History
Welcome to History!
A community dedicated to sharing and discussing fascinating historical facts from all periods and regions.
Rules:
-
Post about history. Ask a question about the past, share a link to an article about something historical, or talk about something related to history that interests you. Discussion is encouraged.
-
No memes. No ads. No promos. No spam.
-
No porn.
-
We like facts and reliable sources here. While sources like Quora/Reddit/Wikipedia can be great tools for quick searches, we do not allow such user-generated content as primary source. What’s wrong with Wikipedia?
NOTE: Personal attacks and insults will not be tolerated. Stick to talking about the historical topic at hand in your comments. Insults and personal attacks will get you an immediate ban.
view the rest of the comments
The position of foot strike varies as a function of stride length. Stride length and turnover are the two variables that determine speed. We heel strike in shoes because they allow a longer stride at the same turnover. Why not increase turnover and keep stride length short ? Because it uses more energy.
I was under the impression that forefoot striking is actually more efficient as the body is continually in a "forward falling" position, your legs do not land angled in front of you requiring your knees to absorb the shock, and you better utilize the elastic potential of your leg's tendons.
Don't a lot of marathon runners forefoot strike? Seems like they're athletes that would be looking for the most efficient running techniques.
Just because we can heel strike doesn’t mean we should.