Does an unpowered clutch engage a spring in parallel with the Achilles tendon when the foot is on the ground, offloading the calf muscles and making walking easier?
<a href="https://www.cmu.edu/me/news/archive/2015/collins-clutch.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cmu.edu/me/news/archive/2015/collins-clutch.html</a><p>A more conventional article about the device and related paper.
I've studied a number of martial arts and body work disciplines. One thing we did was teach people is to walk more efficiently - it's not hard given that the average person just follows the example of their peers and then allows habitual muscle tension to gradually interfere.<p>The thing about this device is I suspect that even if did work, it would just allow people to just further lower their level of coordination and ultimately have rather poor health results.
Here's a link to the nature article:
<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14288.html#figures" rel="nofollow">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...</a>
I wonder if they also increase the efficiency of running. Maybe the first marathon runner to break the 2-hour barrier will be wearing them.<p>If the efficiency increase is significant, I could see it becoming common to wear for commuting to work. You could run longer distances with less wear on your body.
"Download the high resolution of the image"<p>Unfortunately, the "high" resolution only holds for the x and y dimensions, not the t dimension.
interesting. I didn't know that an unpowered clutch engages a spring in parallel with the Achilles tendon when the foot is on the ground, offloading the calf muscles and making walking easier.