Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Tomorrow officially marks a worldwide celebration commemorating the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birthday.
In celebration, the University of Utah held events today, and will finish tonight, presenting evidence from Utah and Harvard scientists on why, as humans, we were born to run.
"When it comes to endurance running, people are about the best runners on the planet; and that turned out to be incredibly surprising," said Dr. Dennis Bramble, professor of biology at the University of Utah.
It was also surprising Bramble's colleagues at Harvard. Together they have done a lot of research on human locomotion.
"As far as we can tell from the fossil record, the running actually takes over, and the body is rebuilt for running, before the brain actually shows major expansion," Bramble said.
Low shoulders; a flexible upper body; but more significantly, the muscle in our butts, called the gluteus maximus: this is why we can run and not fall forward on our faces.
"We're so good at it, all of us can sort of do it with making very few mistakes. It's almost miraculous," Bramble said.
He believes this modification in human architecture "kick started" the beginning of mankind. Even today, it surfaces in some of the best of athletes.
"I think there is a growing suspicion that there are a lot of genes, actually so-called genes, for exercise that we all carry, sort of our legacy of our evolutionary history," Bramble said.
So, if nature has modified our bodies in such a unique way that we are born to run, why do we sit day in and day out? Bramble says it's bad medicine. We need to get up and get out!
It's part of our mind-body programming. The need to exercise may be why seasoned endurance runners feel good when they run and depressed when they don't.
Want to hear more of Bramble's presentation? It's free and open to the public tonight at 7:30 at the Wilmot Skaggs Biology Auditorium on the University of Utah campus.
E-mail: eyeates@ksl.com
