John Richard wrote:
Alex S wrote:Which is why 'waiting for reflex contraction' is too slow. Also, muscles must be pre-activated to maximise elastic energy storage anyway. So voluntary contraction in anticipation of contact is necessary.
Therefore the argument that the push-off involves no voluntary muscle activation is false.
Of course this has no bearing of the energy input / output issue - but motor control is my area and how running is controlled is a further interesting issue to me.
Alex -
Since motor control is your area, this would be agood time for you to expand on what you mean by 'waiting for reflex contraction' and explain "voluntary contraction in anticipation of contact".
I can probably guess, but some examples might be good.
TIA
There was some talk earlier about the physical push-off in POSE arrising purely
1) return of elastically stored energy from landing
2) reflex contraction
with no voluntary contraction
At least that is how i understood what was being said. I disagree with aspects of this (maybe because of what the poster meant, or maybe just because the way the terms were used - who knows on this thread!!)
For the elastic elements in the muscle-tendon unit to be loaded with any appreciable force on landing, the muscle filaments must be prevented from sliding past one another - this is achieved by activating the muscle to create the cross-bridge linkages between the actin and myosin filaments. Landing with quiet muscles is like pulling on an elastic band without attaching the other end to anything - activating the muscles is like fixing the other end.
If the muscles truly were quiet on initial landing and you let reflexes 'take care' of the muscle contraction, you have ~50ms delay for the simplest reflex plus the time taken for tension to build in the muscle. This delay would result in sub-optimal elastic storage (making you less efficent) and IMO would also compromise joint control in the 'loading phase' which would increase injury risk.
So for optimal performance, there needs to be muscle activation prior to the landing. Gatorade seems to be in agreement that muscle activation prior to landing does occur (though he might not agree with what i call it and the terms i will use to describe it. Also, i don't believe it is limited to the foot - he doesn't say it is, but he only mentioned the foot so i'm unsure as to whether that is his belief).
I would have to refer to the pre-activation as voluntary. It is definately not a relfex. The 'command' for the whole body action (that Gatorade is calling 'the Pull') arises from the judgement that contact is approaching and the intention to continue running. The pre-activation is a part of the whole-body action. You could easily choose not to perform that whole-body action (i.e. you could collapse onto the floor instead of continuing to run - a sand pit would be advisable!). I can't agree with it being called involuntary - you just have to remember that performing a voluntary action does not equate to being conscious of what muscles are activated and when etc - see my posts on previous pages for further examples of this.
Compare doing drop jumps with eyes open and eyes closed (until landing) - keep varying the heights so that you can't judge the timimg of the landing from the timing of take-off. Its very difficult and uncomfortable with eyes closed because you can't time the pre-activation very well without the vision. If it was just a case of letting the landing trigger your reflexes, then closing your eyes would cause little problem.