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Physical performance by vertebrates is thought to be constrained by trade-offs between antagonistic pairs of ecologically relevant traits and between conflicting specialist and generalist phenotypes^,, but there is surprisingly little evidence to support this reasoning^,,. Here we analyse the performance of world-class athletes in standardized decathlon events and find that it is subject to both types of trade-off, after correction has been made for differences between athletes in general ability across all 10 events. These trade-offs may have imposed important constraints on the evolution of physical performance in humans and other vertebrates.