[pct-l] "Born to Run" hypothesis

[Tom Holz]

Yoshihiro,

I have not done as much research for evidence to contradict the "born to run" hypothesis, but would still agree that it's hard to draw conclusions about our pre-historic past and the evidence we have is mixed.  The hunter-gatherer and other prehistoric ways of life have largely disappeared, so we cannot directly observe how we used to eat and live.  ("The Old Way" by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is a glimpse into one such society).

For thru-hikers, I think the important question is how does your movement impact your chances of injury and capacity to hike?  This is where there is enough evidence that modern running with a strong heel strike is more likely to lead to injury to warrant further investigation.  This area also lends itself to individual understanding--for example, whenever I reverted to my old heel-first habits on the PCT, shin splints always flared up, until I corrected my gait.  Of course, because humans are very complex, what works for me may not work for another hiker, because they do not have the same movement patterns and stress loading patterns.

Cheers,
Bigfoot


On Mar 14, 2013, at 1:37 AM, Yoshihiro Murakami <completewalker at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Born to Run"  by Christopher McDougall was a best seller, and its
> Japanese edition was published in 2010. I thought it had some relation
> to hiking, so I read this book and searched the background researches.
> 
> The Born To Run hypothesis is proposed by  Lieberman, et al.
> 
> You can read their theory at this site.
> 
>  http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/index.html
>  Bramble, D.M.& Lieberman, D.E  2004  Endurance running and the
> evolution Homo.  Nature, 432, 345-352.
> 
> They asserted that the feature of human being was the higher ability
> for long-distance running than other anthropoid apes. Then we lost
> hair, because the physical cooling was possible by mass sweating.  We
> were inferior to the four legs animals such as horses at the short
> interval.  However, we could continue chasing an animal for hours, and
> then we could kill and eat,  because we had an ability of long-time
> long-distance running.
> 
> However, there are several contradictory facts.
> 
> 1. The energy cost of running of human being is almost double as
> compared to horse's.  ( Bramble, D.M.& Lieberman, D.E  2004 , P.347 )
>  ---->The hunting by endurance running is not economical and time
> consuming.
> 
> 2. The molar enamel of the ancient human is thicker, and the chin is
> more firm than an anthropoid ape.
>     -----> We ate frequently very hard food. not meat.
> 
> 3. Our tooth should be sharp like a lion if we ate a lot of fresh meat.
>     ----> We must had ate something different from meat. There is a
> hypothesis from dietary behavior. The ancient human may ate the left
> over bones of the animal, killed by other animal. We had survived at
> the niche of food, because we know how to broke bones by stone. No
> animal could not eat bone. So we did not need to hurry to get protein.
> 
> 4. The most adequate ratio of nutrient of  human may be  carbohydrate
> 60 - 70%, protein 10 - 15%, fat 9 - 11%.  If we eat more protein and
> fat, life became short.
>     ----> Our predominant food is carbohydrate. not meat.
> 
> 5. We are very weak, when we are confronted to the lack of water. Our
> cognition begin to deteriorate when 1.5% water of body weight was
> lost. ----> We evolved in water abundant environment.
> 
> 6. We lose salt when we sweat. This is a very unique point.
>    -----> We evolved in the small forest near large salt lake. ( My
> little modified version of aqua hypothesis )
> 
> At first, I had deleted the section of born to run hypothesis from my
> hiking handbook, but my editor rejected my manuscript, and insisted to
> include them. Therefore, I explained this hypothesis in the last
> chapter " Why we hike ? ". We feel comfort and enjoyment when we are
> surrounded the wide natural perspective, including large lake and
> forest, because we evolved in such an environment.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Sincerely
> --------------- --------------------------------------
> Hiro    ( Yoshihiro Murakami  村上宣寛 )
> facebook  http://www.facebook.com/completewalker
> Blogs  http://completewalker.blogspot.jp/
> Photo  https://picasaweb.google.com/104620544810418955412/
> Backpacking since 1980 in Japan, A foreign member of PCTA
> JMT, 2009, 2010, 2011(half), 2012
> Handbook of Hiking will be published in 2013
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