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Outfits aren’t the only things that have changed in sports since the 1920s. While tennis sensation Serena Williams (right) has traded in French Olympic medalist Julie Vlasto’s (left) calf-length dress in 1924 for a comfortable mini, her physique is also noticeably different. The sport’s approach has changed over time, explained physical therapist Amber Donaldson, manager of the Olympic Committee's Sports Medicine Clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo. “Tennis has changed from a serve-and-volley to a base-line sport,” said Donaldson, who previously served as the director of sport sciences and medicine programs for the professional Women's Tennis Association Tour and is in London working with Olympic athletes. “It takes more power to hit those kinds of shots.” As a result, athletes focus more on strength training and muscle building.
The shorter length of tennis outfits offers less restriction for better movement, according to physical therapist and strength and conditioning specialist Jennifer Fox-Morhart, who manages Athletico Physical Therapy outside Chicago. The material, she explained, also has changed to improve athletes’ game. “The clothes are no longer made out of cotton, but microfiber that helps wick away sweat and keeps athletes cooler.”
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Long Distance Running
As science has changed over the decades, so have methods athletes use to achieve their goal to win. “Athletes are competitive and they want to win,” said Fox-Morhart. “So if there’s a way to change their bodies to figure out their best chance to win, they’re going to do that.” Runners no longer only run when they train, but borrow from other workouts, as well. “What athletes have started to do in the sports field overall is take from each other,” said Carlos Sequeira, an ACE Certified Personal Trainer based in New York. “They’ll work in their particular field, but also trade off with other sports.” Sequeira said that in addition to running, many runners do weight training, cycling, kickboxing and even yoga.
“It makes a more well-rounded athlete,” he said. For example, weight training makes the athlete stronger, swimming provides an excellent cardiovascular workout and yoga helps athletes become more flexible.
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In the 1960s when Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska (left) was at her peak, athletes like her in their 20s and even 30s dominated the sport. Then in 1976, Romanian Nadia Comaneci made history when she became the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 in Olympic competition at 14. Since then, gymnasts have gotten noticeably younger, like 16-year-old Gabrielle Douglas (right). This is because female gymnasts are thought to perform best before they reach puberty. “Body mass size changes and body fat is carried differently after puberty,” Fox-Morhart said. “The last growth spurt also usually occurs during puberty so young girls are likely to be smaller and have more body control before that.”
Concerned about health effects on young competitors, the International Federation of Gymnastics changed the age limit for participation in the Olympics from 14 to 15 in 1981 and from 15 to 16 in 1997. But since the demands of the sport are so great, young gymnasts will usually hit puberty a little later than an average girl. “Female gymnasts tend to begin their menstrual cycle a little later because the amount of physical stress they put on their hormonal system delays it,” Fox-Morhart said.
One of the most noticeable differences in gymnasts from 50 years ago and today is muscle definition. Though Caslavska, who won seven Olympic gold medals in the 1960s, is clearly in shape from this photo, she lacks the muscle tone of current U.S. Olympian Douglas.
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The shorts are longer, for one thing, and professional basketball players are allowed to represent the U.S., a rule implemented in 1992. But like other sports, basketball players also have adjusted their workout routines over time. While the 1960s team certainly looks fit and toned on the court, they lack the sheer muscle mass that makes up today’s team.
“Basketball players now incorporate much more strength training, like plyometric and ballistic workouts, into their routines,” Sequeira said of the exercises designed to improve quickness, speed and power in a sport where getting to the ball before anyone else is paramount. Players also tend to be taller than they used to be, and that’s because coaches and trainers now look to height as a desirable characteristic in the players they choose. “If you have one player who’s short and really good at basketball and another who’s tall and maybe not as good but can be trained to be better, a coach is most likely going to invest in the taller player,” Sequeira explained.
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Swimming has been an Olympic sport for well over 100 years, and race times have gotten significantly faster. As the competition toughens every four years, athletes must adapt their fitness training to make them as quick and strong as possible. That means building more muscle, which is evident when comparing this picture of the 1912 swim team (left) to current Olympian Michael Phelps (right). “For a long time, swimmers were mainly focused on incredible amounts of yardage, thinking the more endurance we had the better,” said former Olympic swimmer and gold medalist Summer Sanders. “Now, you hear about athletes like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte doing strongman workouts – pushing over tires, carrying atlas stones, etc. to build stronger muscles. Dry land workouts have become a much bigger staple in swimming training than they used to be.”
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Heidi Krieger (left) was part of a dark period in Olympic history when her East German coaches fed her steroids without her knowledge, a common practice in the country in the 1980s. Krieger, who changed her gender in 1997 and now goes by the name Andreas, won medal after medal in shot-put competitions throughout the decade. While Krieger’s coaches were later convicted, extreme strength is still the goal of most of those competing.
Though suspicion arose that track-and-field star Jackie Joyner-Kersee (right) used steroids, she vehemently denied the allegation and never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. With the ever-present pressure to be bigger, stronger and faster, the use of steroids in sports remains a huge issue, today and the Olympics Committee now conducts stringent drug tests to catch any athletes on steroids.
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“Athletes today are obsessed with being faster and stronger,” Donaldson said. “That’s why world records are constantly being broken.” Incidentally, Ashton Eaton (right) broke the world record in the decathlon – a 10 event track-and-field contest – at the U.S. Olympic trials last month, beating a record that had been in place for 11 years.
One of the changes most noticeable in athletes today like Eaton is muscle definition. Though athletes have increased their focus on strength training over the years, the widespread use of nutritional supplements today may also come in to play here, explained Fox-Morhart. “Supplements help with recovery, so after an athlete has had a long day of training, he or she can go back at it just as hard the next day,” she said. “They also help build muscle tissue after workouts, which help build strength and enhance performance.”
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Women did not even compete in Olympic weightlifting until the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia. That’s when Cheryl Haworth (right) won the bronze medal for the United States. Holley Mangold, younger sister of New York Jets player Nick Mangold, will try to bring the first women’s weightlifting medal home to the United States since then. Not much has changed in the sport in the last decade – athletes still need extreme strength to life hundreds of pounds over their shoulders. Though weightlifting, Fox-Morhart pointed out, is also very much a mental sport. “Individual sports can be much tougher than team sports because you can’t rely on anyone else for your performance,” she said. “There’s much more of a mental component to it.”
In the documentary Strong! which was released in theaters this month and tells the story of Haworth’s weightlifting career, she describes this pressure: “It’s a battle,” she says in the film’s trailer. “It’s a battle with yourself when you’re in a sport so individual. You know, you walk up on the platform and you’re totally alone.”
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Next to Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt (right), 1920s British runner Harold Abrahams (left) looks downright scrawny. Runners nowadays put more emphasis on improving their whole body to increase their chance of victory. “Runners used to just run and that was it,” Sequeira said.
“The thought process was if you want to get better at running, well then, you have to run more.” Runners now use weight and strength training in their workouts, Sequeira said, contoured to what they need for their specific races.
For example, Sequeira said sprinters who have to run short distances will use quick heavy movements in their workouts, focusing on more weight and less sets and reps, whereas marathoners focus more on endurance and will use less weight with higher reps and sets.
- Last Updated: 07/26/12.