Domino Quartz's Delightfully Quaint Random Banter Thread #248

[Bohandas]

Other sports aren't segregated by weight class because usually it's...not relevant. Like Football's optimal weight is "as big as you can get while meeting other basic metrics", because there's no limit. Basketball doesn't really care about weight, only height. Baseball doesn't really care about either, with the main factors being hand/eye coordination (largely the same across genders), swing speed/strength (favoring males), pitch speed/strength (favoring males), and footspeed (favoring males). Etc.

Isn't weight class intended as an approximate indicator, however flawed, for muscle mass? which is in turn intended as an indicator for strength (which crops up on half the things on your list)?

That was my understanding at any rate.

And my point was that the male vs. female thing was also, in my understanding, intended as a pointer for muscle mass and thus strength. And of the two pointers, weight class seems likely to be the better one that will be more accurate more of the time.