GRADES 9-12
BIOMECHANICS OF JOINTS

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: What Is Sport Biomechanics? Is it a good idea to imitate the performance of a tennis champion? Are there training techniques which limit your chance of athletic injuries? What are the best methods to teach basketball? Why should I teach tennis differently then the way I learned it? How many hours should you train a day? These are the types of questions a sport biomechanist studies. What is sport biomechanics and what does a sport biomechanists do? A sport biomechanist is a scientist or researcher that studies human motion or sports performance. There are also biomechanists that study human motion in industrial settings or work in "ergonomics". These biomechanists study equipment design in the workplace and focus on improving worker performance by reducing fatigue or discomfort. There are scientists that study animal and even plant biomechanics! For example, studies have been conducted on how a tree's structure develops or how fluid flows through a tomato. Biomechanics is an "interdisciplinary field" combining several different sciences. Clearly, the human performance aspect of biomechanics requires a good understanding of anatomy (the science of the structure and parts of a living organism) or physiology (the biological study of the functions of living organisms). However, biomechanics also includes the part of physics known as mechanics. Mechanics analyzes how forces affect objects both at rest (statics) and in motion (dynamics). Both internal and external forces create motion and so do a person's muscles. Putting it all together sports biomechanics is the study of how internal and external forces affect the motion and performance of the human body in an athletic endeavor. Biomechanics is part of a field called kinesiology which is the study of human movement. Kinesiology is a very broad area and includes exercise physiology, motor development, motor learning, psycho-social studies, A biomechanist also needs to be knowledgeable and comfortable with the tools of the trade: math, computer science, and statistics.