SoccerTennis

Science Confirms: Soccer Players Have Better Butts Than Tennis Players

In 1992 Sir Mix-A-Lot had us believe that when it came to the posterior, bigger was better. Nearly 20 years later, science appears to have proven him wrong.

Five Spanish academics — four men and one woman — set out to answer a question that has plagued mankind for centuries: who has the better butts — tennis players or soccer players?

It’s a debate that could have easily been settled in a doctor’s office waiting room by simply polling any woman who has ever opened an issue of People magazine and been treated to a large glossy photo of Rafael Nadal or Cristiano Ronaldo. But no, they had to resolve this matter empirically, using measurements and lots of hard-to-pronounce words that us simple folk had never come across before today.

Apparently these men (and woman) of science used MRI technology in order “to determine the volume and degree of asymmetry of iliopsoas (IL) and gluteal muscles (GL) in tennis and soccer players.”

Naturally we have no idea what any of that means in English, but we do remember from HD 3620: Human Bonding that symmetry is a leading component in humans’ perception of attractiveness. After all, who wants to look at an asymmetric booty? No one, that’s who.

Here are the results of the study:

Basically, they found that soccer players had 17 percent more muscle volume in the dominant iliopsoas muscle. If the world were fair, this would be known as the “Junk in the Trunk” principle.

The study that determined that soccer butts are more symmetrical than tennis butts involved “Fifteen male professional soccer players from a first division team of the Spanish Football League, 8 male professional tennis players from the International Tennis Federation tour (Futures and Challengers tournaments) and 6 non-active men.”

Volumes and iliopsoas muscles aside, we assert that tennis is more conducive to admiring the derriere in its most flattering form, since, you know, every single point someone is bending over to return serve. Soccer players, on the other end, only bend over when they’re feigning injury (which science also proved, the men are more likely to do than the ladies). And here we thought women were always the ones being accused of faking it.

But who are we to argue with science…you be the judge:

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