Sport Science: Run Or Slide?
Published July 8, 2023, 10:20 p.m. by Arrik Motley
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here in the sports science lab we built
a special base pad with two tons of the
same custom dirt mix used in Yankee
Stadium and Dodger Stadium in our
designated runner is former college ball
player Jake wood three two one go
hitting a top speed of almost 18 miles
an hour
Jake runs through first then we had him
dive and die and die which method is
faster computer analysis of our
high-speed video reveals that when he
died
Jake covers the last 10 feet on average
in 270 milliseconds
is that faster than running through the
bag our testing reveals that when
running to first on average take covers
those last 10 feet in only 260
milliseconds that's 10 milliseconds
faster than diving what's surprising is
that when we overlay the high-speed
footage we see that as Jake dives he
actually pulls ahead but the moment his
feet leave the ground he decelerates
by 50% by remaining upright Jake takes
one more propulsive step forward and
maintains his velocity through the bag
diving is also riskier because when Jake
hits the ground too soon and slides into
the bag kinetic friction enters the
equation between his body and the dirt
increasing the rate of deceleration on
average by another 90% a
