efficiency of walking

This may interest you

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martin

Reply to
martin griffith
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Muscles "violate" the rules of physics in that they expend fuel to produce mere force, without motion, which is technically not "work." A good part of the effort of walking (and most of the effort of walking on your hands) is such static effort, so is inefficient. A bicycle holds up your butt for free, and almost all of the energy you expend goes towards motion.

And walking downhill is almost as much work as walking on a level or modest uphill. People can't recover potential energy, but bicycles do.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Then look at Mag lev trains then - almost no "rolling" resistance, just the air resistance, which unfortunately carries a squared term with respect to speed.

Reply to
Jeff L

That's the germ of the *apparent* paradox, but muscles don't violate laws of physics. What's the resolution then? Hints: conversion of chemical energy into mechanical energy and force, and the concept of mechanical equilibrium (sum of forces = 0, sum of torques = 0)

Reply to
Andy Resnick

The talk about 'bam your foot stops' is not really helpful because the foot has only a small mass, hence little power is needed to get it moving; most of the mass of the body moves at a fairly constant speed.

I had a look at some websites that claim to give energy stats for various exercises.

If the resting body has a base energy expenditure (power) of 1, walking at pace has a power of 3, whereas cycling would be about 1.5.

I've heard a quote that the most energy efficient means of sustained transport* in the whole of the animal kingdom is a thin person on a bike.

*excluding drifting etc.
Reply to
OG

I've heard that too. Thsy also say that man is the fastest animal at long distances. Many believe that early man ran his prey to death. Bipedal locomotion is quite efficient, compared to the rest of the animals. Significant energy is stored and released in the tendons during the stride.

Reply to
krw

You could try these

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Reply to
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

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