People always come up with some pretty strange ideas about black people, and over time many of them have gained traction. For example, there seems to be a common belief that all black people have an extra muscle in their legs. This theory is usually offered as an explanation for why black people are so good at running fast and jumping high, which is something anyone who’s ever seen a basketball game knows to be true. Even though the source of this theory is probably just someone trying to pass off baseless stereotypes as science, it’s been repeated often enough that it’s probably worth covering. Let’s find out if there really is an extra muscle in black people’s legs.
Do Black People Have an Extra Muscle in Their Legs
There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that black people have an extra muscle in their legs. However, some people believe that this may be due to the fact that black people tend to have longer, more muscular legs than other groups. This difference in leg structure could potentially give black people an advantage when it comes to running and other athletic activities.
What Is This Extra Muscle?
1. Where It Lies
The extra muscle in black people’s legs is located in the inner thigh. The muscle, which is called the sartorius, runs from the hip to the knee. Most of the time it’s just a small band of tissue, but it can become very large when required. One example of a time when this muscle has been used effectively by black people is in sprinting. When you see a black person run for a football or track and field event, their legs are often moving so fast that it looks like they’re running on quicksand until they get to the end of their race. This extra muscle enables them to run faster and jump higher than other races because it means they’re able to generate more force with each stride.
2. How It Works
The sartorius muscle works by twisting and pulling on your leg as you move your thigh forward or backward through your body’s motion. This action creates an impulse that travels up through your body until you get tired and stop running or jumping into something or someone else. The sartorius also helps stabilize your hip joint while you move and helps control how far your leg extends during stride-like movements like walking or running. When this same type of movement happens inside your body, like when you bend over to pick something up off the ground, then straighten back up again, then bend down again for another pick-up, etc. the sartorius muscle is doing the same thing over and over. This constant motion can wear out your muscles and cause you to tire out more quickly than you would otherwise.
3. How It Affects Black People
The extra muscle in black people’s legs has been blamed for many of their best athletic achievements, but it’s probably not responsible for all of them. For example, one study showed that black people had a lower proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers than white people, but they had a higher proportion of slow-twitch fibers than white people. The sartorius muscle is mostly fast-twitch, so it’s possible that this extra muscle isn’t responsible for any of the differences in running speed or jumping ability between white and black people. Even if it were completely responsible, though, it wouldn’t be the only difference between black and white people when it comes to sprinting or jumping ability. A number of other factors are likely at play here as well including genetics, training methods, diet and nutrition, and even something called “neural efficiency” which means how well your brain processes information from your body about how far you are moving during a given activity.
Why Do People Think Black People Have It?
They’re all athletes
Most people who believe in the extra muscle theory think it has something to do with black people being good at sports. After all, why would you have a muscle in your legs that makes you able to run fast and jump high if you weren’t? The problem with this is that there are plenty of black athletes who aren’t fast or jump high, so there must be something else going on.
They have a lot of muscles
You might think that an extra muscle would be easy to spot, but in fact, it turns out that most people only have one extra muscle and they don’t even notice it until they look up some information about black people. The reason for this is because the extra muscle is so small that most people don’t see it until someone points it out to them (which is usually after someone says “I’ve heard blacks have an extra muscle in their leg! What does yours look like?”). That means most white people probably don’t even know they have an extra muscle in their leg, and probably wouldn’t notice if they did!
Black People Are Pretty Muscular
The first point above doesn’t really disprove the existence of the extra muscle; after all, black people are pretty muscular as a group. With that said, though, I’m not sure how much more muscular one can get than “pretty muscular.” I mean, if you have a muscle in your leg that helps you run fast and jump high, I think that’s pretty muscular.
Black People Have Long Legs
A lot of people who believe in the extra muscle theory don’t just say it’s because black people are good at sports, or that they have a lot of muscles; instead, they say it has something to do with their long legs. After all, why would you have an extra muscle in your leg if you’re not good at sports or have a lot of muscles? The problem with this is that the extra muscle is actually pretty small and can be easily overlooked.
Other Countries Have Extra Muscles Too
The fact that most other countries don’t seem to have extra muscles doesn’t disprove the existence of the extra muscle either; after all, there are plenty of things other countries are good at and don’t even have (like math). If one of those things is running fast and jumping high, then maybe there really is an extra muscle somewhere on black people’s bodies.
They Don’t Know Why Black People Are Good At Sports
The main reason I think so many people believe in this theory is that they don’t know why black people are so good at sports (they just assume it has something to do with having an extra muscle). In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever showing that blacks are any better than whites at sports (and there is plenty of evidence showing that they aren’t).
The Real Reason For Black Athleticism
- The first thing to understand is that black people are actually pretty good at running. This is probably because of the fact that they’re genetically predisposed to be good at it. There’s an idea floating around that black people are so good at running because they have an extra muscle in their legs, which is where their “extra speed” comes from. But this isn’t true! It’s very easy to prove this by just watching a video of a black person running, and you can see for yourself that there really isn’t anything extra about them.
- The next thing to understand is that when you run, your leg muscles aren’t all doing the same thing at the same time. Your quadriceps do some of the work and your hamstrings do some of the work, but your calf muscles don’t do any work at all when you run. So even if there was any kind of extra muscle in your legs, it would only be doing one thing – cranking out maximal force as quickly as possible – which wouldn’t help when you were running fast or jumping high.
- We also know that two muscles working together produce more force than just one muscle working alone, so if there were a muscle in your legs doing all the work while other muscles did none then it would be much less powerful than those other muscles still doing some work on their own! This could be a problem if you were trying to sprint or jump in a certain way because you wouldn’t have the extra power to do it.
- Finally, the idea that black people have an extra muscle in their legs is based on the fact that they’re so good at running fast and jumping high, which are both things that demand an increase in maximal force output over time. If they didn’t have any extra muscle then they wouldn’t be able to run as fast or jump as high. But this is clearly not what’s happening! The reason why blacks are so good at these things is that they train hard and eat right and perform lots of explosive drills with their coaches, but there really isn’t any “extra muscle” that makes them better than anyone else.
Conclusion
There’s no truth to the idea that black people have an extra muscle in their legs. This myth is just a result of a blend of racism, ignorance, and wishful thinking. There’s no special advantage that black people have that white people don’t. Every athlete has their own set of advantages and disadvantages, and there are no shortcuts to becoming great at sports. If you want to be good at sports, you have to put in the time and effort to get stronger and more skilled. There’s no magic bullet, and there’s no way around hard work. You can’t just wish yourself into being better, and the myths people spread to try to explain athletic superiority are just silly.