“The difference between cycling and running is like the difference between moving forward on a pogo stick and rolling along on wheels. And that is why Robert Fitts, an exercise physiologist at Marquette University who was a competitive runner, once said good runners run so smoothly they can almost balance an apple on their heads.”
I have heard people use the amount of bounce as a measure of efficiency in the past, but I do not agree. Here is why, I’ll start with an analogy.
If you throw a ball, and you want it to travel as far as possible, what is the trajectory of the ball? Do you throw it such that it is travelling horizontal (parallel to the ground), or do you throw it up at 30 degrees or so? The answer is simple, you throw it up. Otherwise, the ball can only travel a limited distance because it falls to the ground long before it has lost much speed due to wind resistance. I believe the same is true with running. With each stride, more distance at a particular stride frequency will have you running faster; so you launch yourself at a non-horizontal trajectory with each stride. Also, gravity is accelerating everyone towards the ground at the same rate. The only way to reduce or eliminate bounce is to increase the amount of time you have at least one foot on the ground. Race walkers, by the rules of their sport, at not allowed to “sky” (have both feet off the ground at the same time). Which is faster, at least one foot on the ground at all times (walking), or allowing periods of time where both feet are off the ground (running)?
Now, I won’t argue that there maybe efficiency issues. That is, you could maybe instrument up an experiment and show higher oxygen use for more bounce, or something like that, but I don’t think you could show that eliminating the bounce makes for faster running. I think most of us are trying to run faster, so I’ll bounce when I run and be happy about it.
Yes, but a ball cannot pick up its feet mid flight. On treadmill workouts (eg–constant speed) I find myself bouncing less and less as my speed increases. Is that because my turnover has to get much higher? I don’t know. I do know that the less you bounce your upper body at the same speed, the less energy required for you to run. It may not be as biomechanically efficient, but requires less energy. Unless you’ve got a completely elastic collision when your foot hits the ground. Physics and thermodynamics can be such a pain in that way.
Maybe I should’ve said ‘quit bouncing so much’ which I suppose falls into efficiency issues, ie, if you throw the ball straight up you’ve expended energy but you don’t get very far. It’s been awhile since my freshman physics but I think the ideal trajectory is a parabola. Does that hold for running? I don’t know. Still there’s minimal bounce in good cycling, further there’s little ‘wasted’ motion. Could that be why you can have a cycling tour d’france but not a running tour. Yet again, I don’t know. I do know I hurt a lot worse after a 1hr run than a 1hr bike.
It depends on how quickly you want that ball to get to a point. In that case you throw the ball parralel to the ground or in fact in a downward trajectory so it bounces to the point. Arcing the ball to home plate is not how you get a ball from the outfield to the plate.
Throwing a ball once and taking repeated consecutive strides to (relatively) continually propel yourself forward are not exactly the same thing. A person running is closer to a car than a once-thrown ball. Your ball analogy only works if you’re trying to travel as far as you can on a single stride. Good luck making it 26.2 miles.
That analogy is flawed - maybe it’d be ok for long jump but the point about running is that even very good runners who manage to land with their feet under their CoG use a lot of their energy slowing the downward momentum of their bodies, stopping it, and ‘springing back up’ into the next stride - minimizing that anergy loss is key. Sure if one stride / distance covered was the measure of running efficiency some sort of parabola would be essential but it’s not.
The best illustration I can think of is when you’re running at pace say in a cross country race and you miss a rise in the ground and you’re foot lands 3 or four inches higher than you thought it was going to relative to your CoG and further in front of you than you wanted to - i.e. it’s an exaggeration of what you do if you try and artificailly increase your stride length and sacrifice ‘flow’ for ‘bounce’. If anyone’s done what I’m taking about you’ll know that it takes an amazingly big effort to bring your leg through from that position and can be several strides before you flush out the heaviness it injects.
A better analogy I reckon is skimming stones, in fact as I write this I’m warming to it so bear with me: - if you want to get to the other side of the pond and you can’t make it in one throw the trick is to throw the stone almost parallel to the water. It’ll come down from a tiny height with each skip, bouncing will only cost a tiny bit of energy so it won’t slow much and it’ll probably make it. Think of the surface tension of the water as the strength you want to expend resisting the stone/your body’s tendency to sink - tiny, but enough if you keep it smooth. Throw it at an upward angle and the stone will sink the first time it hits.
No, it doesn’t hold for running. You’re not taking into account that you have to continue moving forward after each “throw” of your body. This is not a one-time “throw” and you’re done with the race. So, it makes sense not to hit the ground nearly vertically - instead you want as much of your forward momentum from each “throw” to carry over into the next one. You’re trying to move forward, so you want as much of your energy to go into moving your body forward as possible. Every mm that you lift your body uses energy that doesn’t go directly into moving your body forward. The goal is not to move your body as far as you can with each stride or long jumpers would kick ass and you wouldn’t be able to stay anywhere near 90 rpm as almost every running coach will advise. In fact, the longer you’re off the ground, the higher you had you lift your mass, so the worse off you are.
The ball also has neither knee nor hip nor ankle joints.
High stride frequency helps take out most of the bounce. You want your momentum moving as forward as possible, not up…though some up is necessary (as you can see in the video).
Well, actually not everyone. I agree with BarryP above; and I think my argument was generally mis-understood or not explained well enough.
I was not arguing to huge bounce, but that having 0 bounce is not the ideal. I used to know guys who bragged that they had near 0 bounce, but I always thought they would run faster by allowing a little bounce. As the video above shows, maybe 3" or so.
So my point was, if you are trying for 0 bounce, you ARE slowing yourself down, just as if you have too much (>5"). You cannot have 0 bounce unless you always have at least one foot on the ground. If you want to run while always having one foot on the ground, go ahead; you will be faster by allowing at least some bounce.
It is called gravity, and it effects us all; no thermodynamics required for basic physics.
Great video but I have to tell you when I saw the coaches name was dieter, mike meyers poped into my head,“Now is the time on Sprockets when we run.” Apologies beforehand.
Also–it looks like they’re almost bringing their hands up to their mouths! that is a lot of arm movement–and it looks like they’re flexing their biceps the whole time, with their forearms rubbing their torsos.
How fast would you say they’re running at the start of that video? I really need to learn how to run, got any more videos?
Need to learn how to run??? I saw your IM run time. I got news for you. You can run! I was talking to one of the Cadence guys last time I rode through and they told me what monster you are on the bike. Nice picture in the store window, too.
Those guys are probably hitting around 5:30 a mile, I’d guess. They’re biceps probably look flexed because they are so skinny. As for the height of their hands, the faster you run, the more your stride opens up and the more you need to pump your arms. If you watch some sprinters, their hands will almost clear their heads when running the 100.
The arm motion will follow speed. No use consciously pumping the arms more than they need to go. That would be a waste of energy.
Honestly, most runs I think about anything but running…“look, a squirl! Hey, nice legs! Did I leave my iron on?” Hell, you should hear me and my friend Marc when we run together. It’s like the Lavender Room without all the right wingers! ; ^ )
Honestly though, when I do concentrate on form, personally I think of pushing my pelvis forward (like Donald Southerland’s suggestion in Without Limits) and standing up straight with a sleightly forward lean because I have a habit of slouching. Other than that I just make sure my feet land correctly. However, this is all specific to what my needs are. Others will be different.
I recall reading an interview of Mark Allen after his attempt to make the US olympic marathon team. During the warm up of a qualifying race, he was struck by how smooth and fluid elite marathoners were (compared to triathletes, I suppose).