Can Humans Run Further Than Any Other Animal
Well
The Man Body Is Built for Distance
Does running a marathon push the trunk farther than it is meant to go?
The conventional wisdom is that altitude running leads to debilitating wear and tear, especially on the joints. Simply that hasn't stopped runners from flocking to starting lines in record numbers.
Last year in the United States, 425,000 marathoners crossed the terminate line, an increment of twenty percent from the offset of the decade, Running U.s. says. Adjacent week about forty,000 people will take part in the New York City Marathon. Injury rates have also climbed, with some studies reporting that xc percent of those who railroad train for the 26.2-mile race sustain injuries in the procedure.
But now a acknowledged volume has reframed the debate about the wisdom of distance running. In "Built-in to Run" (Knopf), Christopher McDougall, an avid runner who had been vexed by injuries, explores the globe of the Tarahumara Indians of United mexican states, a tribe known for running extraordinary distances in zippo but thin-soled sandals.
Mr. McDougall makes the instance that running isn't inherently risky. Instead, he argues that the commercialization of urban marathons encourages overzealous training, while the promotion of loftier-tech shoes has led to poor running grade and a rash of injuries.
"The sense of distance running being crazy is something new to late-20th-century America," Mr. McDougall told me. "It'south merely recently that running has become associated with pain and injury."
The scientific evidence supports the notion that humans evolved to be runners. In a 2007 newspaper in the journal Sports Medicine, Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, and Dennis M. Bramble, a biologist at the University of Utah, wrote that several characteristics unique to humans suggested endurance running played an important role in our evolution.
Most mammals tin can sprint faster than humans — having 4 legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans tin outrun nearly whatever animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, nosotros can stay absurd at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot 24-hour interval, the ii scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.
Why would evolution favor the altitude runner? The prevailing theory is that endurance running allowed primitive humans to incorporate meat into their diet. They may have watched the sky for scavenging birds and so run long distances to reach a fresh kill and steal the meat from whatever animal was in that location first.
Other inquiry suggests that before the development of slingshots or bows, early on hunters engaged in persistence hunting, chasing an animal for hours until it overheated, making it piece of cake to kill at close range. A 2006 report in the periodical Current Anthropology documents persistence hunting among mod hunter-gatherers, including the Bushmen in Africa.
"Ancient humans exploited the fact that humans are good runners in the estrus," Dr. Bramble said. "We have such a great cooling arrangement" — many sweat glands, trivial body hair.
In that location is other evidence that evolution favored endurance running. A study in The Journal of Experimental Biology last February showed that the brusque toes of the foot allowed for more efficient running, compared with longer-toed animals. Increasing toe length as little equally 20 pct doubles the mechanical piece of work of the foot. Even the fact that the large toe is straight, rather than to the side, suggests that our anxiety evolved for running.
"The big toe is lined up with the balance, not divergent, the style you lot see with apes and our closest nonrunning relatives," Dr. Bramble said. "It's the main push-off in running: the terminal matter to exit the ground is that large toe."
Springlike ligaments and tendons in the feet and legs are crucial for running. (Our close relatives the chimpanzee and the ape don't have them.) A narrow waist and a midsection that tin turn permit us to swing our arms and prevent us from zigzagging on the trail. Humans as well have a far more than developed sense of residue, an advantage that keeps the head stable as we run. And nigh humans tin can store about 20 miles' worth of glycogen in their muscles.
And the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human torso, is primarily engaged simply during running. "Your barrel is a running muscle; you barely apply it when you walk," Dr. Lieberman said. "There are so many features in our bodies from our heads to our toes that brand us good at running."
So if we're built-in to run, why are runners so often injured? A combination of factors is likely to play a role, experts say. Exercise early on in life tin affect the development of tendons and muscles, but many people don't start running until machismo, so their bodies may not be every bit well developed for distance. Running on only artificial surfaces and in high-tech shoes can change the biomechanics of running, increasing the risks of injury.
What's the solution? Slower, easier training over a long period would most likely assist; so would brief walk breaks, which mimic the behavior of the persistence hunter. And running on a variety of surfaces and in simpler shoes with less cushioning can restore natural running form.
Mr. McDougall says that while researching his book, he corrected his form and stopped using thickly cushioned shoes. He has run without injury for iii years.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html#:~:text=Most%20mammals%20can%20sprint%20faster,that%20would%20overheat%20other%20animals.
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