[quote]PaddyM wrote:
I think it was the best athlete physique thread and believe that she took the cake.[/quote]
I think it was also in one of the “sprinting for glutes” articles. Possibly a CW
Endurance runners, they have great glute development
The human body is built according to the demands of its enviroment.
Anyone else notice that the author looked like he ran comfortably but the taller individual, the book author/runner, looked like every stride was awkward and knees slightly caved in. ouch. In the same article regarding neandrathal women kicking ass, roman legions are mentioned moving something like two marathon distances a day, but no one says they ran that…
more silliness based on even sillier assumptions
Didn’t read the article, but our muscle and bone mechanics point to the fact that it was more biologically useful to amplify acceleration or distance of a contraction with a long “load arm.” If it was more useful to be able to produce a lot of force over a small distance, our tendons would be really far down the bone so that we’d have a long “force arm” and more mechanical advantage.
I think it’s a bit silly to say that “the human body is built for distance” though. The words “built for” make me cringe.
[quote]1000rippedbuff wrote:
This is kind of stupid, there are multiple basic human movements. To be able to do them is to be human. The muscles are designed to do them. Sure a person should be able to run, but a person isn’t built run specifically. The glutes are a prime mover in the squat which is actually much more fundamental to human movement than running. Plus people aren’t really designed to run long distances… walk long, sprint short, move and pick up things…[/quote]
We were designed intelligent for a reason: to not have to run great distances to catch prey but to out smart it and corner it. The author of the article, however, never does mention that.
[quote]ukrainian wrote:
1000rippedbuff wrote:
This is kind of stupid, there are multiple basic human movements. To be able to do them is to be human. The muscles are designed to do them. Sure a person should be able to run, but a person isn’t built run specifically. The glutes are a prime mover in the squat which is actually much more fundamental to human movement than running. Plus people aren’t really designed to run long distances… walk long, sprint short, move and pick up things…
We were designed intelligent for a reason: to not have to run great distances to catch prey but to out smart it and corner it. The author of the article, however, never does mention that.[/quote]
i agree. the next article from the ny times on this is going to be an expose on what’s the best shoe to wear for running, which they will probably also recommend as being the end-all for human fitness.
[quote]matko5 wrote:
1000rippedbuff wrote:
Distance runners are always trying to justify their existance by acting like people are innate distance runners. As someone who has taken part in studies of hunter gatherers, I can say that none of them do distance running in anything they do. I’ve heard marathon types say that people used to run deer down until the deer was exhausted, then kill it. Right. I don’t care who you are, go ahead and try that. Not to mention the energy consumption versus energy gain from the hunt for that…
Actually, there was a topic on that not long ago. Bushmen in Africa still hunt like that to this day.[/quote]
I remember that. It isn’t that the animal gets exhausted, but more that it overheats (I guess our system for managing body heat is better than it is for most animals - this certainly applies with my dog. In warm weather he can’t go very far). Makes sense… it also explains why people from some regions seem to be very good distance runners while people from other regions aren’t. You would need the right set of environmental conditions for this to work. I would imagine that people used a wide variety of hunting techniques in the past depending on where they lived. For instance, this strategy wouldn’t work in a wooded area as you may not find the prey again after it disappears. There, ambush hunting would likely be more successful leading to more fast twitch development.
edit: probably should have read the article as it repeated many of my points.
[quote]EG wrote:
Endurance runners, they have great glute development[/quote]
Yeah, I’m really having trouble with which one would be my ideal physique. I’ll bet the guy on the left has a mad squat!
Well if it’s easier to run a marathon for the every day skinny fat guy than it is for him to develop a 700 Lb squat, doesn’t that mean the body is more suited to running distance than squatting heavy loads placed on the shoulders?
To be honest, I think the article has merit, but there is way more to the story than that. The body is adept at doing many many things. I wonder what the glute activity is when dragging a weighted sled, or a deer carcass? Humans can survive because if we were in trouble we could use our bodies and our brains to manipulate the environment. The Lion had only it’s own Physical powers, teeth, claws, speed and strength. If you limit what a human can do to only his natural physical abilities, a lion wins every time. Start getting men to pick up long sharpened sticks which he can use to keep his distance from a lion and inflict damage from a range outside of the lions and suddenly the playing field is leveled. Give him a bow and arrow or hell a gun, now it’s not so much a level playing field anymore except the roles are reversed.
The human body is amazing because it is adaptable to a very high degree. It can be relatively good at many different things, coupled with the power of our brains, and our opposable thumbs, and you have the most dominant lifeform in our planets history.
V
I love that people assume we should do EVERYTHING as our “ancestors” (read: cavemen) did. Didn’t Poliquin say some stupid shit like the reason why men enjoy flipping channels is because it mimics the flickering of a fire in a dark cave? Kiss my ass. The only reason a statement like that would have “legs” and linger for any amount of time is because it SOUNDS cool.
Several generations ( ~ 90 years) is enough to weed out the weak (based on the demands of an environment or of lifestyle); we don’t need to look back 10,000 years to find things that may have some relevance to our current lifestyles.
Example: You do NOT need to eat like cavemen. Your digestive system is probably much more in line with what your grandparents ate than what people thousands of years ago ate.
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
I love that people assume we should do EVERYTHING as our “ancestors” (read: cavemen) did. Didn’t Poliquin say some stupid shit like the reason why men enjoy flipping channels is because it mimics the flickering of a fire in a dark cave? Kiss my ass. The only reason a statement like that would have “legs” and linger for any amount of time is because it SOUNDS cool.
Several generations ( ~ 90 years) is enough to weed out the weak (based on the demands of an environment or of lifestyle); we don’t need to look back 10,000 years to find things that may have some relevance to our current lifestyles.
Example: You do NOT need to eat like cavemen. Your digestive system is probably much more in line with what your grandparents ate than what people thousands of years ago ate.[/quote]
I’m with you on that one. That’s always been a pet peeve of mine. Everybody else can go eat/live/run/whatever like the cavemen did and I’ll be inside enjoying my internet and air conditioning and packaged meat that I don’t have to kill myself.
[quote]mch60360 wrote:
Anyone else notice that the author looked like he ran comfortably but the taller individual, the book author/runner, looked like every stride was awkward and knees slightly caved in. ouch. In the same article regarding neandrathal women kicking ass, roman legions are mentioned moving something like two marathon distances a day, but no one says they ran that…[/quote]
There’s a new book called “Manthropology” which basically argues men are sissies these days compared to men of ages past. He also claims that Roman legions could move two marathons a day - that is 48.4 miles. Here is an email sent on Classics-L, a listserv/forum of professional classicists/ancient historians.
Caesar, in BG 5.46-47 describes a serious emergency involving forced
marches. Crassus was camped 25 miles (Roman miles, shorter than modern
miles) away from Caesar, and Caesar dispatched a messenger to him at the
11th hour of the day (~5pm) ordering him to set out with his army at
midnight and march to Caesar’s camp, which he did.
At the 3rd hour the next morning (~9am) scouts informed him that Crassus was
approaching. Suppose that the main body of Crassus’ men was about 5 miles
away when the scouts reported to Caesar. Then it took Crassus 9 hours to
march 20 miles, admittedly most of it at night.
Caesar then set out himself, at the 3rd hour, and marched only 20 miles that
day, even though he was making desperate haste to go to the relief of
another camp which was being attacked. If he camped at sunset, this is a
similar speed to that of Crassus. It means an average speed of only about
2.2 miles/hour, including rest breaks - not very fast at all, since a normal
walking pace is about 3-3.5 miles/hour.
It seems safe to assume that a normal day’s march when there was no
emergency would be less than 20 miles. So the figure of 40 miles, given in
this article as a normal day’s march, is nonsense.
Some historians in the field say a legion moved about 15 miles from 6am until 12 noon. Remember that they’ve got to take time to set up a suitable encampment.
In other words, bullshit. They didn’t even walk that. Don’t forget, the messenger who ran to Athens from Marathon allegedly died after he passed the message along.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
…we should all be running more?
[/quote]
Yes.
I know I’m in the wrong place for this, but I love running. It feels good. It makes you feel good. It’s a great all over exercise. I like to keep my weekly mileage at around 25-30, unless I’m doing even specific training.
[quote]matko5 wrote:
1000rippedbuff wrote:
Distance runners are always trying to justify their existance by acting like people are innate distance runners. As someone who has taken part in studies of hunter gatherers, I can say that none of them do distance running in anything they do. I’ve heard marathon types say that people used to run deer down until the deer was exhausted, then kill it. Right. I don’t care who you are, go ahead and try that. Not to mention the energy consumption versus energy gain from the hunt for that…
Actually, there was a topic on that not long ago. Bushmen in Africa still hunt like that to this day.[/quote]
This it? - YouTube
Humans, like almost every other species, were built for fucking. That is all.
[quote]Fuzzyapple wrote:
bond james bond wrote:
Thank you Fuzzy Apple…I will look at that for the rest of my work day and accomplish nothing.
To bad its not a “bum jiggly” pic of her, like that bouncing boobie avatar. That would be nice.
I remember seeing that pic in a T-Nation article however, can’t remember what one. I had the same feeling you are having now lol. I bet her but is solid and doesn’t jiggle, as much as it looks like it wants to jiggle.
[/quote]
Her name is Alenka Bikar, and there are some videos of her sprinting on youtube or elsewhere. Definitely worth a look.
[quote]jpsmac wrote:
mch60360 wrote:
Anyone else notice that the author looked like he ran comfortably but the taller individual, the book author/runner, looked like every stride was awkward and knees slightly caved in. ouch. In the same article regarding neandrathal women kicking ass, roman legions are mentioned moving something like two marathon distances a day, but no one says they ran that…
There’s a new book called “Manthropology” which basically argues men are sissies these days compared to men of ages past. He also claims that Roman legions could move two marathons a day - that is 48.4 miles. Here is an email sent on Classics-L, a listserv/forum of professional classicists/ancient historians.
Caesar, in BG 5.46-47 describes a serious emergency involving forced
marches. Crassus was camped 25 miles (Roman miles, shorter than modern
miles) away from Caesar, and Caesar dispatched a messenger to him at the
11th hour of the day (~5pm) ordering him to set out with his army at
midnight and march to Caesar’s camp, which he did.
At the 3rd hour the next morning (~9am) scouts informed him that Crassus was
approaching. Suppose that the main body of Crassus’ men was about 5 miles
away when the scouts reported to Caesar. Then it took Crassus 9 hours to
march 20 miles, admittedly most of it at night.
Caesar then set out himself, at the 3rd hour, and marched only 20 miles that
day, even though he was making desperate haste to go to the relief of
another camp which was being attacked. If he camped at sunset, this is a
similar speed to that of Crassus. It means an average speed of only about
2.2 miles/hour, including rest breaks - not very fast at all, since a normal
walking pace is about 3-3.5 miles/hour.
It seems safe to assume that a normal day’s march when there was no
emergency would be less than 20 miles. So the figure of 40 miles, given in
this article as a normal day’s march, is nonsense.
Some historians in the field say a legion moved about 15 miles from 6am until 12 noon. Remember that they’ve got to take time to set up a suitable encampment.
In other words, bullshit. They didn’t even walk that. Don’t forget, the messenger who ran to Athens from Marathon allegedly died after he passed the message along.
[/quote]
Thanks.
Inasmuch as there were other things that I could judge myself (the above I could not) that were clearly pulled out of that author’s ass, it’s not surprising that the above “fact” was as well.
There is a Native Indian word for “poor hunter”, and it is called vegetarian.
The truth of the matter is is that we have an ability to do both. We have slow twitch and fast twitch fibers, along with different energy systems to sustain them. Our bodies will even adapt if one method is used more often than the other.
With distance running, when people use proper form, which involves a stride that is equal to being barefoot, you become much more efficient. My old physiology professor mentioned that the Achilles tendon is the strongest in the body for a reason. It can store more potential energy for springing forward during running. I was told that it is so strong, in many cases, the Achilles tendon will actually remain intact, while it’s insertion on the calcaneus will rip off from the bone instead. Not sure if this is true, but I have seen 2 guys tear their Achilles, and it was determined that it ripped a portion of bone off from the heal rather than actually tearing. Again not sure how accurate this all is.
But my own personal experiment has determined that poor running form is a major contributor to injury. You cannot have heel stike when running, you send a shockwave that screws up your back and hips. Its all on the toes and midfoot. You also don’t bring up your knees unless you are accelerating. Glutes will grow when under alot of stress, but so does any other muscle.
This article is a mixed bag, it has some truths to it, but I would not make this any kind of default manifesto for running.