Longer Lower Legs =
More Efficient Running
Posted October 29th, 2007 at 3:30 PM by Allyson Rosen
Section: News & Results, Running & Training, Health & Fitness, Exercise
People who have longer lower leg lengths (the distance from knee to ankle) will usually have greater endurance during running or walking than those with shorter lower leg lengths.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin showed that people with longer lower legs use less energy when they run (Journal of Human Evolution, August 2007).
In a previous paper in the same journal, these authors showed that people with longer lower legs are better able to prevent heat build-up, which slows you down and makes you tired. When you exercise, almost 80 percent of the energy that you use to power your muscles is lost as heat.
So the harder you exercise, the more heat you produce and the harder your heart has to work to get rid of the extra heat. You prevent heat buildup by your heart pumping hot blood from your muscles to the skin where it is cooled by sweat and conduction and radiation.
People with longer lower limbs use up less oxygen and produce less carbon dioxide for the same energy expenditure. Therefore they are more efficient and can go further because their bodies require less oxygen.
This post is written by Dr. Gabe Mirkin, M.D. and used with permission. Dr. Mirkin is board certified in Sports Medicine and has practiced for over 40 years. He has completed more than 40 marathons and was a talk show host of a nationally-syndicated radio program for about 25 years. For more articles by Dr. Mirkin, please check out: www.DrMirkin.com
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Tags: blood, carbon dioxide, conduction, dr gabe mirkin, dr. gabe mirkin, endurance, energy, energy expenditure, exercise, hard exercise, heart, heat, heat build up, journal, lower leg, lower leg length, muscles, oxygen, power, radiation, research, researchers, running, running economy, running efficiency, study, sweat, university of wisconsin, walking
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The Final Sprint