Friends have asked me why do the characters playing the role of ninjas in the anime series Naruto run with their upper bodies tilted forward and their arms trailing behind them .
My explanation is thermodynamics er, excuse me po! I mean aerodynamics. It uses the same principle as skiers do when skiing at high speeds. Smaller body profile means smaller air resistance and increased speed.
Our upper body is a big flat wall (even if you are as thin as the loved and revered Mahatma Gandhi during his protest). And like all big flat walls, it resists air flow -- can you feel your wide high rise buildings tremble during windy days?
But the principles of aerodynamics is not the only one that helps you run faster. Gravity has the same effect as well.
When running with your upper body tilted forward, your center of gravity moves to the area forward of your feet. This will place you off balance which naturally requires you to put a foot forward to regain you balance. Add to that the pushing effect of your trailing foot that once more places the center of gravity ahead of your leading-catch-the-balance foot. Repeating this cycle at an increased pace moves your body forward at an increasing speed.
And that my friends is the explanation to how Naruto and his friends reach impossible speeds using the upper-body-tilted-forward posture. :)
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8 comments:
Now I know why i ran fast!why not try to help the coach of the Philippine Team in athletics to train thier athletes!
That's completely wrong. See, when you're leg automatically does that who "put one foot in front of the other to maintain balance", you're already using some of your strength, so the "added push" combined with that would be the same as normally running, Also, if anything, running with your body tilted forward would make you much less aerodynamic because you're still getting the whole width of your body along with the length of your back, so you would actually run slower. The whole thing is just not real, the speeds they reach aren't humanly possible, that whole "poke in the pressure point" isn't realistic, seeing as how it's almost impossible to be that accurate and the human body releases adrenaline, which would counteract that whole effect, and the running while leaning forward doesn't help. There's a reason why your body naturally pushes your arms forward as you run, it's to propel you and move your upper body from side to side (making you as aerodynamic as you can get. Hold a five pound weight in your hand and do a long jump, then do it without the weight, you'll see you'll go further. It's not natural for you to run the way they do and it's downright idiotic to do so, since it doesn't make you "reach great speeds and become more aerodynamic", it just brings you off balance.
thanks for the info pat. this puts things in a different light. please feel free to put in comments on the other concepts. have a good weekend.
I just watched an episode of Naruto Shippuuden and I was thinking how stupid it looks when they run. I mean where did creator come up with that? Is there some truth to it?
i thought its just reducing the things they've got to draw and animate.
i think that kaxier is right,they are just reducing their workload.It really looks idiotic,ecspecially when people really do it to try to run.its like "here it comes....OOHHH FACEPLANT!" I have seen it make people run SLOWER than usual.
The reason they do that is so that they can turn on a dime or at least be more agile. By swinging your arms back your can turn your body using your arms like a rudder, giving you agility at the cost of speed.You lose speed because you no longer have your arms acting like pendulums.
Ok, fair enough, but is that just you speculating or do/did some ninjas somewhere run like that? Have you seen this wacky concept anywhere except in Naruto?
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