we calculated oxygen consumption based on a reported formula, which may actually not reflect the true values in athletes. For example, if a non-runner and a runner have comparable age, gender, height, and weight, they will have the oxygen consumption, which may not be necessarily true. Instead, measuring oxygen consumption directly would be ideal. This will address some interesting findings above in female athletes.

In conclusion, we showed some relationship between body habitus and distance events. Our results also suggest an interesting difference between elite male and female athletes, which needs to be examined in the future. This may also indicate that there are different body metabolisms and training methods for males and females. Overall, our study can be used as a loose guide to help runners understand which range they need to be in for BMI, BSI, and VO2 to reach an optimal time through adequate training.

Financial Support: None

Conflict of Interest: None

Acknowledgement
Thank you for all the reviewers at Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair for their comments, which were very educational and insightful to develop this manuscript.

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