When and why did super heavyweights improve?

Piggenetics...they get ta eat more...they get bigger...why didnt ya say that...doh! (Am kidding with you)

 

No such thing as SHW’s unless you’re an amateur you butthole.

 

I appreciate the feedback, but you did take it down an interesting route, there is nothing wrong with that, this old Amthropology major is interested in the subject, & will continue to reply.

Epigenetic changes are real, but I have not heard them posited as changing genes related to size & athleticism-they may insulate against certain illnesses such as heart disease, cause descendents to store more fat when a recent ancestor was starving, etc.

The phenomena you are speaking of is not epigenetics.
If you get enough nutrition & have good health then you can reach your genetic potential for size.
In scarce environments the difference between male & female sizes is less, since guys tend to need more calories, thus use more just to get by, & realize less of their growth potential.
These immigrant's kids are not taller than those families long here & prosperous-adequate nutrition & health-but since they are in a similar environment they become close to the same size.

So I stand by that the genetics have not changed-but yes, having both better health, nutrition, & many more humans around & exposed to sports PLUS training for size & strength, also effectively with modern science, *and* some using PEDs...

Means athletes have gotten significantly larger & stronger overall.

 

I described epigenetics. Epigenetics isn't a change in DNA code.

 

They didn't, the skill of everyone big or small has dropped, so bigger is usually better.

 

Good call with your correction. What I meant & should have said is a change in gene expression that alters the way they operate.
Often caused by the experiences & challenges of their ancestors.

The changes in size & strength we see around the world & in athletics do not have to do with epigentics.
Immigrant kids towering over their parents is entirely due to better health & nutrition.
While things such as much more common SHW sized boxers are easily accounted for by several factors.

People are a little larger overall than say mid 20th century
The population is much larger.
More people from around the world have access to the sport.
More people have better & more nutrition & health.
The science of weight training has improved-more than that, more people follow it.
Training methods for size & strength tend to most benefit those who are larger-at least with a rule set enabling things such as frequent clinching & leaning, larger gloves & shorter fights.
When more guys are quite tall, long & muscular are in the sport & successful...It makes it more difficult to be smaller.
PEDs were developed mid century & became more common in most sports in the 80's.

Day before weigh ins increased the size of the lower divisions.
These are many reasons that well account for changes in size over time.

 

No, good nutrition cause genes for growth to be unregulated. That describes epigenetic changes.

 

I think it became a bit of a self fulfilled prophecy tbh.

When the best guys in the world were giants like Bowe and Lewis, and Holyfield came up short against them, then the beat guys in the world where the K Brothers who were again giants, there became this perception that you had to be as big as them to compete.

And in many ways its true, why put yourself at a disadvantage in size?

Plenty of HW guys today could be smaller, but if they feel they can keep their skills whilst weighing more, they obviously will do so.

 

Sorry that is completely wrong.
People have specific potential for height & length of bones.
If plenty of healthy food did this, we would see tons of Giants.
When the average height of people in developed nations has been stable or just slightly increased over many decades.

There is no evidence of your claim, & I cannot even recall this being suggested.
Occam's Razor shows you that just having adequate food allows people to reach their genetic potential.

Now some of the variations between groups still exists when everyone eats well. It must have to do with random factors, & if ancestors continually were deprived of food, the general population could be selected to be smaller since requiring fewer calories helps one survive in times of scarcity.
But in most cases those who would have been bigger fulfilled less of their genetic potential.

But those variation flatten out to some degree when everyone gets enough health & good eats!
There are a very few dramatic exceptions like Pygmies, adapted for a low forest environment & genetically isolated.

But you stuff them full of whatever food you like & move them anywhere with whatever health care, they will still be very short.
Note from Kikipedia that all the causes & explanations of their size have to do with genetics, not epigenetics nor the environment-except as to how the latter shaped genetics!


Further information: [url]Short stature[/url] and [url]Human height[/url]
Various theories have been proposed to explain the short stature of pygmies. Some studies suggest that it could be related to adaptation to low [url]ultraviolet light[/url] levels in [url]rainforests[/url].[url][9][/url][url][10][/url] This might mean that relatively little [url]vitamin D[/url] can be made in human skin, thereby limiting [url]calcium[/url] uptake from the diet for bone growth and maintenance, and leading to the evolution of the small skeletal size.[url][11][/url]

Other explanations include lack of food in the rainforest environment, low calcium levels in the soil, the need to move through dense jungle, adaptation to heat and humidity, and as an association with rapid reproductive maturation under conditions of early mortality.[url][12][/url] (See also [url]Aeta people § Demographics[/url].) Other evidence points towards unusually low levels of expression of the genes encoding the [url]growth hormone receptor[/url] and [url]growth hormone[/url] compared to the related tribal groups, associated with low serum levels of [url]insulin-like growth factor-1[/url] and short stature.[url][13][/url]

 

Just stop. This took me two seconds to find.

[url]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4208652/[/url]

 

I used to credit your restrained responses with maturity.
Then I see recent conflicts with many-& provocations like telling someone who did not seem to be mean to you that they would likely defecate themselves if facing Tyson.
So it seems that you are merely taciturn, not good natured or respectful.

Your response above is an example of you being gratuitously unkind to someone who was polite to you.
Can you see that you set yourself up for problems if you write "just stop" to someone who merely has a different opinion? smh.

Now as for the facts.
You found a single paper with one opinion. I would be biased if I automatically discounted it-but we should look at it critically. However even if it is correct, it seems that you took no more time & patience in reviewing the paper than you do in dealing with people. Likely you just scanned until you found several words that mentioned epigenetics in the context of height.

However it actually confirms that only a very small amount of height may be due to epigenetics.

"Intriguingly, although, up to 90% of the variation in adult height may be explained by genetic factors (Silventoinen et al. [url]2003[/url]; Weedon and Frayling [url]2008[/url]), stature‐associated polymorphisms have been found to only explain between 2% and 3.7% of height variation:..."

Time to care about how you treat people & if you get alongh.
Now only reply at ALL if you can do so without being censorious or contemptuous.
If you choose to, we will start with a clean slate.

 

There are several factors that led to the current state of super heavies:

-a more global sport: nations like Cuba and Russia did not compete professionally prior to the 80's. Defectors and/or nations opening up their borders led to guys like Luis Ortiz and the Klitschkos joining thr ranks.

-people in general are taller and bigger than in the olden days. I think the average man was only 5'6 or 5'7 during the Jefferies era and thus they thought he was huge at 6-6'1. Nowadays guys between 5'9-5'10 in America is closer to average. On top of that, kids are eating tons of starchy/processed foods and blowing up at rapid speed. When I was in high school the average guy in my class room weighed under 170. Nowadays you can find 7th graders who weigh 180+ with thick moustaches.

-weight training is encouraged whereas before, it was frowned upon. Trainers explicitly told Rocky Marciano and Ali to not lift weights for fear if being too stiff and having worse stamina. But post 80's people have come up with training methods that allow for increase in functional strength and mass without sacrificing speed and endurance.

-Rounds have been reduced from 15 to 12. Pretty self explanatory. Also, the pace has slowed down. Whoever the champion is of an era, you often see a bunch of trainers attempting to to something similar in the next generation. Hence why you saw a bunch of jab stick and move Ali wannabes in the 80's. After the Klitschkos had so much success, trainers are now encouraging guys to be as big as possible and utilize the jab and grab tactics fighting at a slower pace. Since so many guys in the top 10 weight 230+, there is little incentive for the average heavy to come in lighter than that and be at a disadvantage.

-PEDs have improved. I'm not saying everyone is doing it, but it would be naive to think the majority are 100% clean and get to that size with good honest hard work and elbow grease. People tend to want to find short cuts wether it's losing weight or gaining it.

-everyone loves seeing big guys slug it out. Combine all the factors above, and if you have a relatively athletic big man whose 6'3+ 230+ who doesn't feel like getting his hands dirty in manual labor, working a 9-5, or going to school for 6+ years and potentially running up debt, combat sports is an "easy" alternative. The pay is great and you don't even have to follow a strict diet like the other weigh classes. You get to be your own boss. And if you rack up 15-20 wins, promoters get a hard on wanting to turn you into the next big thing (pun intended).

 

You quoted the article either disingenuously or without understanding it. The part you quoted is challenged by the authors in the next sentence.

And again, this is the first result of a five second google search with the correct keywords, not an article that I selected after a bunch of research.

The point is that the base dna code of people today is the same as one hundred years ago, but gene expression is different, and therefore people are different even if Darwinian evolution has not taken place in that time period. Darwin did not know about epigenetic changes.

 

Look at the bodies of "super" heavyweights today. Every single one of these guys would be sub 230 if they were in tip top physical shape and that includes Tyson Fury. Joshua is the one guy who is trim and lean and over 230 and it's clear that he is enhanced by drugs and he has stamina issues. If these guys were training for 15 round wars against skilled contenders they wouldnt be "super" heavy weights anymore

 

I can remember an article sometime going back to the mid 80s, actually saying something along those lines. About tall heavyweights, apart from the height advantages, being no good in the division, as Carnera, Willard and Terrell showed!
Only thirty odd years ago but now sounds like something out of the dark ages.