++
As seen by the kinesiologist, the human body is a highly complex
machine constructed of living tissue. As such it is subject to the
laws and principles of mechanics as well as those of biology. The
principles of mechanics are directly applicable both to the movements
of the human body and to the implements it handles. Principles of
balance and equilibrium, motion, and the application of forces apply
equally to people in motion as they do to rockets and wheels, gears
and missiles. A study of the fundamental principles of mechanics
as they apply to movement skills will aid the teacher, therapist,
and coach in the analysis of skills for the intelligent evaluation
of technique and correction of error. Applications in research can
lead to the determination of the relative merits of existing techniques
as well as to the development of techniques yet unknown.
++
Interest in mechanical analysis and study as part of physical
education was due in large measure to the influence of three pioneers.
C. H. McCloy, from the University of Iowa, toured the country in
the late 1930s and 1940s giving lectures with demonstrations showing
specific ways in which performance could be improved by the application
of appropriate mechanical principles. He was the first to develop
a course in the mechanical analysis of motor skills. Pioneer efforts
in cinematographic analysis by Ruth Glassow at the University of
Wisconsin also contributed to interest in the application of the
fundamental principles of mechanics and physics to sports skills
among physical educators in the United States. During this same
period Thomas Cureton, whose undergraduate degree was in electrical
engineering, taught mechanics of sports and physical activities at
Springfield College. His research and writing at this time concentrated
on the applications of physics to physical education and on the
principles of cinematographic analysis (Atwater 1980). During the
1950s and early 1960s, research on the mechanics of sports activities
increased in scope and variety as others became involved and as
methodology and equipment improved, but it was in the late 1960s
and early 1970s that a lively interest in the mechanical analysis
of humans in motion emerged. Graduate programs designed to prepare
specialists in the mechanics of human motion appeared, and the results
of vastly improved research methodology, technology, and instrumentation
became apparent in a growing body of literature. There was a new
area of study that many have named biomechanics of sport and others
have called mechanical kinesiology.
++
In the branch of science called biomechanics, the principles
and methods of mechanics are applied to the structure and function
of biological systems. Because biology is concerned with all living
things, biomechanics is a very broad branch of science, and the
biomechanics of sport is only one of the applied areas in which
applications are made of the same common core of knowledge and fundamental
research found in physics, mathematics, anatomy, and physiology.
Other fields of applied biomechanics include industrial engineering
and ...