Analysis of Age vs. Performance in Sasuke
Mar 8, 2017 2:03:58 GMT -5
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Post by m4tt3r0x on Mar 8, 2017 2:03:58 GMT -5
I'm interested in how performance on Sasuke correlates with age. This is a topic traditionally studied in other sports (yes, I understand a vast proportion of people in general wouldn't consider Sasuke a sport), but I've never seen an attempt at a conclusive answer to Sasuke in particular. For the sake of initial simplicity, I want to leave American Ninja Warrior, its derivatives, and non-Japanese competitors out, to start at least. There are already enough variables to begin with. Before I get into my take on this subject, please know I want to see critiques of this assessment and would like to see inferences of your own.
First a look at the age peak ranges of some familiar sports and positions.
- Baseball: 27-29
- Tennis: Early 20s - 25
- Basketball: Around 27, with different positions showing different patterns of decline
- Track & Field: Lower mid twenties for sprinting, but endurance events found to be a bit higher
- Golf: 25 - 35, slower relative decline
- Football: 27 for runner backs and receivers (RB's have sharper fall offs), and a broad 25 - 35 peak for quarter backs.
www.axonpotential.com/athletes-and-age-of-peak-performance/
Although not terribly useful statistics, they do help indicate a relationship between muscle groups and age stability. Tennis and track & field have the lowest age peaks. They also both mainly focus on lower body power and endurance, with some exceptions/quirks. Tennis employs both the upper and lower body, but most notably utilizes a kinetic chain that starts with the feet on the ground, travels up the legs (calves and quadriceps), hips (also offer most stability), trunk, shoulders, upper arm muscles, forearms, and finally the wrist. Most field events similarly require a lower body base to generate power toward the upper body (e.g. shot put). Sprinting in track obviously requires strong glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, and overall elasticity as well.
A good look at other track and field age peaks:
travelingtrackster.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/track-field-peak-athletic-age/
From what I can gather, most lower body base sports see peaks in the early twenties and very rarely exceed age 26. Exceptions I would like to point out include, well, soccer. The average peak of a player in the world cup is actually 27.5, and I've concluded that is due in part mostly to phsyiological, but mostly technical, tactical, and psychological development differences between soccer and other sports. article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.sports.20160603.09.html has some good discussion on this point.
Baseball, basketball, and football players all fall in the around 27 category as well. Pectoral muscles, deltoids, biceps, triceps, forearms... etc. are all upper body muscles essential for catching and throwing, which QB's in football see the most of -- a lot less lower body focus which relatively haults peak performance of running backs and basketball players.
So as most would already expect, upper body lasts longer than lower, in simple terms.
How does all of this relate to Sasuke? Well for starters, we have to remember we aren't dealing with a huge sample size of professionally trained athletes in Sasuke, unlike these other sports. We have a group of I'd estimate 30-40 Japanese competitors who have or had trained extensively for Sasuke at some point or another. Another thing which I'm sure will be a main point of contention is the fact that Sasuke is a test of almost every muscle group, agility, strength, stamina, power, and grip strength. A lot of obstacles are isolated movements, and some are more complex. But the point of relation is that these aforementioned examples give a rough starting point of what we should had and will seen/see in each particular stage (and each stage's particular athletic focus) in Sasuke. Hopefully everything can then be amalgamated nicely.
Kanzenseihas:
Kazuhiko Akiyama - Age 26
Makoto Nagano - Age 33
Yuuji Urishihara - Ages 31 and 32
Yusuke Morimoto - Age 23
Some of these may be a year off, give or take. Did rough calculations in my head. Feel free to correct.
I think anyone with half a brain would argue skill has way more to do than age for why any of these men won, but clearly they were only able to do so within a certain age range. And right now that inclusive range is 23 - 33. But, I would like to stamp out Akiyama's win for this analysis. He was much more talented than any of the other men facing Sasuke at this time, most people weren't training specifically for it, and there weren't that many people/insanely hard obstacles to begin with.
Nagano and Yuuji's win timing are interesting IMO. Nagano started competing at 28, and didn't win until 5-6 years later. However, he clearly started training for the show at about 29, as is evident by a comparison of his early versus mid to late performances before total victory. Yuuji started competing professionally at 29 as well, and did not win until two and three years later. I think one could argue both Nagano and Yuuji needed at least a couple years' worth of competing to get adjusted to the rhythms of Sasuke before winning, and that their talent predestined them to both do so. But, the early 30s is an interesting time frame that I would like to analyze. I mentioned I estimate about 30 - 40 Japanese athletes have all trained specifically for Sasuke to a holistic extent (I'd actually say a good chunk of those come from the modern era), and I would like to use some of them to make my next point:
- Shunsuke Nagasaki - Began competing at 17, and last competed at 29. Course was undeniably easier when he began competing, and he had decent results due to raw talent (saw a lot of basic cliffhanger fails), but never competed on the level of the likes of the 10+ year old Nagano. At 29 he recently had one of the best results in the competition for Japanese competitors on a very hard course, and had a similar admirable run in Sasuke 30 at age 27.
- Sato Jun - Never advanced past Stage 2 in his early 20s, and often fell victim to Stage 1. At 26 he finally made it to Stage 3.
If you asked me which competitors I think have the best chance at grabbing total victory in an upcoming tournament, these two would be high on the list. They haven't reached the ages that Yuuji and Nagano did it yet, but they're about at the level Yuuji and Nagano were at when they first started seriously competing at about Jun and Nagasaki's current ages. Seriously, I think Jun in particular is a force to be reckoned with - he's a parkour expert, and don't forget he beat the salmon ladder and flying bar both in 32, meaning he has the upper body skills needed to win, or at least the potential
- Hitoshi Kanno - I think is at the perfect age. 2 tournamnets ago beat the Crazy Cliffhanger, something he couldn't do for the three years prior. He was also tarnished with Shingo-esque fails in his mid to late twenties. Now? I think he's up there with Nagasaki and Jun (and Drechsel and Morimoto, to be mentioned later), to win it all.
I don't think many people would be on board with this looming point until realizing the stagnation of the following older competitors:
- Hioshi Masaki - Three stage 1 failures until, at 33, he returned to Sasuke and started making ground toward Stage 3. However, does anybody expect him to go all the way at 36? I think one can argue he has surpassed his peak (which I would say is overall 32 years old for Sasuke - and I will further supplement this statement)
- Tomohiro Kawaguchi - After four Stage 1 failures at an earlier age, he makes Stage 4 at age 32. Over the next 3 years he has seen solid, but not Kanzenseiha worthy, attempts at the course.
- Asa Kazuma - Currently age 35, and we saw his true potential at, yet again, age 32, when he made a name for himself in Stage 3. Since then he has stagnated.
When did Takeda and Shingo have their best results? I would argue based on a course difficulty-results ratio, early 30s. See Takeda's later 3rd Stage streak and 23 and 24 performances, and how he declined past age 34.
Other competitors have declined since age 35, like Yuuji, now 37 or 38. But remember, he did what a mid twenties Ryo couldn't do at age 33 - complete Stage 4. And I would now argue Ryo is better than Yuuji. Meaning? I believe Ryo and Yuuji are very similar in terms of talent, but their ages bring out when each one of them is able to perform at peak, and in turn, have one be better than the other.
The elephant in the room (among some, smaller, elephants -- Yusuke Morimoto. He blows this "age ~32 theory" out the window -- but not quite IMO. I think this kid is just godly talented. Hell, I said I wouldn't really bring up ANW, but Isaac won at 33, and is at about the same skill level as him. My theory to this red herring of sorts is that Yusuki is just getting started... Other people to note are Bunpei, Kong, and Okuyama, among others I'm forgetting, who excelled at older ages. While I agree they did well, it was either on easier courses, or to moderate results given the circumstances. For example, we never saw Kong beat the Crazy Cliffhanger in the rising era, and Bunpei only did well in his late thirties because the course was easier (IMO! I still love Bunpei).
Finally: Drew Drechsel. Age 28. He's been getting better as he goes along, much like Kanno, Jun, and Nagasaki. He's what this board presumes to be the next champion of both ANW and Sasuke, and he is nearing that early 30s window. I think he's just about at the range to win it all.
So that's my analysis. I conclude with saying roughly 32 years old is the age to beat Sasuke, and that once you pass that, you're likely not going to be seeing a win. Before that, you may need to be at Morimoto or Drew level of talent. In relation to the stats I posted earlier? It seems Sasuke is more forgiving to its competitors in terms of age. Stage 1, for example, mostly leg focused, still lets 30 year olds pass to this day, and we saw that peak leg performance was mostly maintained in the early 20s for sprinters and tennis players. If an older competitor is able to get past Stage 1, they are more likely to see a Stage 3 attempt. See Nagano in 27 and Kong in the Rising era. Obviously later stages relate with upper body, a longer lasting part of the human muscle system.
Agree, disagree, actually read this entire 2am work of... something? Let me know.
First a look at the age peak ranges of some familiar sports and positions.
- Baseball: 27-29
- Tennis: Early 20s - 25
- Basketball: Around 27, with different positions showing different patterns of decline
- Track & Field: Lower mid twenties for sprinting, but endurance events found to be a bit higher
- Golf: 25 - 35, slower relative decline
- Football: 27 for runner backs and receivers (RB's have sharper fall offs), and a broad 25 - 35 peak for quarter backs.
www.axonpotential.com/athletes-and-age-of-peak-performance/
Although not terribly useful statistics, they do help indicate a relationship between muscle groups and age stability. Tennis and track & field have the lowest age peaks. They also both mainly focus on lower body power and endurance, with some exceptions/quirks. Tennis employs both the upper and lower body, but most notably utilizes a kinetic chain that starts with the feet on the ground, travels up the legs (calves and quadriceps), hips (also offer most stability), trunk, shoulders, upper arm muscles, forearms, and finally the wrist. Most field events similarly require a lower body base to generate power toward the upper body (e.g. shot put). Sprinting in track obviously requires strong glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, and overall elasticity as well.
A good look at other track and field age peaks:
travelingtrackster.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/track-field-peak-athletic-age/
From what I can gather, most lower body base sports see peaks in the early twenties and very rarely exceed age 26. Exceptions I would like to point out include, well, soccer. The average peak of a player in the world cup is actually 27.5, and I've concluded that is due in part mostly to phsyiological, but mostly technical, tactical, and psychological development differences between soccer and other sports. article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.sports.20160603.09.html has some good discussion on this point.
Baseball, basketball, and football players all fall in the around 27 category as well. Pectoral muscles, deltoids, biceps, triceps, forearms... etc. are all upper body muscles essential for catching and throwing, which QB's in football see the most of -- a lot less lower body focus which relatively haults peak performance of running backs and basketball players.
So as most would already expect, upper body lasts longer than lower, in simple terms.
How does all of this relate to Sasuke? Well for starters, we have to remember we aren't dealing with a huge sample size of professionally trained athletes in Sasuke, unlike these other sports. We have a group of I'd estimate 30-40 Japanese competitors who have or had trained extensively for Sasuke at some point or another. Another thing which I'm sure will be a main point of contention is the fact that Sasuke is a test of almost every muscle group, agility, strength, stamina, power, and grip strength. A lot of obstacles are isolated movements, and some are more complex. But the point of relation is that these aforementioned examples give a rough starting point of what we should had and will seen/see in each particular stage (and each stage's particular athletic focus) in Sasuke. Hopefully everything can then be amalgamated nicely.
Kanzenseihas:
Kazuhiko Akiyama - Age 26
Makoto Nagano - Age 33
Yuuji Urishihara - Ages 31 and 32
Yusuke Morimoto - Age 23
Some of these may be a year off, give or take. Did rough calculations in my head. Feel free to correct.
I think anyone with half a brain would argue skill has way more to do than age for why any of these men won, but clearly they were only able to do so within a certain age range. And right now that inclusive range is 23 - 33. But, I would like to stamp out Akiyama's win for this analysis. He was much more talented than any of the other men facing Sasuke at this time, most people weren't training specifically for it, and there weren't that many people/insanely hard obstacles to begin with.
Nagano and Yuuji's win timing are interesting IMO. Nagano started competing at 28, and didn't win until 5-6 years later. However, he clearly started training for the show at about 29, as is evident by a comparison of his early versus mid to late performances before total victory. Yuuji started competing professionally at 29 as well, and did not win until two and three years later. I think one could argue both Nagano and Yuuji needed at least a couple years' worth of competing to get adjusted to the rhythms of Sasuke before winning, and that their talent predestined them to both do so. But, the early 30s is an interesting time frame that I would like to analyze. I mentioned I estimate about 30 - 40 Japanese athletes have all trained specifically for Sasuke to a holistic extent (I'd actually say a good chunk of those come from the modern era), and I would like to use some of them to make my next point:
- Shunsuke Nagasaki - Began competing at 17, and last competed at 29. Course was undeniably easier when he began competing, and he had decent results due to raw talent (saw a lot of basic cliffhanger fails), but never competed on the level of the likes of the 10+ year old Nagano. At 29 he recently had one of the best results in the competition for Japanese competitors on a very hard course, and had a similar admirable run in Sasuke 30 at age 27.
- Sato Jun - Never advanced past Stage 2 in his early 20s, and often fell victim to Stage 1. At 26 he finally made it to Stage 3.
If you asked me which competitors I think have the best chance at grabbing total victory in an upcoming tournament, these two would be high on the list. They haven't reached the ages that Yuuji and Nagano did it yet, but they're about at the level Yuuji and Nagano were at when they first started seriously competing at about Jun and Nagasaki's current ages. Seriously, I think Jun in particular is a force to be reckoned with - he's a parkour expert, and don't forget he beat the salmon ladder and flying bar both in 32, meaning he has the upper body skills needed to win, or at least the potential
- Hitoshi Kanno - I think is at the perfect age. 2 tournamnets ago beat the Crazy Cliffhanger, something he couldn't do for the three years prior. He was also tarnished with Shingo-esque fails in his mid to late twenties. Now? I think he's up there with Nagasaki and Jun (and Drechsel and Morimoto, to be mentioned later), to win it all.
I don't think many people would be on board with this looming point until realizing the stagnation of the following older competitors:
- Hioshi Masaki - Three stage 1 failures until, at 33, he returned to Sasuke and started making ground toward Stage 3. However, does anybody expect him to go all the way at 36? I think one can argue he has surpassed his peak (which I would say is overall 32 years old for Sasuke - and I will further supplement this statement)
- Tomohiro Kawaguchi - After four Stage 1 failures at an earlier age, he makes Stage 4 at age 32. Over the next 3 years he has seen solid, but not Kanzenseiha worthy, attempts at the course.
- Asa Kazuma - Currently age 35, and we saw his true potential at, yet again, age 32, when he made a name for himself in Stage 3. Since then he has stagnated.
When did Takeda and Shingo have their best results? I would argue based on a course difficulty-results ratio, early 30s. See Takeda's later 3rd Stage streak and 23 and 24 performances, and how he declined past age 34.
Other competitors have declined since age 35, like Yuuji, now 37 or 38. But remember, he did what a mid twenties Ryo couldn't do at age 33 - complete Stage 4. And I would now argue Ryo is better than Yuuji. Meaning? I believe Ryo and Yuuji are very similar in terms of talent, but their ages bring out when each one of them is able to perform at peak, and in turn, have one be better than the other.
The elephant in the room (among some, smaller, elephants -- Yusuke Morimoto. He blows this "age ~32 theory" out the window -- but not quite IMO. I think this kid is just godly talented. Hell, I said I wouldn't really bring up ANW, but Isaac won at 33, and is at about the same skill level as him. My theory to this red herring of sorts is that Yusuki is just getting started... Other people to note are Bunpei, Kong, and Okuyama, among others I'm forgetting, who excelled at older ages. While I agree they did well, it was either on easier courses, or to moderate results given the circumstances. For example, we never saw Kong beat the Crazy Cliffhanger in the rising era, and Bunpei only did well in his late thirties because the course was easier (IMO! I still love Bunpei).
Finally: Drew Drechsel. Age 28. He's been getting better as he goes along, much like Kanno, Jun, and Nagasaki. He's what this board presumes to be the next champion of both ANW and Sasuke, and he is nearing that early 30s window. I think he's just about at the range to win it all.
So that's my analysis. I conclude with saying roughly 32 years old is the age to beat Sasuke, and that once you pass that, you're likely not going to be seeing a win. Before that, you may need to be at Morimoto or Drew level of talent. In relation to the stats I posted earlier? It seems Sasuke is more forgiving to its competitors in terms of age. Stage 1, for example, mostly leg focused, still lets 30 year olds pass to this day, and we saw that peak leg performance was mostly maintained in the early 20s for sprinters and tennis players. If an older competitor is able to get past Stage 1, they are more likely to see a Stage 3 attempt. See Nagano in 27 and Kong in the Rising era. Obviously later stages relate with upper body, a longer lasting part of the human muscle system.
Agree, disagree, actually read this entire 2am work of... something? Let me know.
). Akiyama is difficult to figure out- I've never really seen him show signs of either ends of the spectrum.