Relative Velocities
by Ferez S. Nallaseth, Ph.D

January 5, 2014 - Charles Heckscher and I had a conversation a long time ago on the relative velocities and times at which Sprinters (WR = 9.4 sec/100 m), Football Players (~ 5.5 sec/50m or ~11 sec/100m) and  Squash Players (?) covered the track or the field or the court. The bottom line is that in the other 2 cases the equivalent of the corner to corner distance of the Squash Court of 11.7 m is covered in 1 - 1.5 seconds, while that of Squash Players is much harder to measure without time lapse photography and computation. I am not aware of any studies that are published, the ones posted do not have a clear result. But indirect calculations suggest that the velocities of Squash Players are in the ball park with this time scale.

The clearest indicator comes from the ability of top Squash Players to 'cut off' driven balls (max velocity by the pro Cameron Pilley of 175 mph or 78.4 metres/sec which would cover 11.7 metres in 0.14 sec ) or much less than 0.3 seconds of the ball going to and from the front wall (since players are standing deep/mid court/rally & so << 11.7 m). The complicating factor of shorter distances of movement (deep/mid court/rally) on the court to 'get' the ball where the Players start/run in an arc/stop/take a position and posture required for making strokes makes measurements of their running velocity difficult! But if anything it actually adds to the velocities of Squash Players in the intervening distance between those 2 series of movements at the start/stop of a run to make the 'get'. Sprinters have ~3 similar phases from starting blocks to finishing tapes but it makes up a far lower fraction of the total time/sprint and is also more cleanly and reliably measured.

So who cares about these numbers in a game? To those who have the resources and the time, resolving this is something that would contribute to the value of the sport in understanding the evolutionary acquisition of motor skills, sensory and spatial perceptions and cognitive processes. While conversely explaining processes resulting in their loss in stroke, ischemia and neurodegenerative disease states. In other words, as emerges again and agin from History 'Mind over Biology/Adversity' would be invaluable for the Biomedical Sciences.