Read on: danhwilliams.com

Read time: 2 minutes

We lived in London when our kids were under 5yrs..
It was a great place to live at that age.

Playgrounds, parks, fountains, trains and museums…
Lots for the kids to do.
 
The Natural History Museum was a firm favourite..
They LOVED the big blue whale (main hall).
 
Scampering up the steps
Looking down on that majestic skeleton.
 
And, of course, the dinosaur fossils. Simply captivating.
That same visit I looked up at the massive T Rex ‘skeleton’

I was drawn to T Rex's hips. Naturally..
AND I recognised the shape..


T Rex had a CAM!
 
The same CAM shape we looked at last week.. 
[Click pic + Scroll]

Lots of questions..
Did T Rex get hip pain?
Is that why he or she was so bad tempered..?!
Grrr..
 

That led me to pay more attention to this excellent review article..
A paper on evolution, published in June 2011..
 
..IN AN ORTHOPAEDIC JOURNAL!

WHAT'S that doing in there..?!
(Bone + Joint surgeons.. not renowned for their evolutionary interest)
 

Well, the authors analysed the skeletons of 22 mammalian species
From woolly rhinoceros to grey kangaroo
From beavers to humans.
 
The runners + bouncers
The swimmers + climbers (us).
 
And the differences in hip anatomy are super interesting: 
 
Runners + bouncers

• => off-centre head on a short femoral neck

Swimmers + climbers

• => a round head on a long neck

T Rex was a runner

I was looking up at an off-centre head 
..on a short fat T Rex femoral neck.
 
A classic cam deformity.


So, did T Rex get hip pain?
 
Maybe.
 
But far more likely..

T Rex kept her or his hip movement
..within a limited range.
 
Makes sense.
(..and there's perhaps a lesson in that for us all)
 
That goes the same for the other running mammals in the 2011 study:

• Wolf, Malayan bear, Polar bear, Cave lion, Badger
• Wild boar, Camel, Goat, Bison, Giant deer 
• Woolly rhinoceros + Horse.

 
Most mammals do NOT need a large range of hip movement.

 
So where do we fit in?

We’re a 'climber', right?
 
So we have a round hip. Just like..

• Gorillas
• Orangutans
• Chimpanzees 

Indeed, the authors saw only round hips in the climbing apes.
 
However, 1 in 5 male humans..
[Click + Scroll]
 
Have an off-centre head / short femoral neck.
1 in 5 male humans have a cam deformity.

Not to the extent of this Woolly Rhino..
(a severe cam)

BUT 1 in 5 males have a tendency toward that non-spherical shape.
With hips a bit like T Rex, the woolly rhino and horse.
 
We are.. ‘running apes’.

How does that cam shape hip happen?
i.e. how do we as climbers, get runner shaped hips?
 
To understand that we need to look at academy footballers.
That's coming up..


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