Why do people move their arms when they walk?

Moment Of Um

Lemonada Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2024

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Let’s say you’re watching a bunch of people run a marathon. The runners are pumping their legs, sure. But they’re also swinging their arms. Why is that? And why do we swing them when walking too? We asked Rachel Adenekan of Stanford University to help explain why that swinging motion is so universal. Got a Moment of Um question that’s keeping you at arm’s length? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll point a finger at the answer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of um.
0:06.7	Answering those questions that make you go.
0:27.4	Moment of um um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Ruby Guthrie.
0:28.9	Um.
0:40.8	So I says to him, I says. No, not sourdough. Rye. It has to be the rye. To completely different types of bread.
0:47.9	Completely different. Thanks for letting me vent. It's so nice to get outside for a few minutes.
0:53.8	I live for our morning walks. Look at us. We're completely in sync. Like two little chickadees.
0:56.0	Clucking along. Clucking along. Our steps completely in sync. Like two little chickadees. Clucking along. Clucking along.
0:57.0	Our steps are in sync.
0:58.0	Our arms are in sync.
0:59.0	And we even think the same thoughts.
1:02.0	Get out of my head.
1:04.0	I can't.
1:06.0	Hello Brains-on. My name is Kadiri from Astoria in New York.
1:10.0	And my question is, how come when we walk,
1:13.5	our hands always move back and forth? Yeah, this is a great question. I've wondered it as well,
1:20.1	and it ties into biomechanics, which is what I studied. Hi, I'm Rachel Adenica, a fourth-year
1:26.5	PhD candidate at Stanford University's Biomechatronics Lab and also the Neuromuscular Biomechanics Lab.
1:33.3	We tend to swing our arms while walking in order to make it easier for us to balance and conserve energy.
1:40.3	It's actually easier to balance and easier to conserve energy when we move our arms normally than if we try to hold our arms still.
1:48.9	When you're moving and swinging your arms, you're not actively trying to move your arms.
1:53.2	It's a natural motion that they just swing with you.
	...

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