The next steps for expanding and developing sport biomechanics

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews a series of sport biomechanics research projects with long-term support of the Japan Association of Athletic Federations (JAAF) on the feedback loop of sport biomechanics. The JAAF supported these studies focusing on providing feedback to athletes and coaches based on biomechanical data. The primary topics of discussion are the standard motion model for teaching and coaching, inter-individual motion variation and deviation, and classification of athletes’ motions. Additionally, a comment is presented on motion-decision criterion, or objective function for body segment recruitment with examples of running and jumping. This paper concludes with remarks on how to expand the research in sport biomechanics and how to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners. It is advisable for sport biomechanists to further explore biomechanical principles of human movement from the viewpoint of sports, to mutually understand features of research and practice sides and to be more involved in performance analysis and improvement in sports techniques.

KEYWORDS:

• Sports techniques
• improvement loop
• motion analysis
• standard motion-model
• athletics

Acknowledgments

I am thankful to the following people. The scientific committee of The Japan Association of Athletic Federations. Colleagues and graduate students at the Laboratory for Sport Biomechanics, University of Tsukuba, and at Nippon Sport Science University, Professors Dr. Peter R. Cavanagh and Dr. Richard C. Nelson at The Pennsylvania State University. Professors Kinpara, Shibukawa, and Kotoh, who were my academic advisers at the graduate school, University of Tsukuba, and translated Dyson's book “Mechanics of Athletics” into Japanese as a textbook when I was an undergraduate student at The Tokyo University of Education, and all the members of The International Society of Biomechanics in Sports for creating the gentle and friendly atmosphere.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.