Biomechanics: History, Sports Performance & Human Movement, Application & Injury Prevention
A Brief explainatation of Biomechanics by Dr. Neeraj Mehta (Ph.D.)
What is Biomechanics?
Biomechanics is the study of how living things move through the lens of mechanics, or how they work (Hatze, 1974). Mechanics is a subfield of physics that deals with how things move and how forces make things move. Forces that are put on living things can make them move, help them grow and develop in a healthy way, or cause them to hurt themselves. Biomechanics helps you understand how living things move and how kinesiology professionals can improve or make movement safer.
What is the history and invention of Biomechanics:
The field of biomechanics has a long history. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) classified animals’ bodies as mechanical systems and explained muscular action using geometric analysis in his “De Motu Animalium.” Archimedes, a 287–2I2 B.C. scientist, invented modern swimming.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), the discipline’s originator, researched anatomy in relation to mechanics. His studies of joint function and muscle forces along origin-insertion lines were also carried out. From 1564 to 1672, Galileo (1564–1642), Newton (1642–1726), and Borelli (1608–1679) all made substantial contributions. Scientists already know how weight gain affects bone strength and structure thanks to Galileo and Newton. Borelli was the first to calculate human joint force and center of gravity. Julies Wolff developed Wolff’s law, which outlines the link between trabecular bone geometries and mechanical stimulation on bone based on observations gathered throughout his lengthy experience as a surgeon. M. E. Muybridge studied human and animal motion using early photography and the earliest film project. AI Burstein and colleagues educated orthopaedic surgeons biomechanical concepts in the 1960s.
Borelli, Giovanni Alfonso, is frequently referred to as the “founder of biomechanics.” He was born in 1608 in Naples. His 1680 book De Motu Animalium expanded Galileo’s rigorous analytical methods developed in mechanics to biology. Borelli estimated the equilibrium forces required in various joints of the human body long before Newton wrote The Laws of Motion.
Borelli was the first to recognize that the musculoskeletal system’s levers magnify motion rather than force, requiring muscles to generate far greater forces than those resisting the motion. Borelli died on December 31, 1679, in Rome, but his tremendous body of original work inspired a large number of subsequent scientists, microscopists, and inventors. The Giovanni Borelli Award is the American Society of Biomechanics’ highest accolade.
What is human biomechanics?
In human biomechanics, we look at how forces work on the body’s musculoskeletal system and how the body’s tissues respond to these forces. Biomechanics can be thought of in terms of external or internal biomechanics based on the forces that are used to move and posture.
What is Biomechanics in terms of Physics
Biomechanics is the study of the mobility of body segments and the internal and external forces that operate on them during activity. Biomechanics also enables physical educators to find exercises and physical activities that aid in the development of particular muscle groups and fitness components. Real-world movement demonstrations and common teaching cues are utilized to demonstrate how biomechanics is applied to physical education in the real world.
Components of Biomechanics:
Motion: Motion is defined as the movement of a body or an item through space. Acceleration and speed are important aspects of motion.
Force: Force is a push or pull that causes a person or item to accelerate, slow down, halt, or change direction.
Momentum: Momentum is the product of a weight and its velocity when moved.
Levers: Our arms and legs function like levers; a lever consists of three parts: the resisting arm, the fulcrum, and the axis of rotation.
Being steady is what it means to be in balance. The alignment of the body’s center of gravity over the base of support is a fundamental balancing concept. A strong sense of balance is essential for many athletic and fitness activities.
Biomechanics provides critical information regarding the most effective and safest movement patterns, equipment, and exercises for enhancing human movement.
Individuals require assistance in optimizing human movement, and this assistance necessitates an understanding of “why” and “how” the human body moves.
Because biomechanics equips kinesiology professionals with a substantial amount of knowledge and a number of the skills necessary to address these “what works?” and “why?” questions, biomechanics is a critical science for resolving human movement problems.
Is There a Purpose for Biomechanics Study?
A wide number of scientific disciplines are interested in biomechanics (for example, kinesiology, engineering, physics, biology, and zoology). Academics from several fields are interested in animal movement for various reasons. Animal movements excite many people, and biomechanics is a fascinating field because of this.
Kinesiology biomechanists have long been interested in applying biomechanics to sports and exercise. Human movement can be broken down into two broad categories: performance enhancement and injury prevention or treatment.
Performance Enhancement
There are numerous methods for enhancing human movement performance.
Movement is a combination of anatomical, neuromuscular, physiological, and psychological/cognitive components.
Changing one’s technique and following instructions are common recommendations from kinesiologists.
Biomechanics is most beneficial in sports and activities where technique, rather than physical structure or physiological capacity, is the most essential determinant in performance improvement.
Consider a situation in which a coach is working with a gymnast who is having difficulty with her back handspring. After watching multiple attempts, the instructor thinks that the angle of departure from the round-off and the body arch are incorrectly executed. They must decide whether to focus on the gymnast’s takeoff angle or more back hyperextension in the block. The coach’s experience indicates that this athlete is strong enough to perform this skill. The coach uses his expertise in biomechanics to assist in this situation’s qualitative analysis. After the round off, the coach decides to help the gymnast work on athlete “arch” since he knows that a better arch influences both the force the gymnast creates against the mat and the angle at which athlete takes off.
Applied biomechanics in the design of new sports equipment has resulted in significant improvements in performance.
Sporting equipment must be tailored to each individual player, so rackets for children are smaller and lighter than those for adults.
Advances in exercise and conditioning programs are another way biomechanics research helps athletes perform better. In order to improve performance, biomechanical studies of exercise movements and training devices are used.
Comparing biomechanical research on exercises to research on sports and activities is commonplace. When biomechanical research is used in the design of exercise programs, strength and conditioning professionals can more effectively apply the principles of specificity.
Injury Prevention
Biomechanics can also be used in the area of movement safety or injury prevention/treatment. Studying injury data has traditionally been done by sports medicine professionals in an effort to determine the possible causes of disease or injury (epidemiology).
Sports medicine’s quest to prevent and treat injury has a powerful ally in biomechanical research. Preventative and rehabilitation therapies are provided by biomechanical studies, which provide information on the physical properties of tissues as well as the mechanical loadings that occur during the movement of a person. Sports medicine physicians and epidemiological studies rely on biomechanical studies to support their hypotheses about possible injury mechanisms.R
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5908324/
https://www.sci-sport.com/en/theory/chapter-1-history-and-rise-of-biomechanics.php
https://techflow360.com/what-is-biomechanics-its-history-and-application/
https://www.isbglasgow.com/the-figures-behind-the-birth-of-knowledge-of-biomechanics/
http://biomechanics.vtheatre.net/doc/history.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1607551X11001835
https://www.physio-pedia.com/Biomechanics_In_Sport
