{"id":2402,"date":"2014-07-16T17:04:04","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T22:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=2402"},"modified":"2014-07-18T18:14:27","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T23:14:27","slug":"why-do-we-swing-our-arms-while-running","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/why-do-we-swing-our-arms-while-running\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do we swing our arms while running?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2309\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/640px-Shirley_Strickland.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2309\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2309\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/640px-Shirley_Strickland-300x216.jpg\" alt=\" Statue of Shirley Strickland outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground. (Photo credit: Melburnian)\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/640px-Shirley_Strickland-300x216.jpg 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/640px-Shirley_Strickland.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2309\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Statue of Shirley Strickland outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground. (Photo credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shirley_Strickland#mediaviewer\/File:Shirley_Strickland.jpg\">Melburnian<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Swinging our arms while running not only helps balance forces that would otherwise cause us to wobble, it also saves energy, according to a new study.<\/p>\n<p>By measuring rates of oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production, researchers have shown that swinging your arms while running decreases the net metabolic power demand. Running with hands held behind your back increases the net metabolic power demand by 3%, while holding them across your chest increases it by 9%, and holding them on top of your head increases it by 13%.<\/p>\n<p>Previous studies had demonstrated the mechanical benefits of swinging your arms while running, but the energy benefits were an unresolved question until now.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jeb.biologists.org\/content\/217\/14\/2456.abstract?sid=64c3f18c-a914-4bc0-b3b2-84bb3bff9cbb\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in the <em>Journal of Experimental Biology<span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em>on\u00a0<strong>July 16, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #222222;\">Christopher Arellano, Brown University, U.S.A.<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Swinging our arms while running not only helps balance forces that would otherwise cause us to wobble, it also saves energy, according to a new study. By measuring rates of oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production, researchers have shown that swinging your arms while running decreases the net metabolic power demand. Running with hands held [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1951,1952,1792,1950],"class_list":["post-2402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-balance","tag-energy-consumption","tag-exercise","tag-running"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/640px-Shirley_Strickland.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-CK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2438,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions\/2438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}