My phone says I’ve been going up and down a 120-story building for three days straight. I hope my knees will forgive me. Since there was no internet, and I needed something to think about, a question started to bother me.
When climbing stairs, people often push on their thighs with their hands, pressing against the thigh of the leading leg as they step onto the next stair. Why does this work? From a physics perspective, there seems to be no point in doing it. Yet, it somehow makes the climb feel easier. I can’t understand why. The only hypothesis is the shift of the center of gravity slightly forward, but then pressing on the thighs really shouldn’t be necessary, yet everyone does it.
Any ideas?
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 