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Hand walking is an unusual form of human locomotion in which a person travels in a vertically inverted orientation with all body weight resting on the hands. It can be executed with legs fully extended or with variations such as stag, straddle or front splits. Hand walking is performed in various athletic activities, including acro dance and circus acrobatics.
Hand walking is a skill that relies on a prerequisite ability to perform handstands, which in turn requires adequate upper body pressing strength in the deltoids and triceps as well as a heightened sense of balance and spatial awareness. Because the body is inverted during hand walking, blood pressure in the brain is greater than normal.
Hand walking often elicits automatic, alternating leg movements similar to upright bipedal locomotion. Research shows that these leg movements are caused in part by neural coupling between arm and legs. [1]
As with other physical skills, one must practice hand walking in order to become proficient and develop adequate endurance. Handstands and hand walking are often learned at the same time because hand walking can be used to help maintain balance in a handstand before one learns to perform a stable handstand. Balance can also be maintained by varying the arch of the back.
Some quadrupeds are able to walk bipedally on their forelimbs, thus performing "hand" walking in an anthropomorphic sense. For example, when attacked, the spotted skunk may rear up and move about on its forelimbs so that its anal glands, capable of spraying an offensive oil, are directed towards the attacker. Dogs, cats and sea lions can also be trained to walk on their forelimbs.
Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where a tetrapod moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped, meaning 'two feet'. Types of bipedal movement include walking or running and hopping.
Walking is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an "inverted pendulum" gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb or limbs with each step. This applies regardless of the usable number of limbs—even arthropods, with six, eight, or more limbs, walk. In humans, walking has health benefits including improved mental health and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and death.
Gait is the pattern of movement of the limbs of animals, including humans, during locomotion over a solid substrate. Most animals use a variety of gaits, selecting gait based on speed, terrain, the need to maneuver, and energetic efficiency. Different animal species may use different gaits due to differences in anatomy that prevent use of certain gaits, or simply due to evolved innate preferences as a result of habitat differences. While various gaits are given specific names, the complexity of biological systems and interacting with the environment make these distinctions "fuzzy" at best. Gaits are typically classified according to footfall patterns, but recent studies often prefer definitions based on mechanics. The term typically does not refer to limb-based propulsion through fluid mediums such as water or air, but rather to propulsion across a solid substrate by generating reactive forces against it.
A handstand is the act of supporting the body in a stable, inverted vertical position by balancing on the hands. In a basic handstand, the body is held straight with arms and legs fully extended, with hands spaced approximately shoulder-width apart and the legs together. There are many variations of handstands, all of which require the performer to possess adequate balance and upper body strength.
Robot locomotion is the collective name for the various methods that robots use to transport themselves from place to place.
Knuckle-walking is a form of quadrupedal walking in which the forelimbs hold the fingers in a partially flexed posture that allows body weight to press down on the ground through the knuckles. Gorillas and chimpanzees use this style of locomotion, as do anteaters and platypuses.
A freeze is a b-boying technique that involves halting all body motion, often in an interesting or balance-intensive position. It is implied that the position is hit and held from motion as if freezing in motion, or into ice. Freezes often incorporate various twists and distortions of the body into stylish and often difficult positions.
Terrestrial locomotion has evolved as animals adapted from aquatic to terrestrial environments. Locomotion on land raises different problems than that in water, with reduced friction being replaced by the increased effects of gravity.
A facultative biped is an animal that is capable of walking or running on two legs (bipedal), as a response to exceptional circumstances (facultative), while normally walking or running on four limbs or more. In contrast, obligate bipedalism is where walking or running on two legs is the primary method of locomotion. Facultative bipedalism has been observed in several families of lizards and multiple species of primates, including sifakas, capuchin monkeys, baboons, gibbons, gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees. Several dinosaur and other prehistoric archosaur species are facultative bipeds, most notably ornithopods and marginocephalians, with some recorded examples within sauropodomorpha. Different facultatively bipedal species employ different types of bipedalism corresponding to the varying reasons they have for engaging in facultative bipedalism. In primates, bipedalism is often associated with food gathering and transport. In lizards, it has been debated whether bipedal locomotion is an advantage for speed and energy conservation or whether it is governed solely by the mechanics of the acceleration and lizard's center of mass. Facultative bipedalism is often divided into high-speed (lizards) and low-speed (gibbons), but some species cannot be easily categorized into one of these two. Facultative bipedalism has also been observed in cockroaches and some desert rodents.
Legged robots are a type of mobile robot which use articulated limbs, such as leg mechanisms, to provide locomotion. They are more versatile than wheeled robots and can traverse many different terrains, though these advantages require increased complexity and power consumption. Legged robots often imitate legged animals, such as humans or insects, in an example of biomimicry.
A limb is a jointed, muscled appendage of a tetrapod vertebrate animal used for weight-bearing, terrestrial locomotion and physical interaction with other objects. The distalmost portion of a limb is known as its extremity. The limbs' bony endoskeleton, known as the appendicular skeleton, is homologous among all tetrapods, who use their limbs for walking, running and jumping, swimming, climbing, grasping, touching and striking.
The evolution of human bipedalism, which began in primates approximately four million years ago, or as early as seven million years ago with Sahelanthropus, or approximately twelve million years ago with Danuvius guggenmosi, has led to morphological alterations to the human skeleton including changes to the arrangement, shape, and size of the bones of the foot, hip, knee, leg, and the vertebral column. These changes allowed for the upright gait to be overall more energy efficient in comparison to quadrupeds. The evolutionary factors that produced these changes have been the subject of several theories that correspond with environmental changes on a global scale.
A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered appendage located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala are often described as having "hands" instead of paws on their front limbs. The raccoon is usually described as having "hands" though opposable thumbs are lacking.
Comparative foot morphology involves comparing the form of distal limb structures of a variety of terrestrial vertebrates. Understanding the role that the foot plays for each type of organism must take account of the differences in body type, foot shape, arrangement of structures, loading conditions and other variables. However, similarities also exist among the feet of many different terrestrial vertebrates. The paw of the dog, the hoof of the horse, the manus (forefoot) and pes (hindfoot) of the elephant, and the foot of the human all share some common features of structure, organization and function. Their foot structures function as the load-transmission platform which is essential to balance, standing and types of locomotion.
Crawling or quadrupedal movement is a method of human locomotion that makes use of all four limbs. It is one of the earliest gaits learned by human infants, and has similar features to four-limbed movement in other primates and in non-primate quadrupeds.
Arm swing in human bipedal walking is a natural motion wherein each arm swings with the motion of the opposing leg. Swinging arms in an opposing direction with respect to the lower limb reduces the angular momentum of the body, balancing the rotational motion produced during walking. Although such pendulum-like motion of arms is not essential for walking, recent studies point that arm swing improves the stability and energy efficiency in human locomotion. Those positive effects of arm swing have been utilized in sports, especially in racewalking and sprinting.
Rabo de arraia or meia-lua de compasso is a distinct technique found in the martial arts of engolo and capoeira, that combines an evasive maneuver with a reverse kick.
Interlimb coordination is the coordination of the left and right limbs. It could be classified into two types of action: bimanual coordination and hands or feet coordination. Such coordination involves various parts of the nervous system and requires a sensory feedback mechanism for the neural control of the limbs. A model can be used to visualize the basic features, the control centre of locomotor movements, and the neural control of interlimb coordination. This coordination mechanism can be altered and adapted for better performance during locomotion in adults and for the development of motor skills in infants. The adaptive feature of interlimb coordination can also be applied to the treatment for CNS damage from stroke and the Parkinson's disease in the future.
Aú is the capoeira term for a cartwheel. The purpose of the "aú" in capoeira includes mobility, offense and evasion. The aú has similarity to handstand in capoeira (bananeira), but it differs because the body rotates laterally with an energetic impulse.