The Human Body Is Built for Distance

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html

by tokenadult • 17 years ago

45 34 17 years ago

vsiva682• 17 years ago

"Born to Run" has popularized this notion that the human body evolved to run long distances. However, there is no strong proof for it. The recent discoveries from the Ardipithecus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardipithecus) stories suggest that "both A. kadabba and A. ramidus lived in "a mosaic of woodland and grasslands with lakes, swamps and springs nearby," but further research is needed to determine which habitat Ardipithecus at Gona preferred".

When it comes to evolution, I don't think a popular book can provide all the answers. I wish they'd make it clear that this is just one theory now widely popularized by a best selling book.

aditya• 17 years ago

Curious if you've read the book (I haven't) and why you think that an entire tribe of people where 70 year old men regularly run 30-50 miles is not "proof" in your eyes?

Retric• 17 years ago

Cleaned up to be less confrontational.

There is a difference in stride efficiency between jogging and running at high speed. 20 year old men don't run 50 miles in one go let alone 70 year old men. Now jogging that distance over several hours is a reasonable form of transportation, but running is out of the question. So, jogging is a way to trade energy for time and distance where running trades endurance / distance for time, energy, and speed.

I would assume if humans where built purely for distance running then our most efficient stride would be used for distance running. But, I don't know what the overall tradeoffs are.

PS: There seems to be two definitions of running one of which is a stride there all feet leave the ground at the same time and the other involves high speed. While skipping falls under this definition of running the implication of speed is missing.

vsiva682• 17 years ago

Yes, I've read the book, and I would recommend it. The book makes multiple claims: The first is that given the proper environment (physical & mental fitness), we can run very long distances. This I think it proves very well with the Tarahumara tribe example.

It then goes on to make the claim that humans evolved to run long distances, in order to do persistence hunting. Persistence hunting is basically outrunning an animal for long distances so that it just drops down because it is tired. While persistence hunting itself exists, it is a stretch to say that this is how humans evolved.

The Ardi discovery that made news a few months ago shows that Ardi's environment was not really the savannah, but something that had far more trees. Persistence hunting requires a savannah like environment.

In the end, all I'm saying is that it is ok to say that humans can run long distances, but saying humans evolved to do that is far trickier and requires a lot more proof. The scientists involved in the Ardi discovery do not make any claims at all (after 15 years of studying fossils in one region). They are far more humble, and say that many different scenarios are possible.

Popular book writers on the other hand have to explain things to a lay audience, and usually provide one point of view (which typically fits their own mental model). Confirmation bias is usually rampant.

DougWebb• 17 years ago

If I recall correctly, Ardi had an opposable big toe and although he was bipedial, he couldn't have walked or run like us. If "Born to Run" is correct then Ardi represents a point in our lineage after bipediality developed, but before we evolved to become runners.

jkkramer2• 17 years ago

It's also important to make a distinction between "the human body evolved to run long distances" and "the human body is well-suited to running and doing it for long distances is good for you". The latter seems like something we can (and should try to) prove now, without relying on the past for evidence. Knowing how our ancestors lived is nice but I'm personally more interested in knowing what's good for me, here, now.

alecco2• 17 years ago

I love running but is this really hacker or news-related?

davidw2• 17 years ago

Not in the slightest, but it's not really "poisonous material" such as politics or economics, so it's probably less likely to attract bozos who want to Promote Their Agenda.

tokenadult• 17 years ago

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

I had noticed previous posts about running here (I only walk, personally), so I guessed this might be of interest to regular readers of HN.

alecco2• 17 years ago

It's definitely not new. And my question didn't deserve all the down-votes. (Only now at least it got back to 0. Way to answer.)

chasingsparks• 17 years ago

These are studies that barefoot runners (including me) frequently cite. There was a thread indirectly related a few weeks back. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=863018

nfnaaron2• 17 years ago

Various comments on whether or not we evolved for long distance running, rock climbing, swimming, whatever.

It seems likely that, just as we are omnivores, we evolved to dominate the niche called "generalist," and that's what makes us the baddest mo'fo in the valley.

maxwell• 17 years ago

In other words, the human body is built for adaptability.

elblanco6• 17 years ago

Good point. But why? What evolutionary circumstances pressured our species to select for adaptability?

elblanco6• 17 years ago

This is a good point. As a species we aren't particularly strong, see particularly well, smell with any acuity, hear with any particular precision, swim particularly fast, run very fast, have natural weapons or any other thing which are typical hallmarks of animals near or at the top of the food chain, like cheetahs, or bears, or wolves etc.

But we do lots of things pretty well and relatively efficiently sans our brains.

So for example, a cheetah is faster than greased lightening, but it has no endurance. We're no cheetah speed, but we can run a horse to exhaustion or outclimb a bear or hunt in more organized packs than wolves, or find and eat a greater variety (and larger quantity) of food stuffs than a bear...in other words we have a larger variety of ways to extract energy from our environment than any other species, and we can do it in a larger variety of climates, conditions and cirumstances.

This ability to extract and utilize energy, from all parts of the foodchain, as well as other kinds of energy than just caloric (fire, fuel, mechanical, etc.), is more the hallmark of "what makes us human" than anything else.

dkarl• 17 years ago

This is an interesting idea, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence that specifically points to running. A lot is made of the fact that we aren't made just for walking, but humans do a lot more than just walk and run.

And the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body, is primarily engaged only during running. “Your butt is a running muscle; you barely use it when you walk,” Dr. Lieberman said.

Ah, yes, the gluteus maximus, primarily engaged only during jogging, punching, lifting, tackling, sprinting, throwing, and swinging a club.

And most humans can store about 20 miles’ worth of glycogen in their muscles.... “Ancient humans exploited the fact that humans are good runners in the heat,” Dr. Bramble said. “We have such a great cooling system”

Which allows us to perform any endurance activity over long distances, including swimming. Or carrying a kill back to camp. Or carrying water, children, tools, and materials for building shelter. Pretty much any hard work.

Haven't any of these scientists noticed that it's easy to get tired and overheat while building a fence in your back yard? For many animals, running might be the only thing they do that causes them to overheat, but when you're an intelligent, tool-using, shelter-building, material-possessions-lugging human, there are lots of things that can tire you out or give you heatstroke on a warm day.

If I remember correctly, the hunter-gatherers in the Jared Diamond television special based on Guns, Germs, and Steel didn't spend much time jogging. They walked, climbed, and paddled. They chopped down trees and carried heavy stuff. They hunted in the forest, stalking and then sprinting to attack. Their efficient cooling system, powerful glutes, and springy tendons served them admirably in all of these activities. Obviously they had a very different culture from the San Bushmen in Africa -- how can we be sure what culture and environment had the greatest influence on our physical evolution? I have read that the San seem to be closer to our origins, geographically, linguistically, and genetically, but it is all speculative. Even if they are our closest contemporary link to our evolutionary origins, we can't assume their lifestyle resembles the lifestyle of our ancestors.

Furthermore, a lot of the popular appeal behind the "born to run" idea is based on simple astonishment at the difference between trained and untrained people. Running is the example that has caught the popular imagination, but many other physical activities could lead to the same result. For example, with regular training, ordinary people can learn to lift way more than you would expect, enough to convince a man on the street that people are "built to lift heavy stuff." If you found a tribe that was as into lifting stuff as the Tarahumara are into running, I'm sure you would find examples of older people lifting burdens that would amaze us. And then it would seem quite obvious that our powerful glutes and efficient cooling system were evolved to help us carry game back to camp, swing heavy primitive axes and weapons, lift baskets of wild yams, and carry animal skins filled with water.

jkkramer2• 17 years ago

Part of McDougall's point in the book is not just that we CAN run long distances but that, over the long term, it's good for us. For most intensive sports, you can only keep up with them for so long before your body starts to wear and tear. Runners (with proper technique, which is encouraged by minimal footwear) remain healthy and effective until old age.

One of the coolest anecdotes from the book: the average performance of marathon runners increases from age 19 to 27, when it reaches its peak. Performance returns to the 19-year-old level at age 64. That's not true for any other sport. (Citation needed, obviously, but I don't have the book handy.)

The book also gives interesting examples of biological traits we possess, such as bone and muscle configurations, that only appear in animals that run a lot. I'm not saying the book is scientifically rigorous or conclusive, just that there's more to it than appears in this article.

davidw2• 17 years ago

> That's not true for any other sport.

Cyclists have their best years in their late twenties and into their early thirties. Lance was still competitive at the Tour last year, at 37 years old.

Road racing is also very much a long distance sort of sport where endurance is as much if not more important than raw power.

I agree with the premise that we're meant for 'cruising'. I feel best when I go out for long, not particularly fast rides. My favorite thing on a sunny day is to go out for 5 or 6 hours - you feel really good when you're done.

Evgeny• 17 years ago

What about martial arts? Not the full-contact ones, I guess, but aikido comes to mind when I think of the one where a person could keep practicing till very old age.

nimrody• 17 years ago

Not only running.

Maximizing one's endurance takes years. Of course there are other factors that affect performance and deteriorate over the years (Force for example) -- which is why endurance athletes peak at their 30ths.

mazuhl2• 17 years ago

Feet in the Clouds: A Story of Fell Running and Obsession by Richard Askwith is about the British pass time of running up and down very steep peaks, fells and hilltops. He says fell runners usually peak in their mid-thirties to fifties. Youngsters don't have the stamina that a Bob Graham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Graham_Round) or Joss Naylor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_Naylor) have.

elblanco6• 17 years ago

> If you found a tribe that was as into lifting stuff as the Tarahumara are into running, I'm sure you would find examples of older people lifting burdens that would amaze us.

This tribe inhabits a land called Korea. The only place I've ever seen a 5'5" elderly man carry a full-sized fridge up six flights of stairs on his back. It was superhuman.

lgv• 17 years ago

I wonder if diet plays a role. The only way you're getting 20 miles' worth of glycogen is from eating grains- which were domesticated just recently in human history. I'm not sure if that type of glycogen density was available before then. Maybe now we have the luxury of burning up 5kcals for a very long jog, but 100,000 years ago?

inglorian• 17 years ago

Diet almost certainly plays a role. The diet of the Tarahumara Indians (the subject of the 'Born to Run' book mentioned in the article) is practically meatless and consists of about 75% corn, with the rest made up mostly of beans and various types of squash. As a result their diet is about 80% complex carbohydrates, which is what allows them to run for those insane distances.

This doesn't seem to jive with the persistence hunting theory, since meat is one of the worst fuels for distance running (or any endurance sport).

The Human Body Is Built for Distance

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