Compared with other species, humans can be very tractable and thus an ideal "model system" for investigating the metabolic cost of locomotion. Here, we review the biomechanical basis for the metabolic cost of running. Running has been historically modeled as a simple spring-mass system whereby the leg acts as a linear spring, storing, and returning elastic potential energy during stance. Howeve...

this paper investigates the relationship between total energy consumption and gdp in six countries of the middle east , including iran,pakistan,saudi arabia,oman,bahrain and the united arab emirates. the data are annual and spanning the period 1980-2012.we employed hsiao’s (1981) methodology to examine causality relation between total energy consumption and gdp.the empirical findings show a uni...

The oxygen cost and energy expenditure of submaximal treadmill running was evaluated in 9 male distance runners. The oxygen consumption--running speed relationship was highly significant (r = .917) and linear over the entire aerobic range. The caloric cost of 0.97 Kcal/kg/k was in close agreement with values found in the literature and was independent of running speed. The caloric cost per unit...

The gross energy cost of treadmill and track running is re-investigated from data published in the literature. An average equation, weighted for the number of subjects in each study, was found: VO2 (ml/kg/min) = 2.209 + 3.163 speed (km/h) for 130 subjects (trained and untrained males and females) and 10 treadmill studies. On the track, wind resistance as predicted by Pugh (1970) was added to th...

At a given running speed, humans strongly prefer to use a stride frequency near their 'optimal' stride frequency that minimizes metabolic cost. Although there is no definitive explanation for why an optimal stride frequency exists, elastic energy usage has been implicated. Because the possibility for elastic energy storage and return may be impaired on slopes, we investigated whether and how th...