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= Walking_ =
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Introduction
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Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of
terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically
slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined as an
"inverted pendulum" gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb
or limbs with each step. This applies regardless of the usable number
of limbs--even arthropods, with six, eight, or more limbs, walk. In
humans, walking has health benefits including improved mental health
and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and death.
Difference from running
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The word 'walk' is descended from the Old English 'wealcan' 'to roll'.
In humans and other bipeds, walking is generally distinguished from
running in that only one foot at a time leaves contact with the ground
and there is a period of double-support. In contrast, running begins
when both feet are off the ground with each step. This distinction has
the status of a formal requirement in competitive walking events. For
quadrupedal species, there are numerous gaits which may be termed
walking or running, and distinctions based upon the presence or
absence of a suspended phase or the number of feet in contact any time
do not yield mechanically correct classification. The most effective
method to distinguish walking from running is to measure the height of
a person's centre of mass using motion capture or a force plate at
mid-stance. During walking, the centre of mass reaches a maximum
height at mid-stance, while running, it is then at a minimum. This
distinction, however, only holds true for locomotion over level or
approximately level ground. For walking up grades above 10%, this
distinction no longer holds for some individuals. Definitions based on
the percentage of the stride during which a foot is in contact with
the ground (averaged across all feet) of greater than 50% contact
corresponds well with identification of 'inverted pendulum' mechanics
and are indicative of walking for animals with any number of limbs,
however this definition is incomplete. Running humans and animals may
have contact periods greater than 50% of a gait cycle when rounding
corners, running uphill or carrying loads.
Speed is another factor that distinguishes walking from running.
Although walking speeds can vary greatly depending on many factors
such as height, weight, age, terrain, surface, load, culture, effort,
and fitness, the average human walking speed at crosswalks is about
5.0 kilometres per hour (km/h), or about 1.4 meters per second (m/s),
or about 3.1 miles per hour (mph). Specific studies have found
pedestrian walking speeds at crosswalks ranging from 4.51 to for older
individuals and from 5.32 to for younger individuals; a brisk walking
speed can be around 6.5 km/h. In Japan, the standard measure for
walking speed is 80 m/min (4.8 km/h).
Champion racewalkers can average more than 14 km/h over a distance of
20 km.
An average human child achieves independent walking ability at around
11 months old.
Health benefits
======================================================================
Regular, brisk exercise can improve confidence, stamina, energy,
weight control and may reduce stress.References:
* (Google Books)
* Scientific studies have also shown that walking may be beneficial
for the mind, improving memory skills, learning ability,
concentration, mood, creativity, and abstract reasoning. Sustained
walking sessions for a minimum period of thirty to sixty minutes a
day, five days a week, with the correct walking posture may improve
health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's fact sheet on the
"Relationship of Walking to Mortality Among U.S. Adults with Diabetes"
states that those with diabetes who walked for two or more hours a
week lowered their mortality rate from all causes by 39 percent. Women
who took 4,500 steps to 7,500 steps a day seemed to have fewer
premature deaths compared to those who only took 2,700 steps a day.
"Walking lengthened the life of people with diabetes regardless of
age, sex, race, body mass index, length of time since diagnosis and
presence of complications or functional limitations." One limited
study found preliminary evidence of a relationship between the speed
of walking and health, and that the best results are obtained with a
speed of more than 2.5 mph.
A 2023 study by the 'European Journal of Preventive Cardiology', the
largest study to date, found that walking at least 2,337 steps a day
reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases, and that 3,967
steps a day reduced the risk of dying from any cause. Benefits
continued to increase with more steps. James Leiper, associate medical
director at the British Heart Foundation, said that if the benefits of
walking could be sold as a medicine "we would be hailing it as a
wonder drug".
Origins
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It is theorized that "walking" among tetrapods originated underwater
with air-breathing fish that could "walk" underwater, giving rise
(potentially with vertebrates like 'Tiktaalik') to the plethora of
land-dwelling life that walk on four or two limbs. While terrestrial
tetrapods are theorised to have a single origin, arthropods and their
relatives are thought to have independently evolved walking several
times, specifically in hexapods, myriapods, chelicerates, tardigrades,
onychophorans, and crustaceans. Little skates, members of the demersal
fish community, can propel themselves by pushing off the ocean floor
with their pelvic fins, using neural mechanisms which evolved as early
as 420 million years ago, before vertebrates set foot on land.
Hominin
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Data in the fossil record indicate that among hominin ancestors,
bipedal walking was one of the first defining characteristics to
emerge, predating other defining characteristics of 'Hominidae'.
Judging from footprints discovered on a former shore in Kenya, it is
thought possible that ancestors of modern humans were walking in ways
very similar to the present activity as long as 3 million years ago.
Today, the walking gait of humans is unique and differs significantly
from bipedal or quadrupedal walking gaits of other primates, like
chimpanzees. It is believed to have been selectively advantageous in
hominin ancestors in the Miocene due to metabolic energy efficiency.
Human walking has been found to be slightly more energy efficient than
travel for a quadrupedal mammal of a similar size, like chimpanzees.
The energy efficiency of human locomotion can be accounted for by the
reduced use of muscle in walking, due to an upright posture which
places ground reaction forces at the hip and knee. When walking
bipedally, chimpanzees take a crouched stance with bent knees and
hips, forcing the quadriceps muscles to perform extra work, which
costs more energy. Comparing chimpanzee quadrupedal travel to that of
true quadrupedal animals has indicated that chimpanzees expend
one-hundred and fifty percent of the energy required for travel
compared to true quadrupeds.
In 2007, a study further explored the origin of human bipedalism,
using chimpanzee and human energetic costs of locomotion. They found
that the energy spent in moving the human body is less than what would
be expected for an animal of similar size and approximately
seventy-five percent less costly than that of chimpanzees. Chimpanzee
quadrupedal and bipedal energy costs are found to be relatively equal,
with chimpanzee bipedalism costing roughly ten percent more than
quadrupedal. The same 2007 study found that among chimpanzee
individuals, the energy costs for bipedal and quadrupedal walking
varied significantly, and those that flexed their knees and hips to a
greater degree and took a more upright posture, closer to that of
humans, were able to save more energy than chimpanzees that did not
take this stance. Further, compared to other apes, humans have longer
legs and short dorsally oriented ischia (hipbone), which result in
longer hamstring extensor moments, improving walking energy economy.
Longer legs also support lengthened Achilles tendons which are thought
to increase energy efficiency in bipedal locomotor activities. It was
thought that hominins like 'Ardipithecus ramidus,' which had a variety
of both terrestrial and arboreal adaptions would not be as efficient
walkers, however, with a small body mass 'A. ramidus' had developed an
energy efficient means of bipedal walking while still maintaining
arboreal adaptations. Humans have long femoral necks, meaning that
while walking, hip muscles do not require as much energy to flex while
moving. These slight kinematic and anatomic differences demonstrate
how bipedal walking may have developed as the dominant means of
locomotion among early hominins because of the energy saved.
Variants
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* Scrambling is a method of ascending a hill or mountain that involves
using both hands, because of the steepness of the terrain. Of
necessity, it will be a slow and careful form of walking and with
possibly of occasional brief, easy rock climbing. Some scrambling
takes place on narrow exposed ridges where more attention to balance
will be required than in normal walking.
* Snow shoeing - Snowshoes are footwear for walking over the snow.
Snowshoes work by distributing the weight of the person over a larger
area so that the person's foot does not sink completely into the snow,
a quality called "flotation". It is often said by snowshoers that if
you can walk, you can snowshoe. This is true in optimal conditions,
but snowshoeing properly requires some slight adjustments to walking.
The method of walking is to lift the shoes slightly and slide the
inner edges over each other, thus avoiding the unnatural and fatiguing
"straddle-gait" that would otherwise be necessary. A snowshoer must be
willing to roll his or her feet slightly as well. An exaggerated
stride works best when starting out, particularly with larger or
traditional shoes.
*Cross-country skiing - originally conceived like snow shoes as a
means of travel in deep snow. Trails hiked in the summer are often
skied in the winter and the Norwegian Trekking Association maintains
over 400 huts stretching across thousands of kilometres of trails
which hikers can use in the summer and skiers in the winter.
* Beach walking is a sport that is based on a walk on the sand of the
beach. Beach walking can be developed on compact sand or non-compact
sand. There are beach walking competitions on non-compact sand, and
there are world records of beach walking on non-compact sand in
Multiday distances. Beach walking has a specific technique of walk.
Free heels are a defining characteristic of ski touring
* Nordic walking is a physical activity and a sport, which is
performed with specially designed walking poles similar to ski poles.
Compared to regular walking, Nordic walking (also called pole walking)
involves applying force to the poles with each stride. Nordic walkers
use more of their entire body (with greater intensity) and receive
fitness building stimulation not present in normal walking for the
chest, lats, triceps, biceps, shoulder, abdominals, spinal and other
core muscles that may result in significant increases in heart rate at
a given pace. Nordic walking has been estimated as producing up to a
46% increase in energy consumption, compared to walking without poles.
* Pedestrianism is a sport that developed during the late eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, and was a popular spectator sport in the
British Isles. By the end of the 18th century, and especially with the
growth of the popular press, feats of foot travel over great distances
(similar to a modern ultramarathon) gained attention, and were labeled
"pedestrianism". Interest in the sport, and the wagering which
accompanied it, spread to the United States, Canada, and Australia in
the 19th century. By the end of the 19th century, Pedestrianism was
largely displaced by the rise in modern spectator sports and by
controversy involving rules, which limited its appeal as a source of
wagering and led to its inclusion in the amateur athletics movement.
Pedestrianism was first codified in the last half of the 19th century,
evolving into what would become racewalking, By the mid 19th century,
competitors were often expected to extend their legs straight at least
once in their stride, and obey what was called the "fair heel and toe"
rule. This rule, the source of modern racewalking, was a vague
commandment that the toe of one foot could not leave the ground before
the heel of the next foot touched down. This said, rules were
customary and changed with the competition. Racers were usually
allowed to jog in order to fend off cramps, and it was distance, not
code, which determined gait for longer races. Newspaper reports
suggest that "trotting" was common in events.
* Speed walking is the general term for fast walking. Within the Speed
Walking category are a variety of fast walking techniques: Power
Walking, Fit Walking, etc.
* Power walking is the act of walking with a speed at the upper end of
the natural range for walking gait, typically 7 to. To qualify as
power walking as opposed to jogging or running, at least one foot must
be in contact with the ground at all times.
* Racewalking is a long-distance athletic event. Although it is a foot
race, it is different from running in that one foot must appear to be
in contact with the ground at all times. Stride length is reduced, so
to achieve competitive speeds, racewalkers must attain cadence rates
comparable to those achieved by Olympic 800-meter runners, and they
must do so for hours at a time since the Olympic events are the 20 km
race walk (men and women) and 50 km race walk (men only), and 50 mi
events are also held. See also pedestrianism above.
* Afghan walking: The Afghan Walk is a rhythmic breathing technique
synchronized with walking. It was born in the 1980s on the basis of
the observations made by the Frenchman Édouard G. Stiegler, during his
contacts with Afghan caravaners, capable of making walks of more than
60 km per day for dozens of days.Isabel Conway, "Stepping out the
Afghan way".'The Irish Times', Apr 20 2010
[
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/stepping-out-the-afghan-way-1.654699]
* Backward walking: In this activity, an individual walks in reverse,
facing away from their intended direction of movement. This unique
form of exercise has gained popularity for its various health and
fitness benefits. It requires more attention and engages different
muscles than forward walking, making it a valuable addition to a
fitness routine. Some potential benefits of retro walking include
improved balance, enhanced coordination, strengthened leg muscles, and
reduced knee stress. It is also a rehabilitation exercise for certain
injuries and can be way to switch up one's workout routine.
Biomechanics
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Human walking is accomplished with a strategy called the double
pendulum. During forward motion, the leg that leaves the ground swings
forward from the hip. This sweep is the first pendulum. Then the leg
strikes the ground with the heel and rolls through to the toe in a
motion described as an inverted pendulum. The motion of the two legs
is coordinated so that one foot or the other is always in contact with
the ground. While walking, the muscles of the calf contract, raising
the body's center of mass, while this muscle is contracted, potential
energy is stored. Then gravity pulls the body forward and down onto
the other leg and the potential energy is then transformed into
kinetic energy. The process of human walking can save approximately
sixty-five percent of the energy used by utilizing gravity in forward
motion.
Walking differs from a running gait in a number of ways. The most
obvious is that during walking one leg always stays on the ground
while the other is swinging. In running there is typically a ballistic
phase where the runner is airborne with both feet in the air (for
bipedals).
Another difference concerns the movement of the centre of mass of the
body. In walking the body "vaults" over the leg on the ground, raising
the centre of mass to its highest point as the leg passes the
vertical, and dropping it to the lowest as the legs are spread apart.
Essentially kinetic energy of forward motion is constantly being
traded for a rise in potential energy. This is reversed in running
where the centre of mass is at its lowest as the leg is vertical. This
is because the impact of landing from the ballistic phase is absorbed
by bending the leg and consequently storing energy in muscles and
tendons. In running there is a conversion between kinetic, potential,
and elastic energy.
There is an absolute limit on an individual's speed of walking
(without special techniques such as those employed in speed walking)
due to the upwards acceleration of the centre of mass during a stride
- if it is greater than the acceleration due to gravity the person
will become airborne as they vault over the leg on the ground.
Typically, however, animals switch to a run at a lower speed than this
due to energy efficiencies.
Based on the 2D inverted pendulum model of walking, there are at least
five physical constraints that place fundamental limits on walking
like an inverted pendulum. These constraints are: take-off constraint,
sliding constraint, fall-back constraint, steady-state constraint,
high step-frequency constraint.
Leisure activity
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Many people enjoy walking as a recreation in the mainly urban modern
world, and it is one of the best forms of exercise. For some, walking
is a way to enjoy nature and the outdoors; and for others the
physical, sporting and endurance aspect is more important.
There are a variety of different kinds of walking, including
bushwalking, racewalking, beach walking, hillwalking, volksmarching,
Nordic walking, trekking, dog walking and hiking. Some people prefer
to walk indoors on a treadmill, or in a gym, and fitness walkers and
others may use a pedometer to count their steps. Hiking is the usual
word used in Canada, the United States and South Africa for long
vigorous walks; similar walks are called tramps in New Zealand, or
hill walking or just walking in Australia, the UK and the Irish
Republic. In the UK, rambling is also used. Australians also bushwalk.
In English-speaking parts of North America, the term walking is used
for short walks, especially in towns and cities. Snow shoeing is
walking in snow; a slightly different gait is required compared with
regular walking.
Tourism
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In terms of tourism, the possibilities range from guided walking tours
in cities, to organized trekking holidays in the Himalayas. In the UK
the term walking tour also refers to a multi-day walk or hike
undertaken by a group or individual. Well-organized systems of trails
exist in many other European counties, as well as Canada, United
States, New Zealand, and Nepal. Systems of lengthy waymarked walking
trails now stretch across Europe from Norway to Turkey, Portugal to
Cyprus. Many also walk the traditional pilgrim routes, of which the
most famous is El Camino de Santiago, The Way of St. James.
Numerous walking festivals and other walking events take place each
year in many countries. The world's largest multi-day walking event is
the International Four Days Marches Nijmegen in the Netherlands. The
"Vierdaagse" (Dutch for "Four day Event") is an annual walk that has
taken place since 1909; it has been based at Nijmegen since 1916.
Depending on age group and category, walkers have to walk 30, 40 or 50
kilometers each day for four days. Originally a military event with a
few civilians, it now is a mainly civilian event. Numbers have risen
in recent years, with over 40,000 now taking part, including about
5,000 military personnel. Due to crowds on the route, since 2004 the
organizers have limited the number of participants. In the U.S., there
is the annual Labor Day walk on Mackinac Bridge, Michigan, which draws
over 60,000 participants; it is the largest single-day walking event;
while the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk in Maryland draws over 50,000
participants each year. There are also various walks organised as
charity events, with walkers sponsored for a specific cause. These
walks range in length from two miles (3 km) or five km to 50 miles (80
km). The MS Challenge Walk is an 80 km or 50-mile walk which raises
money to fight multiple sclerosis, while walkers in the Oxfam
Trailwalker cover 100 km or 60 miles.
Rambling
==========
In Britain, The Ramblers, a registered charity, is the largest
organisation that looks after the interests of walkers, with some
100,000 members. Its "Get Walking Keep Walking" project provides free
route guides, led walks, as well as information for people new to
walking. The Long Distance Walkers Association in the UK is for the
more energetic walker, and organizes lengthy challenge hikes of 20 or
even 50 miles (30 to 80 km) or more in a day. The LDWA's annual
"Hundred" event, entailing walking 100 miles or 160 km in 48 hours,
takes place each British Spring Bank Holiday weekend.
Walkability
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There has been a recent focus among urban planners in some communities
to create pedestrian-friendly areas and roads, allowing commuting,
shopping and recreation to be done on foot. The concept of walkability
has arisen as a measure of the degree to which an area is friendly to
walking. Some communities are at least partially car-free, making them
particularly supportive of walking and other modes of transportation.
In the United States of America, the active living network is an
example of a concerted effort to develop communities more friendly to
walking and other physical activities.
An example of such efforts to make urban development more pedestrian
friendly is the pedestrian village. This is a compact,
pedestrian-oriented neighborhood or town, with a mixed-use village
center. Shared-use lanes for pedestrians and those using bicycles,
Segways, wheelchairs, and other small rolling conveyances that do not
use internal combustion engines. Generally, these lanes are in front
of the houses and businesses, and streets for motor vehicles are
always at the rear. Some pedestrian villages might be nearly car-free
with cars either hidden below the buildings or on the periphery of the
village. Venice, Italy is essentially a pedestrian village with
canals. The canal district in Venice, California, on the other hand,
combines the front lane/rear street approach with canals and walkways,
or just walkways.
Walking is also considered to be a clear example of a sustainable mode
of transport, especially suited for urban use and/or relatively
shorter distances. Non-motorized transport modes such as walking, but
also cycling, small-wheeled transport (skates, skateboards, push
scooters and hand carts) or wheelchair travel are often key elements
of successfully encouraging clean urban transport. A large variety of
case studies and good practices (from European cities and some
worldwide examples) that promote and stimulate walking as a means of
transportation in cities can be found at Eltis, Europe's portal for
local transport.
The development of specific rights of way with appropriate
infrastructure can promote increased participation and enjoyment of
walking. Examples of types of investment include pedestrian malls, and
foreshoreways such as oceanways and also river walks.
The first purpose-built pedestrian street in Europe is the Lijnbaan in
Rotterdam, opened in 1953. The first pedestrianised shopping centre in
the United Kingdom was in Stevenage in 1959. A large number of
European towns and cities have made part of their centres car-free
since the early 1960s. These are often accompanied by car parks on the
edge of the pedestrianised zone, and, in the larger cases, park and
ride schemes. Central Copenhagen is one of the largest and oldest: It
was converted from car traffic into pedestrian zone in 1962.
In robotics
======================================================================
Generally, the first successful walking robots had six legs. As
microprocessor technology advanced, the number of legs could be
reduced and there are now robots that can walk on two legs. One, for
example, is ASIMO. Although there has been significant advances,
robots still do not walk nearly as well as human beings as they often
need to keep their knees bent permanently in order to improve
stability.
In 2009, Japanese roboticist Tomotaka Takahashi developed a robot that
can jump three inches off the ground. The robot, named Ropid, is
capable of getting up, walking, running, and jumping.
Many other robots have also been able to walk over the years like a
bipedal walking robot.
Mathematical models
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Multiple mathematical models have been proposed to reproduce the
kinematics observed in walking. These may be broadly broken down into
four categories: rule-based models based on mechanical considerations
and past literature, weakly coupled phase oscillators models,
control-based models which guide simulations to maximize some property
of locomotion, and phenomenological models which fit equations
directly to the kinematics.
Rule-based models
===================
The rule-based models integrate the past literature on motor control
to generate a few simple rules which are presumed to be responsible
for walking (e.g. “loading of the left leg triggers unloading of right
leg”). Such models are generally most strictly based on the past
literature and when they are based on a few rules can be easy to
interpret. However, the influence of each rule can be hard to
interpret when these models become more complex. Furthermore, the
tuning of parameters is often done in an ad hoc way, revealing little
intuition about why the system may be organized in this way. Finally,
such models are typically based fully on sensory feedback, ignoring
the effect of descending and rhythm generating neurons, which have
been shown to be crucial in coordinating proper walking.
Coupled oscillator models
===========================
Dynamical system theory shows that any network with cyclical dynamics
may be modeled as a set of weakly coupled phase oscillators, so
another line of research has been exploring this view of walking. Each
oscillator may model a muscle, joint angle, or even a whole leg, and
is coupled to some set of other oscillators. Often, these oscillators
are thought to represent the central pattern generators underlying
walking. These models have rich theory behind them, allow for some
extensions based on sensory feedback, and can be fit to kinematics.
However, they need to be heavily constrained to fit to data and by
themselves make no claims on which gaits allow the animal to move
faster, more robustly, or more efficiently.
Control based models
======================
Control-based models start with a simulation based on some description
of the animal's anatomy and optimize control parameters to generate
some behavior. These may be based on a musculoskeletal model, skeletal
model, or even simply a ball and stick model. As these models generate
locomotion by optimizing some metric, they can be used to explore the
space of optimal locomotion behaviors under some assumptions. However,
they typically do not generate plausible hypotheses on the neural
coding underlying the behaviors and are typically sensitive to
modeling assumptions.
Statistical models
====================
Phenomenological models model the kinematics of walking directly by
fitting a dynamical system, without postulating an underlying
mechanism for how the kinematics are generated neurally. Such models
can produce the most realistic kinematic trajectories and thus have
been explored for simulating walking for computer-based animation.
However, the lack of underlying mechanism makes it hard to apply these
models to study the biomechanical or neural properties of walking.
Horses
========
The walk is a four-beat gait that averages about 4 mph. When walking,
a horse's legs follow this sequence: left hind leg, left front leg,
right hind leg, right front leg, in a regular 1-2-3-4 beat. At the
walk, the horse will always have one foot raised and the other three
feet on the ground, save for a brief moment when weight is being
transferred from one foot to another. A horse moves its head and neck
in a slight up and down motion that helps maintain balance.
Ideally, the advancing rear hoof oversteps the spot where the
previously advancing front hoof touched the ground. The more the rear
hoof oversteps, the smoother and more comfortable the walk becomes.
Individual horses and different breeds vary in the smoothness of their
walk. However, a rider will almost always feel some degree of gentle
side-to-side motion in the horse's hips as each hind leg reaches
forward.
The fastest "walks" with a four-beat footfall pattern are actually the
lateral forms of ambling gaits such as the running walk, singlefoot,
and similar rapid but smooth intermediate speed gaits. If a horse
begins to speed up and lose a regular four-beat cadence to its gait,
the horse is no longer walking but is beginning to either trot or
pace.
Elephants
===========
Elephants can move both forwards and backwards, but cannot trot, jump,
or gallop. They use only two gaits when moving on land, the walk and a
faster gait similar to running. In walking, the legs act as pendulums,
with the hips and shoulders rising and falling while the foot is
planted on the ground. With no "aerial phase", the fast gait does not
meet all the criteria of running, although the elephant uses its legs
much like other running animals, with the hips and shoulders falling
and then rising while the feet are on the ground. Fast-moving
elephants appear to 'run' with their front legs, but 'walk' with their
hind legs and can reach a top speed of 18 km/h. At this speed, most
other quadrupeds are well into a gallop, even accounting for leg
length.
Walking fish
==============
Walking fish (or ambulatory fish) are fish that are able to travel
over land for extended periods of time. The term may also be used for
some other cases of nonstandard fish locomotion, e.g., when describing
fish "walking" along the sea floor, as the handfish or frogfish.
Insects
=========
Insects must carefully coordinate their six legs during walking to
produce gaits that allow for efficient navigation of their
environment. Interleg coordination patterns have been studied in a
variety of insects, including locusts ('Schistocerca gregaria'),
cockroaches ('Periplaneta americana'), stick insects ('Carausius
morosus'), and fruit flies ('Drosophila melanogaster'). Different
walking gaits have been observed to exist on a speed dependent
continuum of phase relationships. Even though their walking gaits are
not discrete, they can often be broadly categorized as either a
metachronal wave gait, tetrapod gait, or tripod gait.
In a metachronal wave gait, only one leg leaves contact with the
ground at a time. This gait starts at one of the hind legs, then
propagates forward to the mid and front legs on the same side before
starting at the hind leg of the contralateral side. The wave gait is
often used at slow walking speeds and is the most stable, since five
legs are always in contact with the ground at a time.
In a tetrapod gait, two legs swing at a time while the other four legs
remain in contact with the ground. There are multiple configurations
for tetrapod gaits, but the legs that swing together must be on
contralateral sides of the body. Tetrapod gaits are typically used at
medium speeds and are also very stable.
A walking gait is considered tripod if three of the legs enter the
swing phase simultaneously, while the other three legs make contact
with the ground. The middle leg of one side swings with the hind and
front legs on the contralateral side. Tripod gaits are most commonly
used at high speeds, though it can be used at lower speeds. The tripod
gait is less stable than wave-like and tetrapod gaits, but it is
theorized to be the most robust. This means that it is easier for an
insect to recover from an offset in step timing when walking in a
tripod gait. The ability to respond robustly is important for insects
when traversing uneven terrain.
See also
======================================================================
* Arm swing in human locomotion
* Duckwalk
* Footpath
* Gait training
* Hand walking
* Hot Girl Walk
* Kinhin
* List of longest walks
* New Urbanism
* Obesity and walking
* Pedestrian village
* Pedestrian zone
* Preferred walking speed
* Student transport
* Tobler's hiking function
* Walkability
* Walkathon
* Walking audit
* Walking bus
* Walking city
* Walking tour
External links
======================================================================
* [
http://www.eltis.org European Local Transport Information Service]
(Eltis) provides case studies concerning walking as a local transport
concept.
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_
