Who Can Outrun Your House Cat?

This weekend, Olympic 100-meter sprinters from across the world gathered together in Tokyo to fight for gold. For the first time in Olympic history, Italy won the gold medal in the men's 10,000-meter race, with Lamont Marcell Jacobs running the race in 9.80 seconds. After setting an Olympic women's record with a time of 10.61 seconds, Elaine Thompson-Herah won gold, silver, and bronze in the women's event, leading a clean sweep.

Both of them, however, have little chance of touching Usain Bolt's legendary track and field career. As of 2017, the world's fastest man retired. The Olympic 100 meter champion was clocked at 9.58 seconds. At just under the maximum speed of a house cat, that speed of 27 miles per hour maxes out. Bolt, the world's fastest animal, wouldn't be able to win against cheetahs and pronghorns, the world's two fastest animals.

In reality, it's not about the size of the muscles. It relies on how quickly an animal can move. To some degree, this is true, but an elephant will never be able to outrun a gazelle. This brings us to the last question: how fast can it go?

The prospect of running a 100-meter dash in 9 seconds is almost impossible.

To find out which rules of nature control animal maximum running speeds, a team of scientists, headed by biomechanist Michael Günther of the University of Stuttgart, recently began researching this topic. A sophisticated model, which takes into account size, leg length, muscle density, and more, was presented in recent research in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

This study uncovers new insights into the biological evolution of legged animals and their gaits, and this information may be utilized by ecologists to understand how population, habitat, and community dynamics in various species are affected by speed limits on animal movement. Bipedal walking robots and prostheses may benefit from the knowledge of nature's optimum body forms for speed.

According to Günther, the project aims to understand the causes of evolution, and why and how it forms the body. "Mechanistically, if you pose this question, you may contribute to your knowledge of how the human body is designed by evolutionary necessities, for example, how quickly it can move."

The research done before, conducted by Myriam Hirt of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, showed that an animal's metabolism is a crucial component of speed. There was discovered to be a correlation between body mass and how long it takes bigger animals to exhaust their fuel supply. Muscle weariness is a well-known term in this context. One might speculate that, because of the high speeds involved, a human could have outrun a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Nevertheless, Günther and his colleagues disputed the findings. It is quite possible that another explanation might be given using just the principles of classical physics, and that is what he means when he says, "I believe we might be able to offer another explanation." Using this biomechanical model, which has over 40 distinct factors about body shape, running geometry, and the opposing forces operating on the body, they created a biomechanical model.

Robert Rockenfeller, a mathematician from the University of Koblenz-Landau, has commented on the study's findings, stating that the "basic idea" is that two factors limit the maximum speed. The first force is a drag, or air resistance, which acts on each leg to oppose the body's forward motion. Since drag does not grow with bulk, smaller animals have speed limiters. Air drag prevents you from running as quickly as you are heavy if you are endlessly heavy, claims Rockenfeller.

Inertia, the reluctance of an item to accelerate from a state of rest, is a second characteristic that is involved in the process of increasing mass. Rockefeller quotes, "The animal has a time restriction in which to raise its mass: midstance is the point when the animal's foot is flat on the ground to liftoff, the point when the animal's foot leaves the ground. The heavier an animal is, the harder it is to overcome inertia. Because they have less mass, smaller bodies have the edge in this scenario.

The research suggests that the weight at which both inertia and air drag are overcome falls between 110 and 130 pounds. When you consider the weight of both cheetahs and pronghorns, it's not a coincidence that their average weight is the same.

This team Günther also found theoretical maximum speeds for various body forms weighing 100 kilograms, or 220 pounds. This house cat can run up to 46 miles per hour, while a giant spider could only sprint at about 35 miles per hour if its legs were capable of supporting its weight. The human body design ranks lowest among the 100-kilogram average in this category: We can only go approximately 24 miles per hour at our weight.

However, although the size of the body is important when it comes to increasing your speed, it is not the only characteristic that must be taken into consideration. This model included the length of the legs, as well. Longer-legged animals can propel their bodies further and stay in the air long before taking off their feet, increasing the amount of time they have to accelerate to liftoff.

According to Günther, four-legged animals are capable of running quicker than humans since our torsos are positioned upright and therefore experience gravity's full power. Since bipedal animals are more interested in balance and stability than speed, their spinal systems have evolved to become stiffer. While animals whose trunks are parallel to the ground have developed more flexible spines that are optimal for prolonged foot contact with the ground, animals whose trunks are perpendicular to the ground have flexible spines that are more suited for prolonged foot contact with the ground.

However, muscular tiredness concerns remain. "It has no impact," Günther explains. They claim that no animal runs out of fuel until it has reached at least 90% of its maximum speed. As far as we know, Mr. Hirt has not responded to our request for an interview about this study.

Ecologist Carl Cloyed, who researches animal movement at Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama, believes that a biomechanical explanation is more appropriate than a muscle that runs out of fuel from an evolutionary perspective. He expects that creatures have presumably developed to deal with this, although he does admit that additional study is required to test the new theory.

When it comes to experimental testing, Günther and Rockenfeller agree: they both agree that further studies are required to validate their findings, and they believe they have provided a solid model for other researchers to test in the future. However, scientists agree that doing this would be difficult. According to Cloyed, either capturing animals in a laboratory or utilizing high-quality recordings of them running to observe their biomechanics would be required to evaluate their movement biomechanics. Animals might best be studied by implanting sensors in their muscles and following them in their natural habitat. This, however, poses serious logistical and ethical issues, Günther explains.

Looking forward to seeing how this research is extended to various forms of locomotion, especially swimming and flying, Cloyed also wants to see how this analysis plays out. This explanation must also be valid in other environmental media if it is correct, according to him.

Is there anybody on the track that could break Usain Bolt's record? In any case, we aren't going to get any quicker than that. We have already reached the limit of what is feasible for human bodies in terms of the biomechanics of sprinting. When someone new claims the record for the fastest, only humans will be allowed to hold the title. We are the same as all other animals in the animal world.