I wish I could lift and eat a ton and still get faster
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I wish I could lift and eat a ton and still get faster
Discus
Horses run the human equivalent of a 400. Scrawny runners are typically distance runners that have endurance vs. true sprinter speed.
Brev wrote:
I wish I could lift and eat a ton and still get faster
Discus
If you were a sprinter, you could
Not this again.
Unless you mean why don't distance runners have big biceps? Answer: because irrelevant.
Ever seen a sprinter?
LR never learns wrote:
Not this again.
Unless you mean why don't distance runners have big biceps? Answer: because irrelevant.
and unlike humans, all of a horse's limbs are devoted to running.
I work with and ride horses. A fit horse is definitely impressively muscular, and super vascular when lean. However, even a skinny runners legs have a larger cross section than much the length of a horses. And their feet, at least on a racing horse have less surface area than a humans. It's crazy when you think they weigh 1,000 - 1,200 pounds on those very trim legs. The equivalent of where their glutes are are huge though!
You are studying the wrong kind of horses for comparisons to mid and distance runners -
quatamoose wrote:
I work with and ride horses. A fit horse is definitely impressively muscular, and super vascular when lean. However, even a skinny runners legs have a larger cross section than much the length of a horses. And their feet, at least on a racing horse have less surface area than a humans. It's crazy when you think they weigh 1,000 - 1,200 pounds on those very trim legs. The equivalent of where their glutes are are huge though!
Their bones are larger though to support that weight.
They distribute the muscle differently than humans. The muscle is bunched up much higher. This decreases wasted effort, since they don't have to accelerate and decelerate as much weight each stride if the prime movers are up at the hip joint. For this reason, this is the only joint that goes through a wide range of motion while under load. Their equivalent of the knee and ankle stay mostly fully extended during their support phase. They only flex during the swing phase, to reduce rotational inertia.
Of course it is a tradeoff. The way our muscles are distributed makes us much more agile. People can tackle trails horses can't. We can also do complex movements like dribble a soccer ball. It also allows us to stand on two legs, freeing up our arms to do all the important things we do with them.
You think Bolt and Gatlin are scrawny?
Four legs instead of two means less airtime, which means fighting gravity is less of an issue, which tilts the tradeoff in favor of more muscle that can produce horizontal speed. It's the same principle by which the best cycling time trialists, particularly over the shorter track distances, are pretty muscular compared to runners.
Sdfsdfsffsdgsdf wrote:
Of course it is a tradeoff. The way our muscles are distributed makes us much more agile. People can tackle trails horses can't. We can also do complex movements like dribble a soccer ball. It also allows us to stand on two legs, freeing up our arms to do all the important things we do with them.
What are you talking about, horses can't tackle trails? Come out west, horses and their sh1t are all over the damn trails. And the Western States 100, the granddaddy of all Ultras, it started as a horse race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_States_Endurance_RunYes you should be comparing Arabian endurance horses if you are thinking about scrawny distance runners. Have been 'out west', my daughter has two Tevis buckles and I have a Western States buckle. She rides some very extreme and technical trails on those Arabs, but I do agree that there are some very extreme trails that horses may need to avoid. Mules on the other hand...
Come on, of course it is possible to have a narrow winding path that a horse would struggle to get around but we can easily. Humans can move side to side much more easily etc.
What did you just say??? wrote:
Sdfsdfsffsdgsdf wrote:Of course it is a tradeoff. The way our muscles are distributed makes us much more agile. People can tackle trails horses can't. We can also do complex movements like dribble a soccer ball. It also allows us to stand on two legs, freeing up our arms to do all the important things we do with them.
What are you talking about, horses can't tackle trails? Come out west, horses and their sh1t are all over the damn trails. And the Western States 100, the granddaddy of all Ultras, it started as a horse race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_States_Endurance_Run
the fastest runners are muscular but lean. Bolt for example.
Endurance runners are scrawny
This was an awesome post. Thanks Sdfsdfsffsdgsdf and quartamoose! I'll just add that, even as someone who cares way more than usual about running proficiency, I'm pretty happy with where humans ended up on this physiological tradeoff.
explainer wrote:
Four legs instead of two means less airtime, which means fighting gravity is less of an issue
HAHAHAHAHA!
Idiot.
Horses also travel much faster than humans. At horse speeds, I'd be willing to bet the VAST majority of the force slowing down a horse is aerodynamic drag.
In running, this isn't the case as drag is extremely low at 10-12 mph, and minimal even at 15mph. What this means is that power to weight and associated acceleration/deceleration are a human runners primary slowing forces.
Horses are probably playing by a different set of rules, one in which aerodynamics is the most important. In this case, being a little bigger or muscular rarely hurts your aerodynamic profile drastically, and the extra power is a significant advantage. It's rather similar to why cycling climbers, guys like Nairo Quintana, Chris Froome, Alberto Contador, etc. tend to be small and lean. They are mostly concerned about power to weight, much like a runner. However, in time trialing, where speeds are 30+, their is little disadvantage to being bigger, and a bigger guy putting out more watts is going to go much faster than the smaller climber with less absolute power.
Dumbquestion wrote:
Horses run the human equivalent of a 400. Scrawny runners are typically distance runners that have endurance vs. true sprinter speed.
No. Horses run much farther than the human 400 unless they are doing a baby half mile race.
Closer to 500 minimum and about 700 on average with a max of a km.
What did you just say??? wrote:
Sdfsdfsffsdgsdf wrote:Of course it is a tradeoff. The way our muscles are distributed makes us much more agile. People can tackle trails horses can't. We can also do complex movements like dribble a soccer ball. It also allows us to stand on two legs, freeing up our arms to do all the important things we do with them.
What are you talking about, horses can't tackle trails? Come out west, horses and their sh1t are all over the damn trails. And the Western States 100, the granddaddy of all Ultras, it started as a horse race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_States_Endurance_Run
Western States started as a horse race... and then they realized that the horses could not beat people who ran the same course.