physics-of-falling-says-professional-athletes-are-running-wrong

Expert Discussion Biomechanics and Physiology
1

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28246-physics-of-falling-says-professional-athletes-are-running-wrong/?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=hoot&cmpid=SOC%7CNSNS%7C2015-GLOBAL-hoot

This is doing the rounds on social media

Comments?

2

What he describes sounds like stepping over the support knee. Most good sprinters already do this.

3

It is always a slippery slope drawing conclusions via a review of an incomplete snapshot of someone’s work.

As for what is indicated clearly, his criticism of sprinters/coaches who are unaware of the physics of bipedal terrestrial locomotion, angular momentum included, presupposes 1. that he is on to something that most others are not, and 2. that the field is generally incompetent.

A couple of the holes present in this glimpse of his position are the fact that his model seems to be based off a runner on a treadmill and moving at about 63% of tempo speed for a reasonably fit team sport athlete and only 32% of the max velocity of the sub 9.8sec 100m crew. So it’s worth a chuckle that his test subject felt as if he was “flying” when moving at a jogging pace of 14km/h

Again, I won’t make the error of drawing a conclusion on his work based off that simple article, however, I will state with certainty that if any high level sprinter attempts to “learn the trick” of shifting their center of mass far forward they’ll concurrently be learning the trick of negative vertical hip displacement which is death for a sprinter due to the increased braking forces incurred during GCT, GCT occurring farther in front of bottom dead center, and a lengthened ground contact patch.

Lastly, its curious that he cites MJ as the model example of his theory because MJ’s biomechanics were opposite of the author’s suggestion to shift the center of mass forward.

4

They need to do more treadmill sprinting.

5

sounds kind of like he’s talking about limiting backside mechanics. to be honest, I’m having a bit of trouble visualising how this is any different from regular sprinting in any way that doesn’t involve crumpling onto the ground.

I’m kind of amazed that something so sketchy could get published in New Scientist… :stuck_out_tongue:

6

hmmmm…highly debatable topic with many many different opinions

7

treadmills… unbelievable,

8

Thanks again science…for nothing!

Michael Johnson ran with a monstrous pelvic tilt which I don’t think is at all desirable. He definitely was able to get his leg to recover quicker than most, but what the author is describing is simply front side mechanics. Thank you but we already know about this. I’d much rather have my athlete in a more neutral pelvic position so he / she could use more of their skeleton / tendons to overcome gravity rather than their spinal erectors.

I’d be hesitant to model Michael Johnson’s technique for anyone except Michael Johnson, and even then he did have some pretty regular injury trouble when he ran very fast, so ultimately I don’t think it was a technique to look at as anything other than a one-off that worked really well for him.