Learning from the Cheetah
I’m a big fan of nature shows. Other than track meets, sporting events, and Family Feud, nature shows are the only thing I watch consistently on television. The ones I like most feature animals in the wild. Elephants, buffalo herds, wolves, and lions tigers and bears. Being a track coach, I often find myself looking closely at the way these animals run.
Of course, because animals have four legs and we have two, the comparisons between how animals run and how humans run are minimal. But still, if there’s something to be learned, it’s worth finding out what it may be.
The fastest animal on the planet, the cheetah, is also the most fascinating to students of speed. Cheetahs in the wild have been clocked moving as fast as 65 miles per hour. The fastest any other animal has been clocked is in the 45 miles per hour range. So, what makes the cheetah so fast? What can we learn by studying the way cheetahs run? How can we apply what we learn to coaching sprinters and hurdlers? Those are the questions this article will address.
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According to a blog post on www.thomsonsafaris.com from December 2012, the main reason cheetahs are so fast has to do with something we humans cannot hope to mimic: the way their bodies are built.
Cheetahs weigh between 80-140 pounds, have a “small head and long legs [that] are designed for aerodynamics. Structurally, the cheetah has a unique, flexible spine, which allows for extreme flexion and extension while running at top speeds.”
Of course, spine flexion does not occur in humans running on two feet, but there’s something to be learned about how the spine functions:
“In spine flexion, when the cat’s legs are directly underneath its body, the scapula and hip are able to rotate to such an extreme angle that the cheetah’s front and hind legs overlap. To reach extension, the spine recoils like a spring propelling the cheetah’s legs out; it is this portion of the gait where the cheetah is able to reach strides up to 25 feet.”
The lesson learned here comes from the word rotate. To paraphrase from above into human terms, when the leg on the ground is directly underneath the body, the hips are able to rotate. If that leg lands in front of the body, a breaking action occurs, creating shorter strides due to less force being applied to the ground.
In a New York Times article from June 2012 entitled “What Runners Can Learn from Cheetahs,” Gretchen Reynolds notes that cheetahs (and greyhounds, who are also ridiculously fast) “employ a running form known as the rotary gallop. Their legs churn in a circular motion, the animal’s back bowing and its hind legs reaching almost past its ears at full stride.”
The phrase “rotary gallop” should sound familiar to sprint and hurdle coaches, as should the phrase “circular motion,” as the main thing we want to teach our athletes is to run in a rotary motion, with the legs cycling in a circular motion. For cheetahs, one of the keys to being able to sustain this consistent rotary action lies in their claws. According to the thomsonsafaris.com blog post, “the cheetah is equipped with blunt, semi-retractable claws, which function similarly to soccer cleats.” Or, if you will, similar to track spikes.
In the video below, you can see in slow motion the mechanics of the cheetah’s running style. If I had to describe it, my description would sound very similar to how I sound when I’m instructing my hurdlers – get a big push off the back legs to create that forward thrust, get full extension of the back legs, extend the front legs but don’t lock them, make sure you cycle the front paws back under your body as you land, keep pushing the hips forward.
The cheetah in the above video looks more like he (she?) is bounding than sprinting. Which is appropriate because that’s exactly what sprinting is when done properly – a series of bounds, a series of propulsions. As one of my sprint coach friends once said to me, it’s all about covering ground. For hurdlers, there’s a more forceful propulsion over the hurdle, but the basic mechanics remain the same. Also, for hurdlers who get crowded between hurdles, covering ground will cause you to crash, so you’d obviously have to significantly modify the amount of push off the back leg in the strides between the hurdles.
Another way to explain the point about covering ground would be to say that the leg in front needs to be in position to attack the track. The knee needs to be high, the ankle needs to be flexed (with the toes pointing upward). In hurdling language, we call this getting “into position” at the point of take-off into the hurdle, which I discuss in detail in another article in this issue.
Along those lines, Reynolds has this to say in regards to cheetahs: “The speed with which a creature brings its leg back around into position appears to be one of the main determinants of speed…. The faster you reposition the leg, the faster you’ll move.”
In an August 2014 article from the website of Southern Methodist University Research, entitled, “Key to Speed? Elite Sprinters are Unlike Other Athletes – Deliver Forceful Punch to the Ground,” the author asserts that studies indicate that this fast repositioning of the leg is what separates elite sprinters from the average joes and janes. The article quotes Peter Weyand, director of the SMU Locomotor Performance Lab, as saying, “We found that the fastest athletes all do the same thing to apply the greater forces needed to attain faster speeds…. They cock the knee high before driving the foot into the ground, while maintaining a stiff ankle.”
By always having the front leg in position to attack the track, elite sprinters are able to maintain a continuous cycle action throughout the race, and they are able to do so with forceful strides that enable them to bound. The effect is one that looks effortless, like they are “floating” above the track, which is not unlike how cheetahs look at full speed. Or half speed for that matter.
Let’s take a look at the video below that features slow-motion footage of Usain Bolt at top speed. The video starts with footage of Asafa Powell coming out of the blocks, which is also worth looking at, but the Bolt footage we want to focus on for now begins at :43.
You don’t need me to tell you; you can see for yourself how all the things discussed above are being put into action by this most gifted of sprinters.
Finally, although cheetahs are lightweights compared to other big cats, they have deceptively powerful legs. In her article, Reynolds often quotes Dr. Alan H. Wilson, a professor at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London, who conducted the study comparing cheetahs to greyhounds. One intriguing remark made by Wilson is that, “compared to the greyhound, the cheetah has bulky upper legs.” Reynolds goes on to say that the cheetah’s “powerful thigh muscles allow it to pump more rapidly than the spindly greyhound’s can.”
So yes, all you weight room junkies, you’re right if you argue that strong hamstrings, quads, and glutes are of major importance to sprinting fast. But that shouldn’t be news to anyone. But what I find interesting is that cheetahs are rather light in terms of their overall body weight, but strong where they need to be. Which seems to indicate that sprinters don’t have to be exceptionally bulky to be successful. Bolt, you could say, has the human equivalent of a cheetah’s build – long, lean, but very powerful in the lower body.
So next time you’re channel surfing and come upon a nature show featuring some fleet-footed felines, stop for a few minutes and take a closer look. You just might learn something you can use.
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Sources
“Key to Speed? Elite Sprinters Are Unlike Other Athletes – Deliver Forceful Punch to Ground.” SMU Research. SMU, 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2015. http://blog.smu.edu/research/2014/08/25/key-to-speed-elite-sprinters-are-unlike-other-athletes-deliver-forceful-punch-to-ground/
Reynolds, Gretchen. “What Runners Can Learn From Cheetahs.” Well What Runners Can Learn From Cheetahs Comments. New York Times, 27 June 2012. Web. 13 Jan. 2015.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/what-runners-can-learn-from-cheetahs/?_r=1
Safaris, Thomson. “What Makes a Cheetah So Fast? – Thomson Safaris.”Thomson Safaris RSS2. N.p., 06 Dec. 2012. Web. 13 Jan. 2015. http://www.thomsonsafaris.com/blog/fast-cheetah-run-bigcat-facts/
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