Why Even The Fastest Runner Can’t Run Your House Cat

This week, the fastest runners in the world met to Tokyo Olympics competing for gold in the 100-meter dash. Lamont Marcell Jacobs finished the race with 9.80 seconds to bring Italy’s first gold. In the women’s race, Jamaica won gold, silver, and bronze – a clean sweep led by Elaine Thompson-Herah, who broke the Olympic women’s record for 33 years with 10.61 minutes.

But none of them could touch the legacy of the eight-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, who retired in 2017 but still holds the highest status of a living person. Bolt ran 100 meters in 9.58 seconds. Chased about 27 miles per hour, is under the high speed of a domestic cat. (Yes, a domestic cat.) In a race against tigers and pronghorn, the fastest animals in the world, Bolt would not have a chance.

You might think that a fast-moving animal depends on the size of its muscles: very strong, very fast. Even so, the elephant will not be able to run with the deer at all. So what determines the speed?

Recently, a team of scientists led by biomechanist Michael Günther, who at the time was affiliated with the University of Stuttgart, began developing environmental laws governing the movement of animals. Mu new research published last week in Theoretical Biology Journal, Provides complex shape, leg length, muscle mass, and much more to determine which factors are most important for speed development.

This study examines the evolution of animal species and their similar movements, and they can be used by naturalists to understand how terrestrial challenges affect population density, habitat selection, and diversity of species. For robotic engineers and biomedical engineers, learning about the dynamics of the body can improve the design of living things. bipedal driving machine and and prosthetics.

Commenting on the purpose of the project, Günther said: “If you can ask this question quickly, then you can also understand how body composition is affected by the requirements for change – for example, speed.”

Past works in the area, led by Myriam Hirt of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, found that the secret to speed is related to metabolism, how the body converts enzymes into fat, much of which is stored in muscle fibers for use in running. The Hirt team has found that larger animals absorb fats faster than smaller animals, as it takes them more time to chase down their heavier bodies. This is known as muscle fatigue. It explains why, by doctrine, man can be chasing the Tyrannosaurus rex.

But Günther and his associates were skeptical. “I thought we could offer some more explanations,” he said, who only used the explanatory notes for failing to run. As a result, they developed a biomechanical model with more than 40 components related to body composition, speed geometry, and the number of competing physical groups.

“The bottom line is that two things reduce speed,” says Robert Rockenfeller, a mathematician at the University of Koblenz-Landau who co-authored the study. The first is to fight the air, or pull, the opposing team moves each leg as it seeks to push the body forward. Since dragging problems are less frequent, they are a major factor in controlling small animals. Rockenfeller says: “If you had a lot of weight, you would have run a lot faster, depending on the pull of the plane.”