<story><title>How fast can a human possibly run 100 meters?</title><url>https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/fast-human-run-100-meters/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Noumenon72</author><text>&amp;gt; Elite sprinters can apply peak forces of 800-1000 pounds (3560-4450 Newtons) to each limb. Beyond ~1300 pounds, ideal human leg bones would surely break[1].&lt;p&gt;I followed the link and it just said&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; If you&amp;#x27;re looking for the specifics to snap a piece of your skeleton, it takes about 4,000 newtons of force to break the typical human femur.&lt;p&gt;So the sprinters are already producing that much force (900 pounds) and the 1300 notion seems unsupported. Not to mention that applying the force with different amounts of torque might not break the bone, since bones are 10x stronger in compression so can withstand a lot more force longitudinally.&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.discovery.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;force-to-break-bone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.discovery.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;force-to-break-bone&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>monsieurbanana</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t access the discovery link from europe.&lt;p&gt;From your quotes, there seems to be an important difference: in the first quote they talk about &amp;quot;ideal human leg bones&amp;quot; and in the second one about a &amp;quot;typical human femur&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m certain that an elite sprinter blessed in genetics has leg bones significantly stronger than the average human. Bones also get stronger from repetitive exercise.</text></comment>
<story><title>How fast can a human possibly run 100 meters?</title><url>https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/fast-human-run-100-meters/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Noumenon72</author><text>&amp;gt; Elite sprinters can apply peak forces of 800-1000 pounds (3560-4450 Newtons) to each limb. Beyond ~1300 pounds, ideal human leg bones would surely break[1].&lt;p&gt;I followed the link and it just said&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; If you&amp;#x27;re looking for the specifics to snap a piece of your skeleton, it takes about 4,000 newtons of force to break the typical human femur.&lt;p&gt;So the sprinters are already producing that much force (900 pounds) and the 1300 notion seems unsupported. Not to mention that applying the force with different amounts of torque might not break the bone, since bones are 10x stronger in compression so can withstand a lot more force longitudinally.&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.discovery.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;force-to-break-bone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.discovery.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;force-to-break-bone&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xattt</author><text>Tendons may be the limiting factor here. They are soft tissue that has an elastic limit that is likely to be lower than solid non-deformable bone. Exceed that and tendons will either tear or pathologically lengthen.</text></comment>