Cheetah’s are known as some of the fastest animals in the world
It’s estimated that cheetahs top speed can reach up to 80 mph & they can accelerate from 0 to 60 in ~3 seconds. Being that cheetahs can accelerate faster than most cars, it’s of interest to understand how they do it
Cheetahs are literally built for speed. They are light weight & have lean legs to reduce wind resistance. Their claws basically act as cleats as they rip through the surface. They have mobile hips and shoulders blades to allow free movement of the spine
But the magic is in their head & spine
The head is small, lightweight, and aerodynamic. They keep a long neck & the head extremely still when running allowing the eyes to stay focused & let body work. A still and relaxed head is something that is cued in top track athletes. Their spine is the longest and most flexible of any mammalian species. It bunches and coils almost like a coiled spring to store & release stored elastic energy — this allows them to maximize stride length & rate. The leg muscles are also packed with Type IIB fast twitch fibers that allow them maximize speed & power. They also have a low moment of inertia as they have thick, strong proximal parts of limbs and thinner distal parts of limbs allowing them to whip the limb back around with the least amount of resistance to angular acceleration. Something also seen in human sprinting
When running on force plates compared to greyhounds, cheetahs ground contact time is actually slightly longer creating a larger impulse and using more force to propel the body forward. This allows them to hit that second gear & allows their muscles to withstand the high force
Another interesting fact about cheetahs is that the ones raised in captivity are actually pretty slow(~40mph). They don’t have to feed themselves so their nervous system never develops to run as fast as wild cheetahs. This is valuable information for development of humans as well
The cheetah is built to run fast. That’s what it is made to do. It would also be extremely valuable to have more insight on the cheetahs nervous system. Is there an increase in myelination allowing signals from the CNS to be sent at a faster rate to the PNS?
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