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Wednesday, 1 July 2009

Round and round


Peter Hallberg, Stockholm, Sweden

(Image: dlritter, stock.xchng)


I once read that the right leg is stronger than the left leg. As silly as it may sound, this may make it easier to run in counter-clockwise circles.
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 30, 2008 10:17 AM  
I believe it is because when the runners are nearest a spectator, that spectator will percieve the runners as moving left to right - the same direction our eyes move when we read.
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 30, 2008 1:32 PM  
Maybe there is a correlation between handedness and preference for running either left or right. I know I have a strong tendency to start running counter clockwise for a race in an open field because for some reason it seems more natural. If you are right handed you most likely have a preference for your left foot as well. So, if you run counter clockwise, your left foot would be on the inside of the track and would take more force when turning a bend. I happen to be right handed and so are most people. It seems like this can be easily tested and proven.
I think tracks should be modified to a figure-of-8 shape. In cycling too. It could lead to some interesting clashes as long distance fields start spreading out...
By Anonymous Pop the question on October 30, 2008 4:01 PM  
The Coriolis effect? Falsifiable by finding out whether they go the other way in the southern hemisphere.
It would be because of the left half of the human body is slightly heavier than the right because of the heart and when running anticlockwise, the body would tend to very slightly incline towards the left, which could be an advantage while running anticlockwise
Why would the heart make the left side of the body heavier than the right side. Most organs in the body have about the same density as water.
My guess is historical accident. An arbitrary choice that has been copied over and over again (probably with some exceptions).

As for the second answer, it's worth noting that some languages are read right to left -- there's no inherent preference for left to right, just experience with the local language.
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 30, 2008 7:51 PM  
Because if you ran clockwise the lane numbers would be upside down, which might confuse the runners.
The same question might be asked about running bases in baseball, the board game Monopoly, etc.
When the eyes move from left to right they move smoothly, but when they move right to left they do so in a series of small jerks. (This isn't noticeable at short range and doesn't affect reading, so readers of Arabaic and Hebrew aren't disadvantaged, but it can be seen through binoculars when, for example, birdwatching, when scanning along a shoreline). I think this would make it easier to watch a race going from left to right, and might explain the direction of athletics races.
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 30, 2008 8:44 PM  
Horse tracks and automobile tracks also run counterclockwise, so it most likely has nothing to do with the human body's ability to turn one way or the other.
It could have something do with occular balance, looking over your shoulder left might be easier or more efficient. All of these sports feature at least a human rider, driver, or runner.
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 30, 2008 8:51 PM  
All F1 race tracks run clockwise apart from Sao Paolo and Istanbul. Why I don't know. Myself, I prefer left turns on foot, bicycle and car.
By Anonymous Humphrey van Polanen Petel on October 30, 2008 9:12 PM  
Race tracks for athletes follow the rules for cars, vehicles, walkers and cyclists on roads in USA and most other countries. It is natural to follow established rule of surface travel followed since birth. – Ravinder Singh inventor
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 30, 2008 11:56 PM  
Speculating on a paleotologic level -- for many thousands of years when fleeing or pursuing, mankind used hand held weapons that required short range use. To run with a clockwise drift would have tended to place the foe or prey to his left, requiring him to flail across his body resulting in a shorter reach and greater danger, both decided disadvantages. To run counterclockwise would have allowed the reverse, significant advantages. Albeit incremental it's factors like these that fostered survival. Just a thought.
By Anonymous Brabenec on October 31, 2008 12:50 AM  
Of course it favours certain runners. And of course it wouldn't be too hard to fix this by selecting a random direction for every race.

But tradition and fairness usually don't mix.
When learning to fly I always found that left hand turns were easier to perform than right hand ones. Hmm....
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 31, 2008 9:48 AM  
This can be best explained when you think of 'learning to ride bicylce'. A learner always rides from the left for which she might tilt the cycle a bit, prefers a left-turn, falls less dangerously if falls towards the left. Remember the cyclist in the 'death well'. Always left.

So I think its not matter of preference. Something to do with the centre of gravity of body.
I think it is just a matter of tradition. It has no logic behind it.
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 31, 2008 12:26 PM  
European horsetracks run clockwise. It's strange watching after being accustomed to US horsetracks or athletics events.
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 31, 2008 12:34 PM  
In military parades it seems to be the tradition to march so that you have the king or general on your right hand side when passing him. This is probably both due to the salutation by the right hand and that it's easier to present weapons (held in the right hand) this way. On an arena this translates into a counterclockwise march.
By Anonymous Anonymous on October 31, 2008 1:50 PM  
"European horsetracks run clockwise."

Not true.
Maybe you run counterclockwise because you "run against the clock!"
By Anonymous Stroemme on October 31, 2008 5:44 PM  
Its the for the same reason we keep to the left - to keep our right sword-hand ready for a fight.
I don't know if this have something to do with it but, in most ancient cultures, anti-clockwise is considered the natural movement of the universe (see for example the Swastika), and it's supposed to be a pattern of that movement in nature like, for example, the flow of the blood on the circulatory system.
By Anonymous Anonymous on November 02, 2008 3:26 PM  
As a younger man football (soccer) was one of my favourite sports. When heading a ball from a corner it felt much more comfortable to head it on my left side rather than right. Don't know why but are there any other footballers who felt more comfortable heading the ball the other way? If so are you left or right handed?
By Anonymous Anonymous on November 03, 2008 2:08 PM  
I run often and always in an anti-clockwise direction which I believe is due to the fact that I am right handed. My right leg feels stronger which fits turning in that direction, in the same way that racing cars put extra force on the front right wheel when turning in that direction. Maybe left handed runners are at a disadvantage?
It may tie in with handedness, which does extend to the lower limbs. A person, blindfolded, turned loose in an empty field, and set walking, will nearly always end up tracing a gradual circular or near circular path because the dominant half of the body will take slightly longer strides. This is normally offset when walking by our use of visual reference points, so the removal of reference points is needed to see it in effect. For the same reason, people lost in a forest, where there are no strong reference points, often end up "walking in circles."

Races longer than 100m require at least one turn in order to fit within the stadium, and as right-side body dominance is higher than left-side, it may have become a matter of the preference of the masses to work with their natural tendency to curve to the left rather than against. This may well work against lefties, who would have to fight the natural tendencies of their bodies.
By Anonymous Anonymous on November 06, 2008 8:51 PM  
I'm a runner (of no great talent) whose body is slightly larger on the left side. My left leg is, therefore, slightly longer than my right, so I'd appreciate it of running tracks were reversed, say every 10 years. I'm sure that I would be faster in a clockwise direction.

By the way, horse race tracks in Melbourne are anticlockwise but in Sydney they're clockwise.
It's just because most people are right-handed. Thus people who are right-hand will have a tendency to twist from right to left which a natural throwing motion
Maybe because the Earth travels around the sun counter clockwise, when viewed from "above" (north). Civilization just happened to develop in the northern hemisphere, so maybe we have a natural preference for counter clockwise movement. OK, it's a longshot.
from http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/histparks/ww/:

The William Whitley House, also known as Sportsman's Hill, stands today as a monument to pioneer ingenuity and resourcefulness. It was the first brick home and circular racetrack built west of the Allegheny Mountains, completed in 1794 by William Whitley and his wife Esther. Dubbed the "Guardian of Wilderness Road," the house was a gathering spot for early Kentuckians, including George Rogers Clark and Daniel Boone.


Short answer - whilst the origin of the anticlockwise bias may lie in the right-handed tendency of human beings, how and if the two are exactly related is somewhat unclear. Regardless, the present arrangement persists due to general agreement regarding the comparability of track events.

However this arrangement isn't entirely concrete. During endurance track competitions, i.e. 24hr+ races, the running direction is periodically reversed in order to mitigate unidirectional strain on the competitors' joints. Also as noted above, some non-athletic, track events including certain horse races and motor sports, e.g. the 24 Hours of Le Mans, are run clockwise.
By Anonymous Anonymous on January 12, 2009 12:10 PM  
The simple answer is tradition (which was based on false information).
In the Ancient Greek Olympics, there was no circuit to speak of and runners simply ran point-to-point. However, when the 1896 Games were held, historians falsely believed the Greeks ran counter-clockwise, and thus the running races were run counter-clockwise and have been since then.
By Anonymous M.F.Sharp on April 13, 2009 7:21 PM  
A race is like an unfolding drama and, as the Olympic tradition was begun by people who read from left to right, it would have been more natural for spectators to see athletes passing in the same direction. Given that dignitaries would have been sitting close to the finish line, it appears that the ancient Greek hippodrome was designed for anticlockwise racing.

The convention was sustained by the Romans, but clockwise racing has had its devotees too. Races at the University of Oxford were run clockwise until 1948 and ceased even more recently at the University of Cambridge. Races at the modern Olympic games were run clockwise until 1906, when some countries complained that they had already adopted the anticlockwise convention.

Mike Follows, Willenhall, West Midlands, UK
A common misconception about the origin of the modern elliptical running track is that it was based on the running track at the original ancient Olympic games. In fact, the running track for the prestige foot race (the stade) in the main ancient Panhellenic athletic festivals was almost invariably straight.

What was more or less elliptical, however, was the hippodromos, or chariot-racing track, and the shape of this was copied by the Romans for the main racetrack in Rome, the circus maximus. This was roughly rectangular - it had two long straight sides with semicircular ends.

Illustrations of four-horse chariot races from the Roman period show that races were run anticlockwise. The most likely reason for this was the way in which the horses were controlled. The charioteer needed to control the reins of the two outer horses of the four. It was very important to ensure that the length of the rein of the outer horse in particular was controlled as effectively as possible when the chariot rounded the turning post. Evidence from the ancient world suggests that there was a bias in favour of right-handedness, just as today, and an anticlockwise race direction would obviously favour the right-handed charioteer.

When the modern Olympic games were devised, longer races were introduced. The most economical way of creating a track suitable for a range of distances is to have a circular or elliptical one. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, fancied himself as a classical scholar and it is possible that he was influenced by ancient pictorial evidence into assuming that there was some aesthetic or traditional reason why races should be run anticlockwise.

Maya Davis, Brighton, UK
I'm a runner (of no great talent) whose body is slightly larger on the left side. My left leg is, therefore, slightly longer than my right, so I would appreciate it if running tracks were reversed. They could even alternate, say every 10 years. I'm sure that I would be faster in a clockwise direction. By the way, horse racetracks in Melbourne, Australia, are anticlockwise but in Sydney they're clockwise.

Terry L, By email, no address supplied
Motor races tend to be clockwise, except in the US where oval racing is prevalent and then they are anticlockwise. What this tells us, however, I have no idea.

Thomas Keaton, São Paulo, Brazil
I read once that when people are walking (and so presumably running) in what they think is a straight line, they are actually veering slightly to the left. This might be related to the right leg being stronger, which many people have already suggested. This could make it seem more natural to run in an anti-clockwise direction, or at least give some sort of subconcsious bias which made it a more likely choice than clockwise. If it is a result of the right leg being stronger, then I am basically giving the same argument again, but if it isn't then this effect could be greater as the combined result of the two.

The other answers have shown that anti-clockwise isn't a automatic and universal choice, so I am thinking that if there is a natural preference then it is most likely to be of the subconscious bias type. There is also, of course, a very good possibility that there is no particular reason behind it, or that it had a cultural reason rather than a reason of natural preference.
By Anonymous Anonymous on July 01, 2009 9:52 PM  
I think when I figure out why things go down the drain the way they do .. and where they do .. I'll have found a tool for gravitation. Which might have had some effect in right-handed (legged?) selection and CCW tracks.

By Anonymous Anonymous on July 01, 2009 10:07 PM  
Why do we favor calling a particular circular direction as if we all were taking the vantage point of being "above" or "outside", be it a galaxy or solar system, or a path on the ground, or the turning of a key?
By Anonymous Anonymous on July 02, 2009 12:18 AM  
90 percent of americans for example are
Right handed. Also right footed. In a
Desert you would eventually walk in a
circle due to the fact that your right
Side of your body is pulling you to the
Right. Ha- quoted from birthday boy at a
Bar. Science man
By Anonymous Anonymous on July 02, 2009 2:59 AM  
In some of the States of Australia horse races are conducted clockwise, in others anticlockwise.

On the other hand (or foot) as far as I know all military forces that march in step do so by stepping off with the left foot first. Why is that?
By Anonymous Anonymous on July 02, 2009 5:14 AM  
It is because of human heart incliend toward right from the left irrespetive of fact that one is left or right. When spinter sprinting due to centrifugal force human heart remains in that the position if he/she sprints in anticlockwise direction and no damage caused due to the speed of runing. That's what was thought by olympic federation and laid rules. Hence races are anticlockwise direction. But in realty heart and surrounding connecting tissues and muscles are so strong that it can easily withstand any force acting on the heart due to run. This thought by olympians is seems too much use of science in making complexity analyisy of simple things. No casualty reported due to sprinting clockwise.
Isn't Japanese and Chinese writing vertical? Therefore they don't read left-to-right. So their running tracks should also be vertical, or nearly so, perhaps going downhill. Surely that would help set some records too.
By Anonymous Anonymous on July 02, 2009 4:27 PM  
A lot of comments about why clockwise/anti-clockwise but no one has answered: are some runners favoured?.

Some thoughts:
1. Sure, some runners have one leg longer or stronger, but does that actually equate to an advantage?
2. The curve is fairly gradual, so perhaps can it be regarded as straight locally anyway?
3. Having an asymmetric body may be a disadvantage on the straights compared to someone symmetric (poorer technique perhaps).
4. Finally, if there is an advantage, is it significant/material?
By Anonymous Anonymous on July 04, 2009 7:46 AM  
If the outter leg ran 10cm wider than the inner leg on the curves, it would run an extra 63cm in total (per lap).

Interestingly, this is independent of the size of the circle being run around and is simply 10cm*pi*2=63cm.
If the track was as big as a planet, the outer leg would still only have to travel an extra 63cm!

Do runners run with one foot in front of the other, or slightly aside? I do not know, but running say an extra 63cm per lap with the weaker leg could be the difference between winning and losing.
By Anonymous Anonymous on July 04, 2009 8:40 AM  
In occultism, going anticlockwise is associated with the left-hand path, i.e. with evil. If there is anything in that idea, all those millions of people looking at athletes going withershins around stadia are contiually replenishing the magic potential for evil.

Even if this is nonsense, the people who set things up this way, may belive it works.
By Anonymous Anonymous on July 05, 2009 11:43 AM  
re the plane-turning comment... I was taught that small planes turn easier in one direction due to the airflow from the prop being somewhat spiral in nature, causing an asymmetrical drag/lift on one side. There is commonly a fixed trim tab on the tail to offset this. Then there is the precession of the motor/prop mass that rotates in one direction, but my physics isn't up to analyzing the effect!
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