Formenti Federico, Minetti Alberto E
Institute for Biophysical and Clinical Research into Human Movement, Manchester Metropolitan University Cheshire, Hassall Road, Alsager, Stoke-on-Trent, ST7 2HL, UK.
J Exp Biol. 2007 May;210(Pt 10):1825-33. doi: 10.1242/jeb.002162.
More than 3000 years ago, peoples living in the cold North European regions started developing tools such as ice skates that allowed them to travel on frozen lakes. We show here which technical and technological changes determined the main steps in the evolution of ice-skating performance over its long history. An in-depth historical research helped identify the skates displaying significantly different features from previous models and that could consequently determine a better performance in terms of speed and energy demand. Five pairs of ice skates were tested, from the bone-skates, dated about 1800 BC, to modern ones. This paper provides evidence for the fact that the metabolic cost of locomotion on ice decreased dramatically through history, the metabolic cost of modern ice-skating being only 25% of that associated with the use of bone-skates. Moreover, for the same metabolic power, nowadays skaters can achieve speeds four times higher than their ancestors could. In the range of speeds considered, the cost of travelling on ice was speed independent for each skate model, as for running. This latter finding, combined with the accepted relationship between time of exhaustion and the sustainable fraction of metabolic power, gives the opportunity to estimate the maximum skating speed according to the distance travelled. Ice skates were probably the first human powered locomotion tools to take the maximum advantage from the biomechanical properties of the muscular system: even when travelling at relatively high speeds, the skating movement pattern required muscles to shorten slowly so that they could also develop a considerable amount of force.
三千多年前，生活在寒冷的北欧地区的人们开始研发诸如溜冰鞋之类的工具，使他们能够在结冰的湖面上行走。我们在此展示了哪些技术和工艺变革决定了滑冰性能在其漫长历史中的主要演变步骤。深入的历史研究有助于识别出与先前型号相比具有显著不同特征的溜冰鞋，这些溜冰鞋因此在速度和能量需求方面能够带来更好的性能表现。测试了五双溜冰鞋，从大约公元前1800年的骨制溜冰鞋到现代溜冰鞋。本文提供了证据表明，在历史进程中，在冰上移动的代谢成本大幅下降，现代滑冰的代谢成本仅为使用骨制溜冰鞋时的25%。此外，在相同的代谢功率下，如今的滑冰者能够达到的速度是他们祖先的四倍。在所考虑的速度范围内，每种溜冰鞋型号在冰上滑行的成本与速度无关，就像跑步一样。后一个发现，结合已被认可的疲劳时间与代谢功率可持续比例之间的关系，使得根据滑行距离来估算最大滑冰速度成为可能。溜冰鞋可能是最早充分利用肌肉系统生物力学特性的人力移动工具：即使在相对较高的速度下行驶，滑冰的运动模式也要求肌肉缓慢收缩，以便它们也能产生相当大的力量。
