UKH

Random thought that occupied part of my run this morning......Are bigger or smaller feet most beneficial to efficient fast running do you think ?

Ignoring the fact that bigger feet will weigh slightly more, and the shoes will also weigh more, from a pure bio-mechanical point of view which would be best ?

Animals that run fast, eg cheetahs, greyhounds, etc, all have very small feet ( relative to humans ), would they run faster if they had longer feet, and if so why have they not evolved with them bigger ?

Obviously if feet are too big they will start to be a hindrance, and for humans I'd of thought if too small you wouldn't get enough of a push off. But what size is optimum for say a 6ft guy ?

So for us probably somewhere in the range that exists. If you were a top athlete would you rather have size 8 or size 12 ?

ps I'm size 10.5 so maybe slightly larger than average, but not too much.

In reply to steelbru:

Usain Bolt has big feet, Mo Farah has little feet, make of that what you will!

In reply to The New NickB: Running long distances wears your feet out?

In reply to MG:

very good

In reply to steelbru:

I've got size 11.5 (UK) feet I'm sh1t at running but quite good at standing up & walking when I'm not off my threepenny bits . hope that helps .

In reply to boogie man:

I've got 11.5 feet and I am good at standing up and running!

In reply to steelbru:

"Animals that run fast.... all have very small feet ( relative to humans ), would they run faster if they had longer feet, and if so why have they not evolved with them bigger"?

You have a bit of a misunderstanding there about what constitutes a Cheetah or greyhound foot. The bits on the ground (the Paw) are just the ends of their fingers and toes. That's not some sort of backwards second knee up above the ground you know! This stance is called digigrade and is faster, the flat footed thing we do is called plantigrade and is slower but more stable.

In reply to parkovski: Plus 1.