Gait Analysis

Today I had an appointment after work with Coach Leach to go over my results from the Gait Analysis. It was really cool. I have a little book with pictures of me with angles and measurements all over them : )
We watched my video that he had taken. It takes pictures every 1/30 seconds so it is easy to compute things like impulse (integral of Force divided by time). The less impulse the better- therefore the less time your foot is on the ground the better. We did this by measuring the distance of the sole of my foot that made contact with the ground and also how many frames my foot made contact on the ground. I can work on this.
Another important thing is the position of your center of gravity- you don’t want to be wasting energy propelling yourself into the air. He makes a graph of the height of your head while running. The ideal vertical is 2 inches. I was at 3 inches which is actually really good but I would like to get that down to 2 inches.
The arm angle is also important. My arms were actually at a perfect angle so I can not improve in that. By having the correct angle in your arm you propel your hips forward. By thrusting your hips forward you move your center of mass forward which moves your velocity vector more in the horizontal instead of vertical.
Then we looked at the videos of me from the back and front. This was interesting. One of my shoulders is slightly higher than the other. I didn’t know that. In addition I do a little bit of what he called a “scissors step” – the best way to describe it is if I were running on a balance board so you had to cross your feet in front of the other in order to stay on the board (that would be really exaggerated) but the scissors movement was costing me about 2 screen pictures so that is 2/30 of a second so that is 4 seconds a minute of wasted movement. This can be corrected by strengthening your hips and stabilizer muscles.
From the back my foot was very good. You should see the whole bottom of the foot and it should be completely vertical. If you kick to much you are wasting energy. Don’t kick back enough- takes more energy to pull your leg forward because the mass is lower on the lever arm.
Anyway- I guess I am boring you with the detail but this was right up my alley—combining engineering, the body, and sports! The bad news is that I have a few areas where I can improve but not drastically. My friend Heather just went did hers and her results say she can improve by 40 seconds per mile where as I am looking at 15 seconds if I can maintain perfect running form- that’s kind of a bummer. Looks like my car is efficient…but next I will find out about the motor. I am guessing the strength and power of my motor might need some help : )
How is that for an “Engineer- runner” post : )