Double-amputee to compete in Norwich Union Grand Prix 400m

I once saw a ten minute documentary on this guy. What they did was they allowed a former Olympic class athlete (can't remember the name) who still runs in the 46-47 range to train on these legs for 2 and a half months solidly on prosthetic attatchments. He ran right around 75 for the 400. Anyone have any questions on whether you get an advantage?

The legs only return 80-85% of the energy you put into them. That being said, the weight loss that occurs between natural and prosthetic legs gives between an 7 and 9% energy advantage. In that situation, the BEST POSSIBLE advantage would be a -6% advantage, meaning a typical able bodied runner with a 400 time of 44.0 would run a 46.64 with the 6% loss of efficiency.

Oscar Pistorius' time is not very far from 46.64

How did he train on prosthetic attachments when he had legs???

Yeah, I was wondering that myself.

Think this guy is getting enough publicity?

The Sheffield organizers are making a huge mistake in promoting this guy so heavily, but...for one day in mid-July, maybe it will pay off for them. But it doesn't help the sport one bit.

you are wrong, this publicity will not hurt the sport at all

WHAT ??!?! Um, having the legs attached to your body and then using them in some completely different manner with your own legs are 2 different situations. But you weren't able to understand that? Holy crap the examples and analogies people are bringing up on this thread are mind-numbingly poor and absurd.

Wow. Wowsy, wowsy, wowser. You know for a fact that your #'s are indisputable? Care to cite your source on those % #'s ?

And so you are concluding that at 20 y.o., this Pistorius guy could be running 44.0 if he hadn't lost his legs?? Faster than Michael Johnson ran at age 20, and as fast as Wariner did at 20? So this Oscar guy, is as talented and would be as good (with normal legs) as the 2 fastest/greatest/most talented 400 runners of all time?? Sorry man, I find that hard to believe. Jeremy Warniner is one in a trillion. I find it hard to believe that a second talent as good as him exists anywhere, let alone that he also just happned to lose his legs, get prosthetics, and then regain his brilliant running form.

And these other arguments that there is no way to improve upon the human legs as far as locomotion goes seems absurd. The Boston marathon banned SHOES with springs in them for crissakes, and you don't think LEGS that ARE SPRINGS should be banned from competing with other athletes? C'mon.

Look, I am very impressed with this guy, but OF COURSE it is possible to create prostethic legs that are more efficient running springs than regular human legs. If he had legs hooked up to a mini-cycle and sped along on some wheels would some of you say "nope, not an advantage, nothing works better for running than human legs. " All of you Oscar supporters are just 100% sure that is impossible for man to create prosthetic legs more efficient/powerful/faster/lighter than human legs?

No one knows for sure how much of an advantage or disadvantage he might have, but the bottom line is that it is clearly POSSIBLE (and likely) that these legs could be an advantage, and because of that strong possiblity, he shouldn't be competing with athletes with normal legs.

I think for the good of science, he amputaded his own legs. What a sport.

By the way, what is the IOC's A standard in the men's 400m? Isn't it somewhere around mid 45's anyway? This guy is going to get his ass handed to him at the games won't he?

NO!

Prosthetic legs return MUCH, MUCH more energy than real legs. The key word here is "return." Real legs add energy THROUGH MUSCLE CONTRACTION which has a cost to the organism. Unless the able bodied athlete spends his or her own energy to contract his muscles, energy return is minimal. Thus, prosthetic legs are more efficient than real legs. Notice the way that it takes him forever to get out of the blocks when he wears his super-tall racing legs? He chooses those legs because they give him a really long stride--he's like a track cyclist who chooses a taller gear ratio. Able bodied runners can't change their gear ratios like that.

Bicycles and wheelchairs are passive. Should we allow them into footraces?

p.s. As for why there are so few amputees at his level--the pool is incredibly limited compared to able bodied athletes.

This whole passage betrays a serious ignorance of the basic principles of human gait. While real legs do indeed 'add' energy through muscle contraction, they do this IN ADDITION to the storage and return of ground forces, which also occurs at NO metabolic cost to the runner. Read up on the role of elastic recoil in running and the spring-mass model of human locamotion.

Prosthetic legs produce propulsion only by returning ground reaction forces. Real legs also return ground forces (at no energy cost) AND have the additional benefit of muscular contraction.

Stride length is determined primarily by the force exerted against the ground during ground support, NOT the length of one's shins!

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

And these other arguments that there is no way to improve upon the human legs as far as locomotion goes seems absurd.

It only seems absurd to you because you neither appreciate the marvellous complexity of human limbs nor have even a basic familiarity with prosthetic limb technology. Frankly, science is NOT_EVEN_CLOSE to improving on the human leg. The notion that a few decades of science can compete with billions of years of evolution is outright laugable. A natural leg is equipped with bones, joints, tendons, muscles, cartilage, nerves, etc. Structures that no lab on earth has even come close to replicating. And you think that it's possible to improve on that with a sheet of carbon fiber? you are clueless

marijuolgist wrote:

It only seems absurd to you because you neither appreciate the marvellous complexity of human limbs nor have even a basic familiarity with prosthetic limb technology. Frankly, science is NOT_EVEN_CLOSE to improving on the human leg. The notion that a few decades of science can compete with billions of years of evolution is outright laugable. A natural leg is equipped with bones, joints, tendons, muscles, cartilage, nerves, etc. Structures that no lab on earth has even come close to replicating. And you think that it's possible to improve on that with a sheet of carbon fiber? you are clueless

And you, my friend, have been smoking way too much weed. So let me get this straight, the human limb can't be improved upon? Hmmm....How much you want to bet, that if I put the best scientists on it, they could design a spring prosthetic that would allow someone to jump higher than a human with normal legs? Design the prosthetics so they are super-high-powered springs, and have both guys(one with prostethic springs, one with normal legs) jump off a wall, and let's see who bounds back higher? What do you think about THAT? Of course the springs would win. But in your world, the "human leg can't be improved on" , right? I just proved you wrong and you know it. But running, a form of long distance jumping, is different than my example? Not really.

Of course a prostethic could be an improvement. I am not saying I know for sure that these particular ones are, but they most likely are.

I know quite a bit about human gait. You are right to say that human legs function as springs but they do so because they are loaded right before impact through muscle contraction. Legs, when passive, return almost zero energy.

I do appreciate the complexity of the human form but to suggest that it is perfect is ridiculous. For example, ask any ATC or MD and they'll tell you that the knee is a truly terrible joint in that it has zero support from bony architecture.

i give up, u kids are dumb...

Check this out:

C.J. Howard, a former member of the track and cross country teams at UC Irvine, lost his leg to bone cancer in 2002 and resumed running with a prosthetic like Pistorius'. His best times as an amputee are:

5k - 18:08

10k - 38:25

Half Marathon - 1:23:59

Marathon - 3:30

http://today.uci.edu/Features/profile_detail.asp?key=273

I can't find any information on his times from before he lost his leg, but I'm sure he must have been a lot f***ing faster than 18 minutes for 5K as a division 1 runner!

So, I ask you, if prosthetic legs are so much better than natural ones, why is this former semi-elite runner now unable to make the varsity squad of a good HS cross team?

i'm just skeptical becasue oscar is running so far ahead of other double amputee athletes. I know this is a smaller pool of athletes, but I'm sure there are other amputee runners who are also training very hard, and want to run as fast as they possibly can. Why is he so much faster than the others? A nearly 15 second gap in just a 400 is insanely huge.

Please tell me that you aren't comparing C.J. Howard, a 26:49 8K'er in 2002, who had run with both legs for 19 years, to Oscar Pistorius, who has been using prosthesis since he has been able to walk.

You truly are the ignorant one.

And we still haven't seen your credentials in regards to your incredible knowledge of prosthesis...

"Each racing foot is made of about 50 to 80 layers of curved carbon fiber and weighs almost four pounds."

And how much does a real lower leg weigh? 15 pounds each give or take... So add an 10 pound weight on each of his "racing legs" and we'll see how fast he runs...

Pamela Andersons Left Nipple wrote:

Please tell me that you aren't comparing C.J. Howard, a 26:49 8K'er in 2002, who had run with both legs for 19 years, to Oscar Pistorius, who has been using prosthesis since he has been able to walk.

Howard has been running on the prosthesis for five years and that is more than enough time to become fully proficient with the device. You are just willifully ignoring clear real-world evidence that performance is impaired following amputation.

As matter of fact, Pistorius has only three years of experience using his running prostheses. Prior to that he had only worn regular walking legs- which are dramatically different from the legs he uses for running. Pistorius therefore has significantly less experience running on prosthetics than Howard.

And once again you've been thoroughly owned.

Howard's bound to be slower because he's only lost one leg - he'll be very badly balanced when trying to run. I've seen Oscar race a number of times, but only against single leg amputees, in those races it was clear that Oscar had a major advantage by having both legs the same, regardless of his ability.

This nature is best debate is complete rubbish, nature has a limited pool of materials to draw from adn evolution ONLY improves on what was there before and does not work to make the best structures, only the most appropriate structures in terms of their cost to the animal and how they improve the animals chances of survival. From this point of view the human leg is very good, as a structure for running very quickly it is far from perfect. As with every part of the human body it is a compromise between different demands because fo the wide range of tasks it is used for. What I mean is that it needs to be useable across a wide range of speeds, allow changes of direction, etc etc.

On "Tomorrow's World" a number of years ago and in the British press since, there were a set of shoes that had big springs in the bottom, they increased the athletes height by about 6 inches and made the runner extremely fast. My memory isn't perfect but I have recolection of Kriss Akabusi demonstrating how much faster he could be wearing them on a track. That could be bollocks though.

My point is that Oscar's legs allow for dramatic improvements in the conservation of momentum by improving running efficiency, through their inherent springiness and their reduction in weight, which is why his acceleration is slow, but why he can run as fast as he does. Obviously he's a very good athlete as well, how good is impossible to predict.