4 ms·
I've read the anatomical feature that allows humans a wider range of comfortable speeds with one base gait is bipedalism, and four-legged gaits have narrower sp
by yencabulator 2y ago
I've read the anatomical feature that allows humans a wider range of comfortable speeds with one base gait is bipedalism, and four-legged gaits have narrower speed ranges.
This is easy to observe for dog lovers. Walk with a medium size (say 50-60 lbs) dog off leash and you'll notice the dog has to choose between a gait that's a little slow for a human walk or a gait that'd be a fast walk for a human -- but you can still match either of those without much trouble. If you choose not to match your walk to the dog's speed, the dog will alternate between the two gaits to roughly match your speed.
- Zacharias030 2y agoI find this a very interesting observation! (Don’t have a dog) Note though, that the paper describes the different speeds that are possible when walking with equal efficiency to be quite narrow in comparison to running. There is this related saying that „the fastest marathoners burn just as much calories as the slowest to complete 42km, they just do it in a much shorter time“. This kind of range is not available to walking.
- yencabulator 2y agoYes, a human walking faster to match the faster dog gait is much more tiring than walking at your own pace. And that slightly faster gait is still a relatively slow pace for a healthy dog, they're usually happy to go faster! However, it's possible for a human to match speeds with the same base gait, whereas the dog gaits seem more limited to their narrow ideal speeds.