【Press Release】Lower Limb Morphology in Endurance Runners Reveals Running Advantage in Humans: A new publication by assistant professor Sado and graduate student Edagawa
Research conducted by Assistant Professor Sado from ARIHHP and graduate student Edagawa et al. has been published in Journal of Biomechanics.
Endurance runners have light lower limbs, which are believed to be easy to move. However, it remained unclear whether the mass distribution and inertial properties are proportional to the reduced mass and which factors contribute to inter-individual differences in these properties.
The research group has revealed that, although a lower limb of runner is lighter, its moment of inertia is not proportionally smaller. Furthermore, they demonstrated that the factors contributing to inter-individual differences in moment of inertia differ between groups: in non-runners, thigh (proximal) mass was most relevant factor, whereas in runners, shank (distal) muscle mass was the most relevant factor.
These findings suggest that humans can adapt to maintain inertial properties regardless of proximal fat mass, and that skilled runners can improve the ease of swing by avoiding unnecessary muscle hypertrophy in distal segments.
【Title】 Proximal-specific reduced mass of lower limbs in male endurance runners does not result in improved mechanical ease of leg swing in proportion to reduced mass
【Authors】 T. Edagawa, T. Fujimori, S. Hashimoto, Y. Okamoto, T. Nakajima, and N. Sado
【Journal】 Journal of Biomechanics
【Date】 TBD
【DOI】 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2025.113012
https://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/journal/medicine-health/20251030140000.html
