My computer is playing up – I can’t delete the red bits lower down – especially the repetition about Dan Lieberman. Sorry about this. Luckily I had almost finished, before it began. Yours in Sport, Aye Craig.
Kenny, this is in no sense meant for your website (tho do use any of it if you want!), No, this is for you – as I picked up on your very acute observation that Andy Forbes ran with a fore-foot strike.You said:
“When I saw him winning the 3 mile race at Ibrox running on his toes, I decided to copy him in my mile races and it paid off”. This led me to a long train of thought regarding the evolution of the human physique (i.e. anatomy and physiology) which specifically made us humans extremely good distance runners, compared to the rest of the entire animal kingdom. We evolved into this, in order to catch our food.
These below are features of the human skeleton which are thought to have evolved in terms of man gradually evolving to be a hunter – whereby he chased his prey over long distances, and up to a few hours of sustained effort. All of his prey (gazelles, antelopes,larger game animals) could run much faster, but none of them could outrun humans over long distances, as humans evolved their physique and physiology to cope with the fatigue and the heat.
Early humans have probably walked from 3.5million years ago, but our Ancient human relatives, would have found running ‘almost impossible’ because they lacked Achilles tendons. Except for Gibbons, all human’s closest relatives - chimps, gorillas and orang-utangs - have no Achilles tendons, so it is very likely that early hominids didn’t have them either.
Humans perform remarkably well at endurance running, thanks to an array of features, many of which leave traces in the skeleton. The fossil evidence of these features suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about 2 million years ago, and was probably responsible for the evolution of the human body form as it now is. These are 8 of the main features which evolved:
1)UPRIGHT
A major step in our ability to cover distances was walking and running upright on two legs. This needed very good balance. And enlarged semicircular canals in the ears provided good balance, as did a more balanced head, with no real snout (as many animals have), plus the powerful ligament which humans have from the back of their head to their neck which also helps to stabilise the head when running (and prevents your head falling forward when you’re sitting over your dinner.
2)HEAD AND SHOULDERS
When Primates (apes etc) want to move their head, they have to turn their shoulders. Humans evolved the ability to turn the shoulders without moving the head and we can turn our shoulders without moving our hips, and vice versa – this means that when we run, our arms and shoulders can swing for balance while our head remains stable. The great apes can’t do this, and are very poor runners.
3)LONG LEGS
Long legs give humans a long stride, and our long Achilles tendons allow us to store and release much energy at every stride. Running at about 6-minute-mile pace, every stride we store well over a third (37%) of the energy of the stride in our tendons and ligaments of leg and foot – and release it when we push off (like a pogo-stick). Having much more of our leg muscles in the upper part of the leg (thighs) than below the knee means that there is less weight to move forward-and- back with each stride.
4)LARGE GLUTES
Compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, we have very large buttock muscles (gluteals), These are little used in walking, but are vital in running for keeping us upright on every stride. Running has been described as ‘controlled falling’ – and the glutes stop the fall! Squash players develop large glutes, as they are constantly going forward and bending low to get the ball – and straightening up (glutes)!!
5)LARGE JOINT SURFACE AREAS
The surface area of our hip, knee and ankle joints is comparatively much larger than apes. This spreads, and so lessens the impact force on foot-strike at every stride.
6)RUNNING FEET
Our feet are especially designed for running. The arch of the foot flattens in the middle of foot-strike, stretching the ligaments of the arch, which acting as a spring, store and release elastic energy. On take-off, these elastic ligaments shorten again, and feed energy into the stride (as does the Achilles tendon, already mentioned) Also, our short toes are better forpushing off the ground than gripping tree branches, andmechanically much more efficient than long toes. For example, increasing toe-length by just 20% would double the mechanical work of the foot in running. Finally, as the human big toe is parallel to the other toes, not divergent from them as in apes, this lets it give a strongerfinal push-off in running.
All of this suggests that the foot itselfevolved for running (barefoot note – see below).
7)THERMOREGULATION
Heat-regulation is absolutely vital in distance running. An expanded circulation of venous blood inside the skill skull cools the brain better, and a tall slim body with a narrow waist, chest and pelvis and slim limbs also gave better cooling. We lost our fur, and, along with horses, we have the best sweating system in the entire animal kingdom. Sweat needs heat to evaporate, and it takes heat from the blood vesselsin the skin, thus cooling the blood. This was vital to outrun prey in the heat of Africa. We could run the animals into hyperthermia which caused them to collapse.
8)FUEL STORAGE
We have about 20 miles worth of glycogen, the storage form of glucose, as fuel in our leg muscles. But we do need fluid replacement.
Thus, as my friend Dan Lieberman, Prof of Evolutionary Anthropology at Harvard says, ‘There are so many features from our head to our toes that make us good at endurance running, that very strongly suggest that these are very purposeful evolutionary adaptations regarding running down our prey”. (
And - why are we good at running? The suggestion is that the evolving brain needed a much higher calorie intake than could be gained by gathering plant foods. So endurance running enabled primitive humans to incorporate meat into their diet via hunting, byrunning their prey down, over hours. The legacy for the modern human is seen especially in the Olympic Marathon and the 50k race walk.
Now, Kenny, I began all this with a mention of your noticing that Andy was very much a fore-foot striker (‘running on his toes’). And I’m sure he got into that mode as he used to run – and race – in his bare feet. For example, he won silver running in hisbarefeet in the 6 miles in Auckland at the 1950 Empire Games. At the same games, Jack Holden legendary English distance runner, ran the last 10 miles of the Marathon in his barefeet. Zola Budd, Bruce Tulloh and Abebe Bikele also used to race barefoot.
If you run barefoot, you find that you don’t heel strike, but land and take off on the fore-foot,and my friend Dan Lieberman, Prof. of Evolutionary Anthropology at Harvard, and a very keen runner, runs and competes in his barefeet (well, with ‘toesocks’), as he did in the London Marathon in 2012 aged ovr 60, finishing in 4h 10mins. He is responsible for much of what I’ve written above, and just for your interest, here is what he says about barefoot running:
“What can we learn about how to avoid injury, from using an evolutionary approach to running? Although we think it is normal to run in shoes, the modern running shoe was invented only in the mid-70's, and for the last two million years everyone ran barefoot, or in a minimal shoe such as various forms of sandal. Many runners also consider it normal to strike the ground on the heel (heel-strike), because more than 75% of shod runners today do so. Indeed, today's running shoes - with elevated and cushioned heels, stiff soles and arch supports - make heel-striking easy and comfortable. And heel-striking requires less work by the calf and foot muscles than landing either on the ball of the foot (forefoot-striking), or simultaneously on the heel and the ball of the foot together (mid-foot striking).”
“However, heel striking is much less common in habitually barefoot and minimally-shod runners, because it generates a massive, rapid and sometimes painful collision with the ground, known as an impact transient. Shoes make impact transients more comfortable by spreading the collision over a longer period of time, but the impact transients still occur.”
“In contrast, forefoot-strikers and some midfoot-strikers, in both shod and barefoot runners, generate no impact transients at all, even on very hard surfaces. There are advantages and disadvantages to running barefoot versus shod, and to different kinds of foot striking, but barefoot and minimally-shod runners can run comfortably on the hardest surfaces in the world by avoiding heel-strikes, and it is possible that they may help avoid some kinds of repetitive stress injuries that are rife among runners”
So Kenny, Dan Lieberman, and quite a lot of running biomechanists, are strong advocates of barefoot running, to minimise leg injury. In the days (as you may recall Kenny), before 'trainers' existed - we cross-country runners ran a lot in ex-army black thin-soled plimsoles, often with vulcanised strips of tyre-tread on their soles, and sometimes we ran bare-foot (on suitable courses!). As I said above, Andy, Zola, Bruce and Abebe all raced and trained barefoot.
And Peter Radford (WR holder at 200m in 1960, and Olympic medallist) setindoor British and European sprint records running in his bare feet at Cosford indoor track. Peter Radford is the one to talk about sprinting – he trained as a sports biomechanist, so he has a real understanding of sprinting mechanics. He feels that the lighter one’s feet – the better. And the logical extension of that is to wear no shoes at all (”You pick up your feet so fast” is what he says) – which is how he came to set the records barefoot. But almost all I’ve written here refers to endurance distance running.
All best, and sorry about this hijacking red!
Yours in Sport, Aye, Craig.