018 Jakarta Asian Games is coming to an end. When you watch the track and field competition, it is not difficult to find that whether it is 400 meters, 800 meters, or 5000 meters, athletes run in the plastic track in the counterclockwise direction .
And when you exercise and run in the playground, most people run counterclockwise or walk quickly, but they will occasionally encounter a few people running opposite.
In addition to trying to hold them and turn them back in the right direction, have you ever wondered why everyone is running counterclockwise?
In fact, counterclockwise running was stipulated when the IAAF was officially established in 1912, requiring that "the direction of racing must be based on the inside of the left hand." This regulation has also been included in the AAF rules and has been used to this day.
So what scientific basis is there for counterclockwise running? Let’s come one by one below.
Phyalmic factors
I wonder if you have tried comparing your own counterclockwise and clockwise running scores? You may very likely find yourself running faster counterclockwise.
This is related to the physiological structure of a person. First of all, there is a saying that the center of gravity of a person is relatively left, and we are more adapted to the movement of turning left, so the results will be slightly better than turning right. There are also sayings that the functions of the left and right legs are different, the left leg supports well, and the right foot has a larger span. In life, people are more accustomed to using the left arm and left foot as the axis (think of the athletes holding discus with the right hand in the rotation movement, they usually rotate counterclockwise to the left).
Cause of habits
In daily life, most people are used to using right-hand work. In terms of brain structure, the human brain is divided into two hemispheres, where the left brain controls the movement of the right half of the body, while the right brain controls the movement of the left half of the body.
Not only that, the left brain is also mainly responsible for our advanced thinking activities, which over time increases the burden on the left brain. At the same time, the human body is also trying hard to balance the functions of the left and right brains, which makes some people feel that the left limbs are more powerful than the right ones (just like when starting at the 100-meter meter, most athletes use their left leg as a back kick), so when running counterclockwise, the left leg can overcome the centrifugal force of the body well and avoid tilting inward.
Interestingly, from a historical perspective, it is said that when soldiers ran in ancient Greece, they needed to hold a shield in their left hand. In order to avoid collision and injury, they used counterclockwise running.
There is also an irresponsible explanation, which is that most people start running from the outside of the track. People always get on the track and run in the right direction when they get on the track, of course they run counterclockwise.
Although the arguments about why you run counterclockwise are different, in order to avoid uneven force on both legs caused by running in one direction, you might as well walk around occasionally and try to run in the opposite direction!
