You’re deliberately stepping in time with the metronome, which involves more steps per minute than default. I don’t have a deep explanation of how that translates into “gentler on your knees”; I guess something about your center of gravity going up and down less, and the way you’re leaning, and how your body is configured when you step, whatever.
My guess would be that running with a metronome forces you to shorten your stride, which makes your more inclined to hitting the ground toe first instead of striking with the heel.
This is the basis of the barefoot running movement.
Anecdata indicates plausibly that more of the shock is absorbed by the calf muscles instead of the knee. Over years of this, the meniscus (which has no pain nerves) wears out, exposing sensitive bone & cartilage, explaining the pain when old enough.
Even if your foot still hits the ground the same way, there’s less time between impacts. I think that means both (a) the total impact is spread over more events, which could be gentler and (b) the total impact is less, because gravitational acceleration is quadratic in time between steps.
What’s the mechanism here? Is it that wanting to keep time with the metronome shortens your stride?
You’re deliberately stepping in time with the metronome, which involves more steps per minute than default. I don’t have a deep explanation of how that translates into “gentler on your knees”; I guess something about your center of gravity going up and down less, and the way you’re leaning, and how your body is configured when you step, whatever.
My guess would be that running with a metronome forces you to shorten your stride, which makes your more inclined to hitting the ground toe first instead of striking with the heel.
This is the basis of the barefoot running movement.
Anecdata indicates plausibly that more of the shock is absorbed by the calf muscles instead of the knee. Over years of this, the meniscus (which has no pain nerves) wears out, exposing sensitive bone & cartilage, explaining the pain when old enough.
Even if your foot still hits the ground the same way, there’s less time between impacts. I think that means both (a) the total impact is spread over more events, which could be gentler and (b) the total impact is less, because gravitational acceleration is quadratic in time between steps.
There’s some research in this direction, which I haven’t looked into: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8329321/
I timed myself today and apparently I run around 190