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Jamacian Sprint sucess = symmetrical knees

Discussion in 'Biomechanics, Sports and Foot orthoses' started by mike weber, Aug 27, 2015.


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    symmetrical knees you say

    Daily Mail so you have been warned

    Usain Bolt and other Jamaican sprinters' secret to success on the track could be their symmetrical knees



    For their study, published in have published their work in the journal PLOS ONE, the researchers measured the knees of 74 elite Jamaican sprinters and a control group of 116 non-sprinting Jamaicans of the same age and sex and similar in size and weight.

    Robert Trivers, an evolutionary biologist and professor of anthropology and biology in the School of Arts and Sciences, set out with his colleagues to find out if there was something about the symmetry of their knees that might partly explain this phenomenon.



    http://roberttrivers.com/Publications.html
     
  2. I think this research is ridiculous that knee symmetry is a highly significant factor in producing champion sprinters.

    That comment aside, I did notice that in the 100+ podiatry students in our CCPM Class of 1983, which had a number of quality runners in it (5 of us in that class had run the Boston Marathon in the year or two prior to entering podiatry school), that the podiatry students that had been competitive runners had the most symmetrical and "normally functioning" feet and lower extremities during gait examinations when compared to the gait of the remainder of the less-athletic podiatry students.

    I believe it is the genetically determined structure of the individual that allows them to do the amount of miles required to be a better runner without having pain and injury in attempting to participate in running sports as a youth and young adult. This applies probably less to sprinters than to distance runners. You simply can't teach world class sprinting speed or world class distance running speed, regardless of knee symmetry. Much of this is determined genetically, even though some of it is environmental and some of it is psychological.

    Knee symmetry is probably way, way down toward the bottom of the list of factors that produce world class sprinters.
     
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