By: Jake Schramm and Liam Schaberg YOU BETTER RUN By: Jake Schramm and Liam Schaberg

Objective When you are running on the sports field or getting away from your little brother, you want to run as fast as you can, right? The point of our project was to decipher which initial positioning of your feet provides you with the quickest acceleration to acquire with speed. We wanted to know which of these five stances is the most effective. Feet narrow Feet wide Right foot forward Left foot forward Jumping We wanted to discover this for our experiences while playing soccer and trying to score on a header, lacrosse with cutting to get a pass, baseball when stealing a base, and basketball when creating space from your defender to get the open jumper.

Research You use your legs and arms to run fast, they are like pendulums. They move at a 90 degrees angle back and fourth and the shorter they are the faster they can go because if it is shorter the mass at the bottom is faster. To shorten the pendulums to make you faster by bending your knees a lot, if you watch some of the fastest runners like Usain Bolt they bend their knees very high to increase their speed.

Research Cont. Here are some key words that have to do with this experiment. Acceleration is increase in rate of speed of something or the rate of change of velocity per unit of time. Motion is a change in position of an object with respect to time and its reference point. Potential energy is the energy of an object of a system due to the position of the body of arrangements of the particles of the system. Kinetic energy is the energy an object possess while in motion. Mechanical energy is the sum of potential energy and kinetic energy. Power is the rate at which energy is transferred, used, or transformed. Velocity is the rate of change of the position of an object a lot like speed.

Research Cont. All of these definitions are very important to this project; we are testing which stance is the most important for acceleration and velocity. While running you use the power of your in motion legs. While running you are using kinetic energy but while standing still about to run the race you are using potential energy and the sum of using both of those is mechanical energy. Running isn’t all about your legs it also has to do with how you move your arms and torso and if it is in an efficient manner, also while running to be faster you can lean forward but you must lean with your whole body not just your upper body but if you do this correctly you will be a more successful runner, these are some variables that some of our subjects might have done or not done which would make some results random and uncalled for.

Hypothesis This is what we thought the rankings from slowest to fastest would be for this experiment. We thought the slowest would be the wide stance, then feet together, then strong foot forward, then jumping, then the fastest was strong foot back. We thought that it would be in this order for many reasons. The slowest being a wide stance because starting from a wide stance it is difficult to push forward instead of side ways because your feet are so far apart. The next we thought would be feet together because it is awkward to push off with both feet at once and then land on one foot. The middle one being strong foot forward because having both feet a good distance apart and one forward is good except that you push off from that stance with your back foot and that being your weak foot for this trial it will not be super effective.

Hypothesis Cont. Next was jumping and we said that because you can begin landing in any formation but the down side of that is it is difficult to land and immediately push off so you will have to take an extra millisecond and on a 20 yard race that is a lot. Lastly the most effective one would be strong foot back because as I said it is good to have your feet a reasonable distance apart and one foot in front. That’s not even the best part, the best part is you start from that stance from your back foot pushing off and in this stance your strong foot is back so we think that this stance will be the most effective for running a short sprint. That is what we thought would be the most efficient way to start a race.

Procedure We researched acceleration and wrote the research. We wrote the in order to obtain a hypothesis. We got all of our materials and went down to the little field to do trials. We measured out 20 yards with a tape measurer We had 1 heat of 7 people running 2 trials for each stance. We had Jake Schramm recording all the data and 2 timers one managed by Liam Schaberg and the other managed by Nicholas Cicero. We averaged out all of the data. We wrote all of the observations and conclusions. Finally displayed everything on the board.

Observations For the observations we found that from slowest to fastest it was wide, jumping, strong foot forward, together, and strong foot back. These results fit into our hypothesis pretty well. We predicted that from slowest to fastest it would be wide, together, strong foot forward, jumping, strong foot back. The only thing that we mixed up was we thought that jumping would be the second fastest but it was really the fourth fastest and we thought that together would be fourth fastest but it was really second fastest. Below is the hard data that we took while doing the trials.

Acceleration Graph

Conclusion Throughout the duration of our project, we asked ourselves these different questions: Which of these positions is the most effective for sprinting? Which of these positions is the most consistent? From best to worst which works the best? Why were the ones that were successful so productive? Was our hypothesis correct, and if not what did we predict incorrectly and why?  

Cont. In the end we figured out the answers to all 5 of these questions through the operation of our procedure. We concluded that strong foot back was the most effective of the other five of these positions because of the quick burst of acceleration as soon as possible for the fastest time. Our data from our observations is demonstrating the fact that putting your strong foot forward is the most consistent of all of these five positions because then you have an even range of getting off at the same speed as before. The order of these stances put from most effective to least effective is 1. Strong foot back 2. Together 3. Strong foot forward 4. Jumping 5.Wide Strong foot forward was the best because your feet are a good distance apart and you are pushing off of your strong foot. Second fastest was having your feet together because you are already leaning forward and leaning forward is a crucial part acceleration. Next was strong foot forward because you are in a good stance, Then it was jumping because when you land in any particular position of your choice, you already have momentum and velocity. Finally, a wide stance is the slowest of the five because you have your feet in a wide position and cannot lean forward without falling. You also are positioned in a way that you are not ready to quickly push off to begin your sprint.

Cont. In our hypothesis we thought that the order from best to worst would be Strong foot back Jumping Strong foot forward Feet together Feet wide Although the raw data provided was We went wrong with jumping and feet together. With feet together it provides you with a good leaning forward position as well as a quick push of with both of your feet rather than one of them.

Citation "Mechanical Energy." Wikipedia. N.p., 9 Apr 2013. Web. 17 Apr 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_energy>.