Biomechanics

Hi everyone,

Biomechanics is an interesting and at times a complex element that is essential in sport science. It is the study of mechanical force in living bodies (Kerr, 2010). Within sport it allows us to understand how force can produce movement, lead to injury, prevent injury and in sport allow us to enhance our performance.

Some times some of the elements in biomechanics can be tricky but if you stick to the basic principles and take your time to develop your skills you will be fine.

Key areas to develop an understanding in are:

• Force
• Velocity
• Acceleration
• Projectile motion
• Newtons Laws
• Torque
• Centre of Mass
• Friction
• Moment of inertia
• Momentum

By understanding these key elements you will be able to to perform notational analysis for sport in a way to implement numerical models to sporting performance as well as being able to watch athletes and devise a  technical model to help them improve their sporting performance. In order to do this you must be able to have great coaching skills and comfortable in providing feedback in a coach friendly way so that the athlete can benefit from the process and improve.

It is also worth noting that biomechanics has come a long way in its development and there is plenty of ways that video analysis and software such as quintic can assist the coach. For the novice out there wanting to improve or for the teacher in the classroom or sports hall/gym there are now numerous apps on the Apple store for iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro that can assist in educating your athletes as well as using the apps to coach and analyses their sporting performance.

Thanks,