FORT WORTH, TEXAS (Oct. 14, 2025) – New research from Texas Christian University links the biological differences in the make-up of male and female bodies to jumping performance. The new study shows that sex differences in the muscles matter a lot for jumping high, but relatively little for jumping far.
The findings, just published in the journal Royal Society Open Science offer insights on the biological determinants of jumping performance that were not previously understood.
“Our findings indicate that female bodies face much larger challenges when working against gravity than were previously appreciated” said lead author Emily Haag, assistant professor of Applied Health Sciences at TCU and co-director of TCU’s Locomotor Performance Laboratory. “We found that relatively small differences in the amount of muscle and force available have a large impact when jumpers try to maximize height, but do not matter as much when they want to maximize distance.”
The study was co-authored by Peter Weyand who is a professor and chair in Kinesiology, and director of TCU’s Locomotor Performance Laboratory.
The authors examined sex differences in performance using competition data available from World Athletics for three Olympic jumps, the long, triple and high jump. They also measured straight vertical, or countermovement, jump performances for maximal height in the laboratory. The investigators had male and female athletes jump from force platforms that measured the forces they put into the ground leading into their jumps.
The force platform data showed that females could apply almost as much force as the males – the sexes differed by only 5.1% in the ground forces applied in relation to their body weights. However, the 5% difference in force ultimately led to a whopping 42% difference in the maximal heights the athletes were able to attain when jumping straight vertically.
“The large differences in maximal jump heights were in line with what others had reported” said Weyand. “We eventually realized that the earth’s gravity is so strong that females have to devote most of the muscular force they have available to offsetting it when jumping for height. This leaves even athletic females with relatively limited force left over to elevate the body.”
Haag added “Gravity causes very small sex differences in the total ground forces applied to become much larger differences in the net forces that lift the body’s weight. Because gravity only resists vertical motion, the result is really large differences between the sexes in jump heights, but not jump distances.”
Supporting this, the new study also demonstrated that the flatter the take-off angle of the jump the smaller the performance differences present between male and female athletes. The smallest difference of 17% was present for triple jump, which was the most horizontal of the four jump types examined.
The work expands on prior work that established the much smaller sex differences in performance for Olympic running and swimming events. These performances typically vary between women and men by only 10% or slightly more – in part because these horizontal racing events do not require athletes to work against gravity.
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