We don’t do it efficiently or effectively would be better than saying we cannot do it.
It’s only useful for going downhill quickly which we’ve all subconsciously or perhaps even mindfully done.
From your link:
> Gallopers exerted that effort unevenly, with the front leg doing more work than the back leg. And the galloping stride, researchers saw, demanded more from the hips than running did.
This tired people out quickly. Out of 12 treadmill gallopers in the study, 4 gave up before the end of their 4-minute session, complaining of fatigue and stress in their hips and thighs.
(An intended 13th galloper couldn't figure out how to gallop on the treadmill belt in the first place.)
When researchers calculated their subjects' metabolic rates, they found that galloping was about 24% more costly than running at the same speed. In other words, galloping burns up more energy, takes more effort, and is less comfortable than running.
> Because humans have limbs of moderate length and cannot gallop
Yes, we don't because it's not great, but that's not the same as not being able to. (This is very pedantic sorry, it's just a stronger claim than it needs to be which bothers me).
Also, I wonder if that changes if you have very uneven leg lengths?
I mean, this is a bipedal gallop, standing upright. What if someone were to train for running on both their hands and feet, the way a horse, dog, or cheetah does? I’ve seen a video of a young woman doing this, and it looked very uncomfortable/unnatural and it was frankly terrifying to imagine a human running at you in this way.
Mechanically it seems like the advantage would be using more muscles and being able to take advantage of your core and upper body when pushing off in addition to the legs. landing seems like it would be a challenge as fingers aren’t really made for that.
“The winning time was fitted to a rational fraction curve for the quadruped records (r2 = 0.823, adjusted r2 = 0.787, F = 26.9, P < 0.05) and to a linear curve for the biped records (r2 = 0.952, adjusted r2 = 0.949, F = 336.1, P < 0.05; Figure Figure1).1).”
Unfortunately, a linear extrapolation implies that at some time, the bipedal 100m will take negative time…
I saw a video about that which claimed that 4-legged running is in general faster than 2-legged running. The video concluded that it might be possible for humans to "run" faster with 4 limbs rather than 2 limbs, if trained properly. Btw they also mentioned the record in 100m 4-limb running is something over 15s.
I've genuinely wondered whether humans could "run" faster if they employed full body flex and did a sort of springing cartwheel, using all the muscles in their body to propel them forward.
Imagine a slinky, but more elastic and with better roll.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/why-humans-pre...
https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/216/7/1338/12063...