Coto de Caza, a coastal valley in ours drive south of Los Angeles, California, is the home

of a unique sports research center, which is headed by psychologist Rick Brayton and

computer biomechanics pioneer, Dr. Gideon Ariel.

Dr. Ariel, what is biomechanics?

Well, literary, basically it's what the world say.

Biomeans life, mechanics mean the science of motions, the science of stresses.

So what we try to do is actually we're combining life with the physical laws that affect in

life and that's where the world comes biomechanics, the science of motions as related

to biological system.

Whatever happened in athletics, how far the shot go, how far the discus go, how far the

high jump go, it all depends on how much forces were produced to be able the object to move

and the object could be the human body, or could be a shot, could be a javelin, could

be a discus, could be a hammer, could be a frisbee.

We cannot see the forces, but we can calculate the forces.

When we're talking about biomechanics, we're talking about calculations of kinetic parameters

or the forces that are acting upon the body.

We're utilizing a high-speed firm using photography.

Now after we develop the firm, we can utilize an instrument which is called a digitizer.

You actually see the picture projected on the digitizer.

What we are doing, we're using a sonic pan to trace the joint center of the athlete and

these joint center locations going right to the computer.

Now at the past, people did it by hand, it took months and months to do one analysis.

What the computer does, it takes the X and Y coordinates from the digitizers and put

it into a memory.

After we did a digitizing process which takes some time hour, hour and a half to trace about

hundred frames each frame separately, we can reconstruct the pictures on the screen

or the megategraphic system.

The data is processed by the computer and it gives us the following thing, the displacement,

how much the joint center moves, from that we can derive the velocities or how fast or

the speed of the segments, from that we can derive the acceleration and acceleration is

very important because the second Newton law said that force equaled to mass times acceleration.

If we know the mass of the different body parts and if we know the acceleration from this

technique, we can calculate the forces and what make an athlete move is actually rely

on forces.

The pattern of the movement or the acceleration pattern in each sequence is critically understanding

of the proper movement.

After we interpret the results of the athlete, we might make some changes and then two weeks

later we retest him again and see if he correct this technique.

This is the non-direct measurement.

The uniqueness in this technique is that it's non-invasive.

We don't touch the athlete while we're taking the film, that's why the athlete can perform

in the Olympic Games or in our Cotto Sport Research Center and he even doesn't know when

we're taking the film and then we analyze it.

The direct method consists of a force measurement device that records the forces directly.

It gives us the three octagonal forces.

This is a direct measurement, it's very important for example for a runner.

How much shock it transferring to his body?

For example, comparison between shoes can reveal to us immediately the data if there

is any difference in force transmission to the body.

Also how can we construct better shoes or how can we design shoes for particular athlete

so you can perform in the Olympic Games better?

Dr. Ariel, how factual are the results of your calculations?

Well it's as factual as gravitational laws.

It's like when somebody said that I left the shot put and it fell down.

Very seldom am I here, somebody said I left the shot put and fell up.

It's a physical loss, it cannot fall up unless you are in the moon.

So if we find out that there is some kind of linkage here that translates momentum

from one segment to the other, it couldn't be, it will be any different.

Also I used to tell the shot put the shot put the shot put the shot put the shot put the

psychology and I said well, I don't know yet the shot put the shot through the shot,

the shot just left the hand and then it concentrate and the sun is zoomed when five feet farther.

I never saw that.

If it ever happened, it always happened when it was still in contact with the fingers

and when the forces were transmitted through the dynamic link into the shot from the hand.

All this concentration and all this shouting and all this jumping after the shot left the hand,

this is a this is just in person on the audience.

The the shot is going to land where it's supposed to land.

So in order to summarize the whole system, utilizing the mega deck graphic system,

the data general computer, the talus digitizing system, we can bring

outlets to our core to sport research center, running analysis on them the first two days,

run for two more weeks of training, retest them, see the changes, recorrect them again

and later in two weeks again we follow up with another analysis and I am assure you we will have

August.