Human use heel first gait because it is efficient for walking
Most running mammals totter along on their toes. In fact, toe running is far more efficient than landing heel first like humans. Yet when it comes to long distance endurance running, humans are some of the best-adapted animals for clocking up the miles, all be it inefficiently. So, why have we stuck with our inefficient heel first footfall pattern when the rest of our bodies are honed for marathon running? This paradox puzzled Nadja Schilling and Christoph Anders from the Jena University, Germany, and Christopher Cunningham and David Carrier from the University of Utah, USA, until they began to wonder whether our distinctive heel first gait, inherited from our ape forefathers, might be an advantage when we walk. The team put young healthy volunteers through their paces to find out why we walk and run heel first and publish their results on 12 February 2010 in The Journal of Experimental...