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Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

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Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#181

Post by yencabulator »

Zacharias030 wrote: post #13

This problem was treated with a bit more sophistication by Harvards Lieberman in „A story of the human body“ and the corresponding nature article [0] establishing persistence hunting as an ancestoral hunting technique of homo sapien. See figure 2b for the plot you were looking for. Running faster is less efficient but only slightly so and walking is a U-shaped curve like most mammal gaites. It shows that in contrast…

I've read the anatomical feature that allows humans a wider range of comfortable speeds with one base gait is bipedalism, and four-legged gaits have narrower speed ranges.

This is easy to observe for dog lovers. Walk with a medium size (say 50-60 lbs) dog off leash and you'll notice the dog has to choose between a gait that's a little slow for a human walk or a gait that'd be a fast walk for a human -- but you can still match either of those without much trouble. If you choose not to match your walk to the dog's speed, the dog will alternate between the two gaits to roughly match your speed.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#182

Post by yencabulator »

psb217 wrote: post #63
Mistletoe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a runner and have had a weird question, could a runner defeat a larger human in this way? Like if I found myself in mortal combat with The Rock at 260 lbs after his steroids cycle, could I just repeatedly run away and follow him (while staying out of range) until he tired out and then bonk him on the head with a rock, like a tired antelope? (No offense to The Rock, seems like a great guy) Might explain why we are…

The Rock would be bad at persistence hunting, but it would be weird if he was so susceptible to persistence hunting. What incentive does he have to fatigue himself in this scenario? When it's you vs animal, the animal runs from you since if you catch it you kill it. The Rock could just chill and say bring it on. If you were sufficiently mobile and clever, maybe you could prevent him from reaching food and water until…

If you knew how to use a sling, and The Rock didn't, you could try to make The Rock chase you by staying out of his range and slinging rocks at him. Reverse persistence hunting.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#183

Post by CrimpCity »

fumar wrote: post #126
CrimpCity wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer no. This is because what gets exhausted is aerobic capacity. When you get within striking range The Rock will still have access to fast twitch muscles & some reduced amount of glycogen for energy release. This would probably be enough to grab you and choke you out. Basically the Mountain vs the Viper fight from game of thrones. If you were of similar size then yes. Basically being smaller really sucks in…

Wouldn’t the endurance preferred human eventually reach a safe distance and not have to fight?

Nope. OP stipulated that at some point mortal combat happens and also suggests that it happens within arms length for example dropping a large rock on an even larger Rock.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#184

Post by YZF »

taeric wrote: post #179
YZF wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposedly this is the definition: "Zone 2 is defined as the highest metabolic output/work that you can sustain while keeping your lactate level below two millimole per liter.". Unless you can measure lactate level you just don't know what heart rate this corresponds to. The heuristic that's used is "able to have a conversation". For a beginner a good tip is just to go a little bit easier than they think they should…

So fairly removed from heart rate? Can I assume I'm not going to hard if I recover rather quickly?

There should be some correlation between lactic acid levels and feeling sore. I honestly just don't worry about it. Just getting out there and doing something is better than sitting around. Listen to your body. If you're not recovering, or not sleeping properly or are too sore, dial back a little on either volume or intensity. My Garmin gives me an estimate of recovery time, you really have to work hard to stretch that recovery time into more than 48 hours (e.g. running a 10K race). You can vary your workouts between something that feels extremely easy to pushing yourself a little more.

EDIT: another thing I didn't mention is that in terms of injury you want to give your body plenty of time to build more distance. Most of your joints and other tissues take longer to adapt than cardiovascular. I think this is where people can get into potential injury situations by ramping up too fast. I personally also try to run on soft surfaces (trails etc.) since I find hard surfaces (roads) a lot more punishing.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#185

Post by Zacharias030 »

yencabulator wrote: post #181
Zacharias030 wrote: post #13

This problem was treated with a bit more sophistication by Harvards Lieberman in „A story of the human body“ and the corresponding nature article [0] establishing persistence hunting as an ancestoral hunting technique of homo sapien. See figure 2b for the plot you were looking for. Running faster is less efficient but only slightly so and walking is a U-shaped curve like most mammal gaites. It shows that in contrast…

I've read the anatomical feature that allows humans a wider range of comfortable speeds with one base gait is bipedalism, and four-legged gaits have narrower speed ranges. This is easy to observe for dog lovers. Walk with a medium size (say 50-60 lbs) dog off leash and you'll notice the dog has to choose between a gait that's a little slow for a human walk or a gait that'd be a fast walk for a human -- but you can st…

I find this a very interesting observation! (Don’t have a dog) Note though, that the paper describes the different speeds that are possible when walking with equal efficiency to be quite narrow in comparison to running.

There is this related saying that „the fastest marathoners burn just as much calories as the slowest to complete 42km, they just do it in a much shorter time“. This kind of range is not available to walking.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#186

Post by yencabulator »

Zacharias030 wrote: post #185
yencabulator wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read the anatomical feature that allows humans a wider range of comfortable speeds with one base gait is bipedalism, and four-legged gaits have narrower speed ranges. This is easy to observe for dog lovers. Walk with a medium size (say 50-60 lbs) dog off leash and you'll notice the dog has to choose between a gait that's a little slow for a human walk or a gait that'd be a fast walk for a human -- but you can st…

I find this a very interesting observation! (Don’t have a dog) Note though, that the paper describes the different speeds that are possible when walking with equal efficiency to be quite narrow in comparison to running. There is this related saying that „the fastest marathoners burn just as much calories as the slowest to complete 42km, they just do it in a much shorter time“. This kind of range is not available to w…

Yes, a human walking faster to match the faster dog gait is much more tiring than walking at your own pace. And that slightly faster gait is still a relatively slow pace for a healthy dog, they're usually happy to go faster!

However, it's possible for a human to match speeds with the same base gait, whereas the dog gaits seem more limited to their narrow ideal speeds.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#187

Post by Zacharias030 »

scns wrote: post #168
hot_gril wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no athlete, just get around town on foot a lot. Even on sidewalks with no baggage, running at a medium pace with a springy step seems less tiring. If I'm wrong about that, at least it's obviously easier to run downhill. When walking, it can even take more effort vs flat. But when running, by definition both feet leave the ground at some points, so you have less friction and can let gravity do its thing.

Running downhill is very bad for your knees.

I know from personal experience that it is tiring for the knees.

What makes you think that it is „bad“?

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#188

Post by Zacharias030 »

ralferoo wrote: post #21

The article seems to actually be answering a different question than it poses. From my experience of roughly analysing this a couple of years ago when I was losing quite a lot of weight, I drew two main conclusions: * Calories used is a function of total distance travelled and your weight, your speed isn't really that significant a factor. * Walking rather than running uses about 80% of the calories for the same dist…

Love this answer.
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