Evolutionary Science of Endurance Running
Leave it to my parents to send me an article from Nature that begins with the sentence: "Striding bipedalism is a key derived behaviour of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages."
Although the article by Dennis M. Bramble & Daniel E. Lieberman is technical science to the core, a few observations from a non-Ph.D. endurance running enthusiast include:
1. "No primates other than humans are capable of ER [Endurance Running]."
2. "The one category in which humans perform poorly compared to many quadrupeds is the energetic cost of running. The mass adjusted COT [Cost of Transport] of human running is about 50% higher than a typical mammal, including other primates."
3. "...human running, like quadrupedal trotting, involves synchronized movements of diagonally opposite appendages."
4. "Human distance runners are...mouth breathers, permitting higher airflow rates with less resistance and muscular effort". As opposed to nasal breathing, typical of apes.
In other words, we were made for this stuff!
-Jan
Although the article by Dennis M. Bramble & Daniel E. Lieberman is technical science to the core, a few observations from a non-Ph.D. endurance running enthusiast include:
1. "No primates other than humans are capable of ER [Endurance Running]."
2. "The one category in which humans perform poorly compared to many quadrupeds is the energetic cost of running. The mass adjusted COT [Cost of Transport] of human running is about 50% higher than a typical mammal, including other primates."
3. "...human running, like quadrupedal trotting, involves synchronized movements of diagonally opposite appendages."
4. "Human distance runners are...mouth breathers, permitting higher airflow rates with less resistance and muscular effort". As opposed to nasal breathing, typical of apes.
In other words, we were made for this stuff!
-Jan
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