A study out of Cal Tech has shown that 100% is the maximum effort an athlete can deliver, suggesting how silly it is when athletes make proclamations like, "We gotta go out and give 110%."

Yet 110% has somehow emerged over the years as the athlete's benchmark symbol of total performance commitment. Occasionally even higher figures have been promised, such as 150%, or even 200%.

Rarely do athletes assert a plan to give less than 100%, such as, "If we just execute and give 80%, we're gonna be fine."

The Vikings' Randy Moss raised the ire of the sports world two years ago when he admitted that he doesn't always give 100%, but rather picks and chooses the occasions when he goes all out. Moss was torched for his arrogant and deficient "work ethic," but the Cal Tech study supports his position fully.

"We've proven that it's impossible to give more than 100%," said lead researcher Siby Gopeka Sharma Armitraj, Ph.D. "And although the study didn't target this, I can tell you that it's just as impossible to give 100% all of the time. Most of us rarely, if ever, are giving 100% of ourselves to anything. [Randy] Moss's assertion may have rubbed people the wrong way, but it was as scientifically accurate an observation an athlete's made in 30 years."

The researchers hope their study will result in the sports world's more judicious, less reckless use of statistical percentages.