ANA 3109: HUMAN BIOMECHANICS LECTURE NOTE

Introduction

The term Biomechanics refers to the study of the movement of living things
using the science of mechanics (i.e. the production of motion by internal
or external forces). This is because forces acting on living things can create
motion such as a healthy stimulus for growth and development, or an
overload of structures that results in injury. Biomechanics is one of the
subspecialties of kinesiology which literally means the scientific or
scholarly study of human movement.
Thus, biomechanics in kinesiology involves the precise description of
human movement and the identification of its causes.

The study of biomechanics is relevant to the practice of kinesiology in that

professionals like a physical educator (sport coach) who is teaching
movement technique and the athletic trainer (or physical therapist)
treating an injury, apply or use biomechanics in the qualitative analysis of
movement. It provides key information (such as conceptual and
mathematical tools) on the most effective and safest movement patterns,
equipment, and relevant exercises to improve and solve human movement
problems, which constitute the importance of biomechanics. The study of
biomechanics is significant because scientists from different fields are
interested in animal body movement because of its fascinating
uniqueness, and as such apply this knowledge to sport medicine and
exercise.
Applications of Biomechanics to Human Movement: This can be
majorly grouped into two areas, which are the improvement of
performance and the prevention and treatment (or reduction) of injury.
i. Improvement of Performance: Human movement performance can
be improved in many ways and this involves anatomical factors,
neuromuscular skills, physiological capacities and
psychological/cognitive abilities. Most practitioners of kinesiology
prescribe or recommend changes of technique and give instructions
that allow a person to improve performance especially in sports or
activities where technique is the dominant factor rather than physical
structure or physiological capacity.

Technique is always important in human biomechanics. However, in

some cases, the anatomical, psychological or physiological factors are
more strongly related to success. A good example of this kind of
movement is running because many coaches already have a broad
knowledge of how to enhance (fine tune) a runner’s technique to match
the profile of elite runners. Although adjustment of technique
contributes to improvements in performance, most of running activity
is related to physiological ability and training.

Human performance can also be enhanced by improvements in the

design of equipment, related to the development of new materials and
engineering designs. Another way the study of biomechanics improves
performance is by advances in exercise and conditioning programs. For
instance, the application of biomechanics in the medical fields of
orthotics and prosthetics is important in the prevention of injury
because many prostheses are now being designed to improve the
performance of disabled athletes.
ii. Prevention and Treatment (or reduction) of Injury: Prevention or
movement safety and/or treatment of injury constitute another
fundamental area where biomechanics can be applied as practitioners
of sports medicine have traditionally studied injury cases in order to
determine the potential causes of disease or injury. Biomechanics
provides information on the mechanical properties of tissues,
mechanical loadings during movement and preventative or
rehabilitative therapies. Its knowledge is also important in confirming
potential injury mechanisms hypothesized by sports medicine
physicians and epidemiological studies. For example, the increased
participation of females in sports shows evidence of they being at a
higher risk for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries than males due
to several biomechanical factors, which continuous research may help
to unravel and thus develop prevention strategies.

Many experts in this field now apply the acquired knowledge in the
design of work tasks and assistive equipment to prevent overuse
injuries related to specific jobs. For example, combining biomechanics
with other sport sciences has aided in the design of shoes for specific
sports. Also, the biomechanical study of motor accidents has resulted
in measures of the severity of head injuries, which has been applied in
biomechanical testing, and in design of many kinds of helmets to
prevent head injury. When accidents result in amputation, prostheses
or artificial limbs can be designed to match mechanical properties of
the missing limb. Biomechanics helps the physical therapist prescribe
rehabilitative exercises, assistive devices (like canes, walkers and
orthoses. Qualitative analysis of gait (walking) also helps the therapist
decide whether sufficient muscular strength and control have been
regained in order to permit safe or cosmetically normal walking.
Application: A variety of professions are interested in using
biomechanics to modify or enhance human movement. For instance, a
person that fabricates prostheses (artificial limbs) would use
 biomechanics to understand the normal functioning of joints, the
volume of load the prosthesis must withstand and how the prosthetic
device can be safely attached to the person.

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS IN BIOMECHANICS

The way movements are analyzed falls into two bases. These are quality
and quantity. The analysis of quality involves the systematic observation
and introspective judgment of the degree or standard of human movement,
for the purpose of providing the most appropriate intervention to improve
performance. In contrast, the analysis of quantity has to do with the
measurement of numerical variables that usually requires a computing
system for the voluminous calculations involved. Analyses in both
qualitative and quantitative respects help in identifying the factors that
affect human movement performance and in interpreting the result using
other higher levels of thinking (synthesis, evaluation), to apply the
information or knowledge to the movement of interest.

The main advantages of quantitative analysis over that of qualitative are

due to the degree of greater accuracy, consistency and precision. However,
the greater accuracy of quantitative measures requires technical skills,
calibration, computational and processing time, as well as dangers of
increasing errors with the additional computations involved. As such
qualitative analysis of human movement remains the main approach in
kinesiology for the purpose of solving most human movement problems.
As a result of this preference, qualitative analysis will be the basis for the
applications of biomechanics considered in this course.

Note: Qualitative and quantitative analyses are not mutually exclusive.

Thus, it can be assumed that the difference between these two
biomechanical measures is in their application to sports medicine and
athletic practices.

BIOMECHANICAL CONCEPTS IN QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

The clarification of several mechanical terms and concepts is important in

the understanding of human movement. Mechanics is the branch of
physics concerned with the motion of objects and the forces that cause
this motion of objects and the forces that cause this motion. The field of
mechanics is very broad but the three main areas most important to
biomechanics are rigid body, deformable body and fluid mechanics.

- Rigid body mechanics assumes the object being analysed to be rigid

in that the small deformations in its shape are usually ignored or
overlooked. This rigid body assumption in studies saves considerable
numerical and modeling work without great loss of accuracy.
- Deformable body mechanics studies how forces are distributed
within a biological material and its response to these forces at
cellular, tissue, organ and system levels, in order to determine how
they stimulate growth or cause damage.
- Fluid mechanics is concerned with the forces in liquids and gases
(fluids). Thus, a biomechanic professional would utilize this area in
the study of heart valves, swimming or adapting sports equipment to
minimize air resistance. Most sport biomechanic studies are based
on rigid body models of the skeletal system which can be grouped
into statics and dynamics. Statics is the study of objects at rest or in
uniform (constant) motion while dynamics deals with the
acceleration of objects by the action of forces. Dynamics is
subdivided into 2 areas:
 i. Kinematics - describes motion of objects usually by
measurement in linear (meters, feet, etc) or angular (radians,
degrees) terms. For example, one can determine the running
speed of an athlete, the length of the stride (distances) or angular
velocity of hip extension.
ii. Kinetics - concerned with determining the cause of motion.
Examples of kinetic variables are the forces between the feet and
the ground or those of air resistance. As a result of such
understanding, a track coach for instance is able to know the
causes of running performance. For e.g knowing that the timing
and size of hip extensor action is weak in the take-off phase for a
long jumper may be more useful in improving performance than
knowing that the jump was shorter than expected.

BASIC UNITS IN BIOMECHANICS

Biomechanics often uses some of the complex kinds of mathematical

calculations especially in deformable body mechanics as most of the
concepts and laws in classical rigid body mechanics use qualitative
approach. Variables that can be completely represented by a number and
the units of measurement are called scalars. Example 100kg or 50m
representing the number and units of measurement should be given in
order for a scalar quantity to be fully identified. For instance, it makes no
sense for an athlete to say they made or did “50” without including any
unit for measuring distance such as feet, meters or miles. The numeral or
number preceding the unit normally represents the degree, size or
magnitude of the variable. In contrast, there are more complicated
quantities where size (or degree), units and direction must be specified;
these are called vectors.
Scalars and the associated vectors commonly used in biomechanics are
mass/weight; speed/velocity; and kinetic energy/momentum. For e.g.,
mass represents the scalar quantity of the matter for an object while the
weight of the same object is the gravitational force of attraction between it
and the earth. Speed is the scalar quantity for distance presented as km/h
or mph; while velocity is a vector quantity for the same measure usually
specifying magnitude and direction as mph East.

Biomechanics uses directions at right angles (horizontal/vertical;

longitudinal /transverse) to mathematically handle vectors, and the
direction of choice depends on the needs of the analysis. Thus, it is
important to note that when adding vectors, one plus one is often not two
because the directions of the vectors are different, but when adding scalars
with the same units, one plus one is always = 2. Another important point
related to vectors is that the sign (+ or -) corresponds to directions.
Example a - 10 lb(pound) force is not less than a + 10 lb force; they are
the same but in opposites directions.

The addition of vectors to determine their net effect is called the resultant
and requires right angle trigonometry. The two important vector quantities
used in kinetics are force and torque (moment of force).

- A force (symbol: F) is a straight line push or pull (interactional effect

between two bodies) usually expressed in pounds (lbs) or Newton (N).
Forces are vectors which can be physically represented or drawn as
arrows.
- The torque or moment of force is the corresponding angular variable
to force. A moment is the rotating effect of a force and represented
with the symbol M or T (i.e moment of force or toque respectively)
and the units pound-feet (lb.ft) and Newton- meters (N.m).
Kinetic energy – It is the form of energy representing that which a body
or an object has when it is in motion (maybe due to vibration, rotation
or translation-movement form one place to another). It can be
determined by an equation using the mass and velocity of that object.
Thus K.E. = 1/2 mv2, where m = mass (kg) and v = velocity (m/s). The
standard unit of measurement for kinetic energy is joules (J) equivalent
to 1kg x m2/s2 .
*Mass measures the quantity of matter that is in an object. The mass
of an object is determined by weighing it on a balance and obtaining
the result in kg and often necessary to convert grams to kg, by
dividing by 1000.
*Velocity is the rate at which the object changes its position. The
velocity of an object is the distance traveled over the time taken to
cover that distance. The units are meters per second (m/s).

Example 1:
Determine the kinetic energy of a 55 kg athlete running with a
velocity of 3.87m/s.
Solution: KE = 1/2 mv2
0.5 x 55 x (3.87)2
Therefore 0.5 x 55 kg x 14.97 m2/s2
= 411.675J.

Using Kinetic Energy to Find Velocity or Mass: In cases where the

quantities are not given, the known variables should be substituted
in the same equation as for kinetic energy.
 Example 2: What is the mass of a body with a kinetic energy of 100J
and a velocity of 5m/s?
Solution: KE = 1/2 x mv2
100J = 0.5 x m x 52 (Square the velocity and multiply by 0.5 and
then divide the kinetic energy by the product)
Thus: 52 = 25
0.5 x 25 = 12.5
Therefore 100/12.5 = 8kg.

Example 3:
What is the velocity of a sportsman with a mass of 30kg and a kinetic
energy of 500J?
Solution: KE = 1/2 mv2
500J = 0.5 x 30 kg x v2 (Multiply 0.5 by 30, divide kinetic energy by
the product, and find the square root to determine the velocity).
Thus: 0.5 x 30 = 15
500/15 = 33.33
√33.33 = 5.77m/s.

Note: Variables should normally be converted to the appropriate

scale before the final calculation using the general formula.

PRINCIPLES FOR APPLICATION OF BIOMECHANICS

There exist general rules that are useful for almost every human movement
and provide a structure to apply biomechanical knowledge based on the
concepts and laws of human motion, such as throwing, catching and
running. There are nine core principles of biomechanics as follows:
1. Force motion principle – states that unbalanced forces act on bodies
of objects when they either create or modify movement, that means
forces must act first before changes in motion can occur.
2. Force time principle – substantial changes in motion do not occur
instantly but are created over time indicating not only the amount of
force but of time, which also affects the resulting motion.
3. Inertia – the property of all objects to resist changes in their state of
motion also used when transferring energy from one body segment
to another.
4. Range of motion – overall motion used in a movement specified by
linear or angular motion of the body segments, and often related to
the force-time principle.
5. Balance – a person’s ability to control their body position relative to
some base of support.
6. Coordination continuum – states that determining the optimal
timing of muscle actions or segmental motions depends on the goal
of the movement.
7. Segmental interaction – the forces acting in a system of linked rigid
bodies can be transferred through the links and joints.
8. Optimal projection – states that for most human movements
involving projectiles, there is an optimal range of projection angles
for a specific goal.
9. Spin or rotations imparted to projectiles and particularly sport balls.
It is desirable on thrown and struck balls because of stabilizing flight
and creating a fluid force called lift.