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Thinking about Biomechanics
Why Biomechanics?
This is the first article in a regular series in which Steve Stanley of siliconcoach will
explore aspects of biomechanics.
Although physical educators love to move, studying movement from a biomechanical perspective
is not something many teachers get excited about, subsequently neither do their students. The
subject matter is often considered hard and complex and this is probably justified given the
equations and calculations many of us were presented with when studying the topic. It does
however, have the potential to be one of the most interesting areas of study within Physical
Education. Subjects like anatomy, physiology, history, health and the others, while all essential,
are not as responsive to an intervention as biomechanics. For example, have someone run
between cones with a ball held in two hands and then again without a ball and you will instantly
see different movement strategies being used. This facet of biomechanics can be used as a tool
to help you present concepts more effectively.
Now we see it has potential, what actually is Biomechanics? We use this term, and many others,
such as Kinesiology, technique analysis, movement analysis or skill analysis all the time but what
do they really mean? Kinesiology (literally, the science of movement) is the scholarly study of
human movement and biomechanics is one of its academic sub disciplines (Hay, 1985. Knudson,
2003). To find the root of the word ‘biomechanics’ we need to go back in time. The term
‘mechanics’ is used as a description for a branch of physics that is concerned with the motion of
objects that are acted on by forces. The concept dates back to Archimedes (287 - 212 BC)
although more recent major contributions were from Galileo in the 16th century and Newton in the
17th century (Ozkaya & Nordin, 1999). Bio-mechanics combines the principles of mechanics with
the fields of biology and physiology and can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th
century (Ozkaya & Nordin, 1999). Two common areas within biomechanics are Kinematics,
which is used to describe motion and Kinetics, which considers the forces and masses in the
analysis.
Now we know what it is we are talking about, why should we study it? There are many reasons
to study movement and these range from community health through to elite sport or just for the
sheer joy of studying the human body. With regard to community health, there are an increasing
number of initiatives to get people active and moving so it is important that when they move they
move correctly. Considering correct technique in the overall health plan can perhaps increase
enjoyment and participation and also reduce a potential abundance of overuse injuries that may
occur as an inactive population gets moving.
Another reason to study movement relates a desire to improve performance. We often watch
people undertaking complex movements in dance or sports and talk about the skilled performer
having better form or ‘flow’ than a lesser skilled performer. However, when it comes to a
biomechanical perspective we are really talking about the pattern or sequence of movements
someone uses to perform a skill (Carr 2004). How good someone will get at a skill depends on
both their genetic endowment and what they learn, how much influence each has on the overall
performance is unknown. What we do know is that we are all given a genetic window of potential
and physical educators can have a huge impact as to where the student lies within that window,
therefore it is important that they have a good understanding of the movement sciences.
We can also be interested in movement analysis just because we appreciate the human body.
Physical educators may be interested in movements ranging from an intricate dance piece to
leisure walking. Perhaps too often we underestimate just how amazing our bodies actually are.
The best engineers in the world have only just managed to create a robot to ‘look and walk’ at a
very basic level, to have it hold a conversation and chew gum at the same time is far beyond its
capabilities, something the human body does almost automatically. The human body is the most
complex thing that any of us will ever operate; it comes with no user manual but only our innate
gene coded potential and what we learn. We can’t easily change our genes so our best options
to improve performance are teaching and learning.
Perhaps what is needed is a new way of presenting this topic to make it understandable and
exciting for teachers and thereby creating a flow on effect to the students. Over the next 5 issues
we will be bringing you short articles like this one with the sole purpose of trying to make this topic
easier and fun, no equations, no maths, just concepts and then activities to reinforce them.
Bibliography
Hay, J. G. (1985). The biomechanics of sports techniques (3rd Edition). New Jersey: Prentice
Hall Inc.
Knudson, D. Fundamentals of biomechanics. (2003). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Publishers.
Carr. G. (2004). Sport mechanics for coaches (2nd edition). Champaign: Human Kinetics.
Ozkaya, N., & Nordin, M. (1999). Fundamentals of biomechanics: Equilibrium, motion and
deformation (2nd edition). New York: Springer-Verlag.
www.wikipedia.org
Richardson, J. A. History of Biomechanics and Kinesiology. Retrieved September 2007 from
http://www.usd.edu/~jarichar/HIST.html
Steve Stanley is a graduate of the School of Physical Education at Otago University and has a
background in research and education. He now works for siliconcoach Ltd designing software
and creating video analysis resources for education, sports, clinical and retail. He can be
contacted on [email protected].