Why do we swing our arms when we walk/run?
In: Other
Balance and efficiency.
You move your arms opposite your legs – right leg/left arm forward, left leg/right arm forward. As your hips/ legs rotate one direction, your arms/torso rotates the opposite direction. This reduces the angular momentum of the body, and keeps you balanced.
[Read more here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_swing_in_human_locomotion?wprov=sfla1)
Swagger mostly. And some scienctist at some point said something balance. I donno. I have noticed people that dont swing their arms are usually low in confidence and self esteem.
Walking is really controlled falling – you lift a foot and move it forward, then allow gravity to pull you forward and down.
We move our arms as well to act as counterweight to make sure you’re only falling forward and not sideways.
You don’t *need* to do this since there’s enough fine motor control in your legs and core to balance anyway, but it makes it easier.
I’ll just copy paste my answer to this from almost a year ago.
Swinging your arms while walking is not an active phenomenon. It means that you consume negligible energy to swing your arms while walking. It’s much like a pendulum. And allowing your arms to swing has been found to enhance torso stability. Research also found it enhances gait stability and reduces energy consumption due to minimizing the increase in angular momentum. In fact, anatomical studies found that your upper body cooperates with your lower body while walking to reduce energy expenditure, and stabilize and smoothen your gait. So to ELY5, swinging your arms is a physically natural response to walking as you swing your legs as well, and it requires minimal muscle tone maintenance (very low energy expenditure to maintain) and inhibiting or refraining from arm swinging destabilizes your gait (gait is walking pattern basically) making you feel unnatural or weird. It’s also a bit of a complicated response involving your latissimus dorsi muscle on your back, so besides the actual arm swinging, shoulder movement itself is important. That is why when your hands are in your pocket you don’t feel as weird, as you still move your shoulders.
Latest Answers