I gave a talk yesterday, and did not have time to get to this question, from Eric S., which we discussed during the dinner hour:

Who could launch themselves higher on a trampoline? LeBron James or Simone Biles?

She is a world class female gymnast, and much lighter (and less strong) than LeBron. The question is assuming that both parties are motivated to win the competition, and have sufficient time to train to achieve their maximum potential in the contest.

Ultimately I settled on Simone as the better answer, mumbling something about small ants being very powerful for their size, and that magnification and extension of muscle spans ends up producing problematic results. The power gain from the extra weight might be more than offset by the “drag” loss on the way up. But I genuinely do not know. Your view?

Addendum: This is an interesting article on animals and elastic springs. And Jason Kottke adds comment, amazing photo too.