What do athletes' bodies look like in different sports?

The concept of the ideal shape of the human body appeared in ancient Greece, but the parameters of the ideal are constantly changing. Let's look at interesting photographs that allow us to compare and feel the difference between the figures and bodies of athletes involved in different sports.

New York-based photographer Howard Schatz captures the diverse body types of Olympic athletes. When we talk about an athletic physique, we often imagine some ideal shape with beautiful muscle definition. But Schatz's series of photographs reveals the wide range of heights, widths and body shapes, as well as muscle mass, that make up the physiques of Olympic sports champions.

If you line up the photos in one row, the difference becomes even more obvious. Athletes with defined muscles, marathon runners with thin bones, tall bodies of long jumpers, massive figures of wrestlers.

Here, for example, are representatives of: bodybuilding, weightlifting and rhythmic gymnastics.

The Schatz series clearly displays the wide range of sizes and shapes characteristic of the discipline in which the athletes specialize. Athletes who run long distances tend to be lean. This physical feature is undesirable for a weightlifter or wrestler who relies more on muscle and weight. Also, long legs are preferable for a runner, and a long torso gives an advantage to a swimmer. In any case, each Olympian offers his own version of the athletic body.

Also, most of these people are at the peak of their professional development, representing the physical ideal required to participate and win in sports competitions.

The athletic bodies in the photographs are an excellent example of how genetics, combined with many years of training, creates the ideal human body structure necessary for a particular sport.

From left to right: two marathon runners, decathlon, marathon runner, running.

Disco thrower, hammer throw, javelin throw, shot put – women and men.

Boxing, basketball, golf, baseball, handball.

Beach volleyball, football, table tennis, basketball, boxing.

Football, swimming, cycling, basketball.

Rhythmic gymnastics, sports aerobics, gymnastics, gymnastics, high jump, gymnastics.

Skiing, figure skating, hockey, water polo, women's water polo.

Howard Schatz's series includes 125 portraits of athletes who became champions. The photographs were included in the book Athlete, which he published in collaboration with his wife Beverly Ornstein. She is a producer and editor-in-chief.