Saturday, August 01, 2009

Why didn't they just say so

Why do people swing their arms as they walk? Some research has been done and it seems that the effort of not swinging one's arms is greater than the effort involved in swinging them. Towards the end of the report it also mentioned that not swinging one's arms actually increased the effort taken by the lower half of the body to keep everything working smoothly. I wonder if that was balance they were talking about - and if it is, why didn't they just say so?

1 comment:

Deb said...

an aquaintance of mine lost an arm to cancer a few years ago. She found that her balance was affected because she had no arm to swing (and not because she had no arm to counterbalance) Her solution? Pretend her arm was still attached and swinging in tandum with her existing arm - she now reports no balance issues.
As to the experts - why say in one sentence what you can get a $1000000 grant for and write up in a report.