We're at beautiful Coto de Caza, located one hour south of Los Angeles in the beautiful

Saddleback Mountains.

Coto de Caza is the site of the Coto Research Center, founded in 1976 and completed in 1980.

The director of the Coto Research Center is Dr. Gideon Ariel, recognized as a world

leader in Biomechanique.

The world's top athlete, the symbol on a regular basis at the center for quick check-up

on Dr. Ariel's amazing computer, which carefully identifies each athlete's movement and quantifies

all forces.

It sounds complicated, but Dr. Ariel is made it simple and practical.

On Future Sports, we'll take a look at athletes representing the complete spectrum of sports.

Professional football, the most popular sport in America.

Running back some quarterbacks get the headlines, but the one player who always seems to be

there when the big game's on the line, the play's kicker, on his foot often rides a

difference between victory or defeat.

Hello, everybody, you know we have tremendous athletes come to Future Sport and we are

particularly deaf, they get the big names, Rolf Bernersky of the San Diego Chargers,

the play's kicker deluxe, they're all delighted to have you with us.

I'm going to come up here and see how this all works.

I hope this doesn't prove that I should never have gotten past high school football.

Let's take a look.

By photographing several of Rolf's kicks on high speed film, from 100 frames a second

sometimes up to 10,000 frames a second, and then analyzing that film with computers,

we're able to diagnose Rolf's kicking motion, and Dr. Ariel explains the process

of digitization.

This little fan is the key to digitizing.

Every time you touch with this fan, this sensitive screen, the information going right

to the computer.

With us here is Dr. Ann Penny, she is going to digitize Rolf in his kicking process.

Only time she touching the digitizer, the information on location of these points going

directly to our computer, our computer can do all the calculation to find out how much

the segments move, how fast they move, how they accelerate or decelerate, how much energy

was lost or was gained, all the information that Future Sport athletic will use in order

to increase performance in the future.

What we see here is Rolf making an advance forward and abruptly stop with the non-kicking

leg.

This abrupt stop actually transfers energy to the kicking leg and by that enabling Rolf

to kick further.

The objectives of the kick care is running forward, utilize this energy and abruptly

stop the leg so we can transfer the energy to the kicking leg.

Let's look on it in a multiple image.

Until you see the non-kicking leg moving but at that point it abruptly stops and that

will make the other leg snap into the ball.

So Vic, the key to kicking is the non-kicking leg.

You know Rolf it's amazing to me when you see that biomechanical analysis to find out

how important the left leg is even if you are right put in kicking.

You know you're right, I always knew it was important and I knew that if it was a wet

grass field that I would have a hard time kicking but now I really understand why.

From football legs to Olympic legs.

These belong to perhaps the greatest Olympian in history.

My name is Al Water.

I've been in computers for about 22 years now and I think I've always realized that

there would be the potential for the computer in athletics.

We've gone through micro computers and mini computers and now that we're developing computer

chips with sophisticated computing capabilities we're going to see a large introduction in

the sport.

Welcome to Future Sport.

With us now on Future Sport the man who really made history with the discus and still setting

the pace.

Al Water, 45 year old discus genius who still is a threat to everybody in the world and

Dr. Gideon Ariel.

Al, I'm delighted to have you on the show obviously but why is a guy 45 years old throwing the

discus and why are you still beating most of the people in the world?

I've yet to figure that out but I enjoy it.

I've always had a philosophy that you don't have to go out and win everything as long

as you enjoy it and you work hard you know the capability evolves and that normally takes

care of the winning kind of thing.

I absolutely enjoy throwing, I'm going to be throwing to another 25 years.

Gideon 45 years of age I've alluded to that and yet a couple years ago he had a combination

three of the best throws.

Are we beginning to shrink chronological and biological age or are we beginning to expand

the difference?

Are we going by our genetic capabilities and apparently at the age of 45 you don't have

to say I'm old man as far as I'm concerned all right now he's probably 25, 26 years old

biologically.

What chronologically that's for the birds.

Did you know about Al before you started throwing?

Al was my idol.

In fact in the kiboutin Israel I had his picture above my bed every morning I would worship

I mean thousands years ago they would kill me they would say that I worship idols you

know but he was my idol for many many years from 1955 all right Al is time for years.

That's a long time ago.

You're getting older you're getting younger Al you have a scientific interest where'd

that come from?

Well I've been in computers now for old 20, 21 years or something like that and when I

started back into competition I had an eight year layover from 1968 through 76 and when

I started back I thought I might as well learn as much as I can about the throw and

I hooked up with Gideon immediately to find out exactly what I was doing wrong why not

take advantage of all of the innovations that occurred through that eight year span and

I think the computer analysis of the technique in my event was absolutely the most important

thing I could determine for the first time what coaches were trying to tell me I could

see quantitatively where I was accelerating decelerating all these kinds of things and

then going through that analysis I was able then to launch into my kind of newfound career

okay with new enthusiasm and knowing what I was doing.

Al to understand the future we have to understand the past unfortunately or fortunately you're

the past and the present and the future now where are we going to go with this game?

I think the computer analysis will continue I think we'll get into very shortly an area

where athletes will be able to almost step inside themselves we'll have computers simulating

what the perfect throw will be and throwers will be in effect able to enter their own

image created by film by computers and as they execute the throw if an arm goes out

too far a head tilt or something they'll be an alarm go off and say you're changing.

So feedback systems and computers are going to be very important you see that Gideon?

Well hologram is the thing of the future and I tell you I'm learning from Mal more than

he learned from me but he's the head of the game all the time because he will really talk

about the future we're talking about holography now where you will have the ideal model that

you actually will see you cannot touch it because you see it but you cannot touch it

but you can put your body right in it and every time you depart from efficiency either you

will have some kind of feedback in alarm system or I don't know maybe in this Germany they'll

give you a 220 I know there are things okay that are a little frightening about the entire

environment of computer introduction at the sport because computers you know 10 years ago I couldn't

lift computers that you know right now I hold in the palm of my hand very easily and why not in

the future be able to implant computers within an athlete and through telemetry exercise that

athlete because the thing that prevents a runner from going very fast is his brain and through

telemetry you can override that brain feedback that says I think I'm going too fast wrong fatigue

you can override that with computer implants that are stimulating various muscle groups that's

right because then we're into robotics well is that going to be legal you see a lot of

changes taking place in the Olympic rules etc oh it's the technology is here today certainly

there's going to have to be a way of combating it because then you'll have coaches up in the

stands okay with telemetry straight stations activating their athletes there obviously has

to be a stop to that how you do it is through some kind of body scan are I 100% agree with you

because we are here dealing with a balance between art and science and when one taking over you have

a situation which is really a non-athletics anymore and we should use science to amplify

our mind in a way where you can perform the best but it should be a non-invasive method we should

never implant chips in our body we should never take drugs we should do it as natural as possible

to achieve our maximum just enhance the an athlete's capability to exercise more efficiently to be

more productive in his in his training environment that's what we want on an earlier show all order

was here he was our guest and he had an unusual training throw get in what can you tell us about

it Vic while we were setting up our cameras during our visit he unloaded these tools during training

although the troll landed on a heel we were able to calculate that the toes would have

travel approximately 244 feet that's farther than the world record 224 feet this guy is going to be

47 years old in 1984 that's the year of the Olympics so look at you this historic

our order is ready for Olympic gold me now is the man who on the streets of Munich 10 years ago

attracted major media attention to the marathon

you may recall that the first runner in the Olympic stadium that day was a fake

but the running craze that Frank Shorter's gold medal victory inspired is certainly no clue

and today remains one of America's finest marathoners

every morning I go out and I see all those people out in the street and they're running like crazy

and you're the one man who had a lot to do with people getting interested in taking care of their

own bodies well I think I was at the right place at the right time and and again there's a there's

a luck element involved in everything that you do and I was lucky that the training I had done was

right and I think I was also again fortunate that I came along at a time in the scientific

development of the sport that my type of training was all I needed to do there's all that luck

involved because the Americans have been very behind in the sophistication of the scientific

research on sport we do lots of scientific research but then the other countries use our data

and then they transfer it to the athletes now we're finally doing it here and I may have been

one of the first that people started to look at because my advantage in running is not strength

it is it is form and biomechanics and as you reach a certain level of training I think you get to a

point of diminishing return in terms of just the physical effort that you put out and then you

have to get to the point where you can improve your form and it's a very difficult thing to do

you can't visualize it in your own mind and reproduce it you have to be able to see it and I think

you're starting to see this in a lot of runners now true in 1976 there weren't people like Gideon

on the scene they were behind the scenes now I think they really are in the forefront Frank

always in scientific pursuits there seems to be some model like Sebastian Coles he's going to

become a model now and people are going to try to imitate this guy I think what they'll do is

they'll study his form to see just what makes him so efficient and you know they do amazing

things now like they can put him on a treadmill and measure the friction coefficient of his foot

when he lands and they can see even what kind of shoe he should wear some shoes will give him a

better friction coefficient than others so they can not only see what makes him good what allows

him to flow along as he runs they can see and study just exactly what he might have done in the

way of weight work work or training to improve that form so it's going to be a combination of

sort of taking the fine points the good points of the superior athlete and then trying to

generalize enough so that you can develop weight programs even shoe development programs

to get the athlete to run faster great thing about Gideon having the information on me from 1972 is

now I think I'm totally rehabilitated I think my strength is back where it should be it would

be very interesting to be tested again to compare just to see how close I can be to the same efficiency

that I had before I was injured and that's a great tool to have because otherwise you never

know and there's always the uncertainty and that's when the psychological element comes in it now

gives me a means to psychologically know that I am recovered and back to the point where I was

before I hope this drive and shrink after your muscle pull you did have a tendency to favor your

stronger leg but with the technique of filming your running style of high speed photography

and programming it into our computer through a sophisticated tracing process called digitizing

we're able to illustrate your running style the one that you used in 72 to win a marathon

gold medal now we can compare that technique with your present form you know getting on the top

line you see him in 1972 right he looked pretty smooth to me in 1982 when he recovered from the

injury he really approaching the same style now when he was injured the central quality was a little

bit different if we look on it from a multiple trace point of view you'll see that the trace is

a little bit different on the top you seem a little bouncing that's when he just recovered

from the injury and he's going up and down but when you look on 1982 it's almost completely straight

yeah completely straight that's a great runner friend shorter you're saying get in keep that

head from bouncing up and down and you'll be a faster runner yes in fact the look on his upper

body is as important as the lower body and you don't want to bounce with it if we're going to

use instruments if we're going to make measurements then why not use the finest instrument right

and the other is the psychological feedback every athlete i think once they get to the highest

level every athlete has to feel that he or she has done absolutely everything they can to prepare

and now the biomechanics and the other physiological testing are just an element in that training

it's just necessary for your own sense of competence to do that now we this country we have the best

technology in the world we put a person on the moon but we don't use this technology

to people like Frank if we would use that he would be on his own moon which was under

winning gold medal person yeah the interesting things you go to East Germany and you see all the

all the application they're doing uh to their athletes and all the literature is in english

hahaha

1976 the u.s. women's volleyball team did not qualify for the olympics that's in the sport

which originated in the united states but things changed for the better and the person most

responsible for the success of the team which went from 45 in the world to number one with

dr. airy sullinger number one you sometimes wake up for the middle of night they're waiting

and we just be check with savaka we just be rush him and does is get overwhelming sometime

well i'll tell you the men's that i coach are we're not as big as these girls i mean and physically

not as good as these kids are people think men can do much more than women my experience i found

out that women can do maybe not physically but mentally much more than men can do all right wherever

i go i get a lot of questions about one of your veteran players read a rocket well read a rocket

didn't accept when we do the athlete i mean she could have made the u.s. olympic team may be in

two events may be in two hundred meters or in high jump why did he pay that well read a rocket

at the end we do mechanical biomedical analysis and read out which and find out that the shoe

uh elevates the center gravity higher than the high jump is in the olympics group but read out

when she came to the program she didn't jump as well i mean shoe i had the potential to jump

but she was jumping at that time about seven inches less than she jumps now

but by the same time when reader came to the program before working with video

early on the biomechanical analysis and we developed some new concept in a jumping thing

in valuable jumps which can apply to basketball or training sport it means most really rely upon

the speed the horizontal velocity and being capable of converting this horizontal velocity

into vertical velocity mainly utilizing the stopping power the backing power that you have

in your muscles i have some new flows they just joined with the team about two months ago and

they're already jumped two to five inches better than they jumped two months ago all right can you

hear you have a PhD in exercise physiology but can the human in your opinion take that sophisticated

data and turn it into simple things that they can get their own brain to program it's possible

if the guy who works with you and we are lucky with Gideon he can bring it to simple terms

and then if the coach has basic education and some creative mind and some basic scientific

knowledge then it can even more simplify it and get it down to the to the floor but the process

is possible the only thing is they're floating in the United States in the rest of the world

coaches are not used to things in terms of science and it's probably not science there's no question

it's a very sophisticated and complex activity but needs much more than our eyes and impressions

the man responsible for the computer software for the volleyball team is dr Gideon Ariel

Gideon let's be specific how is the computer help the volleyball team well using the computer

technology we can compare our athletes to the best of the japanese you see the yokayama from

japan considered to be one of the best piker in the world at that time by comparing flohaiman

our spiker to yokayama we could create the ideal model we could look on the athletes from different

angle we can look from them from the side from the front and by learning from the japanese

we were able to allow flohaiman to become the best new world and Gideon that's what future

sport is all about back after this

you ready for some more interesting points on sports let's check in with the Ariel view

well vick this is the old exercise equipment this is before the time of computers

these machines do not have an intelligent of them they depends on gravity only and let me tell you

what i mean by that if i try to live in the sitting press 150 pounds let's look what happened

it's easy in the beginning and i get stuck here i cannot do it anymore i have to put it back why

the reason is that my arm with certain angle which is biomechanically inefficient everybody

knows that it's harder to keep weight on the side and to keep it close to the body so i'm getting

farther from the body and i get stuck because of a mechanical reason the machine does not the

machine does not have a brain now let's put a hundred pounds here and see what happened with

a hundred pounds when i'm lifting a hundred pounds it's too easy in the beginning hard in the middle

and too easy in the end in fact if i'm doing it fast enough it flies it has zero weight in the end

because the machine is done now let's go and see the 21st century machine the computerized exercise

machine this is the 21st century machine this is the computerized machine of the future

athletes the future athletes will select the number here on the machine will select the proper

program and from this program will try to do what they're doing the best

well i'll select the sitting press the same exercise that i did there the computer allowed

me to select all kind of viable in this case i will select the viable velocity try to simulate

a shot putter in my first repetition this will simulate the actual shot put routine and i push

us all the second all the way i did 124 pounds and the second repetition let's see 110 pounds

and the third repetition it's accelerate like the shot 112 now i would look on my fourth

curve and see where my deficiency is let's understand the fourth curve these are the angle here that's

when i extend my arm it's going up and then when i pull my arm down it's going down that's 5 degree

10 degrees 15 degrees here is the false 40 pounds 84 80 pounds 120 pounds look what happened in the

beginning when i start to extend my elbow i'm getting to 120 pounds i keep 240 and maybe 115

then on the way down in this case it's not so important i have a deficiency and the reason is

that i cannot accelerate the bar to about 240 pounds 250 pounds the guys like Brian Oldfield

can do this is the intelligent machine of the future all my information that you see here going

to be stored in the computer never been forgotten always compare me to the best in the world and to

myself this machine which has a computer in it will allow Future Sport athletes to tune their practice

perfectly for their own condition and achieve optimism thank with me an incredible athlete

Edwin Moses Edwin delighted to have you here and i'm dying near the story about how anybody in this

day and age can go 72 meters undefeated well it's been a long road i've been going racing for six

years now in the 400 meter hurdles and i've really been trying to take each race individually instead

of thinking in terms of breaking a record standing at 88 or winning 100 in a row but really just

trying to look at each race individually and attacking individually and playing on one race

at a time when you're little too we got a guy a doctor getting arrows just shaping at the vet

because he wants to show you the digitization remember we were able to film you earlier this

week and so now you're going to get a chance to see it Edwin great having you with thank you

very much good see you okay

all right thank you for coming here thank you another superstar in Future Sport

Edwin the little dart here in the center of your body is the center of gravity

most people when they are running the landing of the center of gravity behind their foot

actually falling backward or stopping themselves you have a fantastic technique where when you

learn after going over the hurdles the center of gravity is in front of your foot which means

all your momentum is transferred to the body going forward you falling forward and continue to run

you don't lose any energy that's the main problem in running forward because keep them slowing up

between the hurdles every time you slow down and you're happy use a lot more energy to speed up

you can look at it also in a continuous trace then we'll see the whole trace and if you look

on this door back in the middle it's the central gravity so it's going up and going down

you can look at it also from the front so we'll see you from the corner you bring it from the front

the criteria here Edwin that you will not go over the hurdles too high and as you see yourself

you stretch pretty good you're going forward you can see the little data center of gravity

just going over the hurdles but you are going to stretch it pretty good it's important that you

are not going to jump over the hurdles but actually to stretch your body as much as possible for that

reason let's look on the same motion from the top view and we'll check how much you stretch over

the hurdles now looking from the top view we see you're going toward the hurdles and you have a

tremendous stretch with your body tremendous stretch this stretch allows the central gravity

to stay low and therefore save you time over the hurdles here you see the same thing in a multiple

trace look on this stretch Edwin you have incredible stretch here and this is fantastic technique

turn anything new Edo yeah i'm learning a lot here it's first time i've really been able to

see myself in slow animated motion stick figures first time for sure first time all of them might

not be the last time Edwin thanks for being with us super job all right get in great job as

usual all right thank you all right thank you coming up next we'll take a close look at an

aesthetic event as we meet Sharon Shapiro 1980 1981 intercollegiate gymnastics champion well this

is Sharon Shapiro 1980 81 intercollegiate gymnastics champion

when did you start how long have you been in gymnastics 11 years i started at 10 and i know 21

is that typical for people to start at 10 nowadays it's old then it was a good age for me i think

it was a perfect age because i didn't burn out you like the challenge but you've been talking a

little bit about the scientific thing that your body needs to be a certain body type to do things

you need to know your body in relation to the task well earlier we had a chance to film you

put you on dr. Gideon Ariel special computer and now we're going to take a look at your body

and the task that you perform in very difficult situations big we're lucky today to see Sharon

Shapiro and her performance you see the little dot in the middle of the body this is the central

gravity all the forces and all the motion of the athlete the gymnast specifically is rotate

around the central gravity see how the whole body segment going around the central gravity

the question is how could we make Sharon Shapiro even do the same stand better

let's follow her central gravity better you see here the little dot and you see her motion

we finding out that according to the biomechanical analysis that if the central gravity at that

point would go two inches higher she would be able to complete the whole stand much better

let's see here in the actual condition Sharon does not complete the whole turn because she

didn't raise her central gravity high enough here you see the multiple images of the forces

the athletes in the future will be able to use this computer technology in order to optimize

the performance and to know how to train but she's still a champion right get in she's biomechanically