FUTURE TRENDS IN SPORTS BIOMECHANICS - REDUCING INJURY RISK OR IMPROVING PERFORMANCE?

In this paper, I reflect on some of the applied sports biomechanics projects in which I have been involved over the last 30 years, focusing on how injury risk can be reduced through biomechanical research and interventions, how sports biomechanists can help to improve sports performance, and how we can best feedback information to achieve performance improvements or reduce the risk of injury. Finally, I consider some of the changes that have occurred in that period and speculate on some possible future trends

The Bentham Brothers and Russia: The Imperial Russian Constitution and the St Petersburg Panopticon

The jurist and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, and his lesser-known brother, Samuel, equally talented but as a naval architect, engineer and inventor, had a long love affair with Russia. Jeremy hoped to assist Empress Catherine II with her legislative projects. Samuel went to St Petersburg to seek his fortune in 1780 and came back with the rank of Brigadier-General and the idea, famously publicised by Jeremy, of the Inspection-House or Panopticon. The Bentham Brothers and Russia chronicles the brothers’ later involvement with the Russian Empire, when Jeremy focused his legislative hopes on Catherine’s grandson Emperor Alexander I (ruled 1801-25) and Samuel found a unique opportunity in 1806 to build a Panopticon in St Petersburg – the only panoptical building ever built by the Benthams themselves. Setting the Benthams’ projects within an in-depth portrayal of the Russian context, Roger Bartlett illuminates an important facet of their later careers and offers insight into their world view and way of thought. He also contributes towards the history of legal codification in Russia, which reached a significant peak in 1830, and towards the demythologising of the Panopticon, made notorious by Michel Foucault: the St Petersburg building, still relatively unknown, is described here in detail on the basis of archival sources. The Benthams’ interactions with Russia under Alexander I constituted a remarkable episode in Anglo-Russian relations; this book fills a significant gap in their history

The Bentham Brothers and Russia

The jurist and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, and his lesser-known brother, Samuel, equally talented but as a naval architect, engineer and inventor, had a long love affair with Russia. Jeremy hoped to assist Empress Catherine II with her legislative projects. Samuel went to St Petersburg to seek his fortune in 1780 and came back with the rank of Brigadier-General and the idea, famously publicised by Jeremy, of the Inspection-House or Panopticon. The Bentham Brothers and Russia chronicles the brothers’ later involvement with the Russian Empire, when Jeremy focused his legislative hopes on Catherine’s grandson Emperor Alexander I (ruled 1801-25) and Samuel found a unique opportunity in 1806 to build a Panopticon in St Petersburg – the only panoptical building ever built by the Benthams themselves. Setting the Benthams’ projects within an in-depth portrayal of the Russian context, Roger Bartlett illuminates an important facet of their later careers and offers insight into their world view and way of thought. He also contributes towards the history of legal codification in Russia, which reached a significant peak in 1830, and towards the demythologising of the Panopticon, made notorious by Michel Foucault: the St Petersburg building, still relatively unknown, is described here in detail on the basis of archival sources. The Benthams’ interactions with Russia under Alexander I constituted a remarkable episode in Anglo-Russian relations; this book fills a significant gap in their history

IS MOVEMENT VARIABILITY IMPORTANT FOR SPORTS BIOMECHANISTS?

This review paper addresses the importance for sports biomechanics of movement variability, which has been studied for some time by cognitive and ecological motor skills specialists but largely overlooked by sports biomechanics. The paper considers biomechanics research that shows EMG variability, inter-and intra-individual kinematic variability, and computer predictions of movement variability. The paper concludes by recommending that sports biomechanists should focus more of their research on movement variability and on important related topics, such as control and coordination of movement, and implications for practice and skill learning

THROWING: FUNDAMENTALS AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

This paper focuses on those sports or events in which the participant throws, passes, bowls or shoots an object from the hand and discusses the factors that influence improving the performance of throwers and reducing their time off through injury. In the context of improving performance, the paper evaluates optimum release models, proximal-to-distal sequencing and the role of movement variability. Consideration is also given to technique factors that cause injury and how their effects might be avoided or reduced

The Bentham Brothers and Russia

The jurist and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, and his lesser-known brother, Samuel, equally talented but as a naval architect, engineer and inventor, had a long love affair with Russia. Jeremy hoped to assist Empress Catherine II with her legislative projects. Samuel went to St Petersburg to seek his fortune in 1780 and came back with the rank of Brigadier-General and the idea, famously publicised by Jeremy, of the Inspection-House or Panopticon. The Bentham Brothers and Russia chronicles the brothers’ later involvement with the Russian Empire, when Jeremy focused his legislative hopes on Catherine’s grandson Emperor Alexander I (ruled 1801-25) and Samuel found a unique opportunity in 1806 to build a Panopticon in St Petersburg – the only panoptical building ever built by the Benthams themselves. Setting the Benthams’ projects within an in-depth portrayal of the Russian context, Roger Bartlett illuminates an important facet of their later careers and offers insight into their world view and way of thought. He also contributes towards the history of legal codification in Russia, which reached a significant peak in 1830, and towards the demythologising of the Panopticon, made notorious by Michel Foucault: the St Petersburg building, still relatively unknown, is described here in detail on the basis of archival sources. The Benthams’ interactions with Russia under Alexander I constituted a remarkable episode in Anglo-Russian relations; this book fills a significant gap in their history

Electrostatic charging of non-polar colloids by reverse micelles

Colloids dispersed in a non-polar solvent become charged when reverse micelles are added. We study the charge of individual sterically-stabilized poly(methyl methacrylate) spheres dispersed in micellar solutions of the surfactants sodium bis(2-ethyl 1-hexyl) sulfosuccinate [AOT], zirconyl 2-ethyl hexanoate [Zr(Oct)$_{2}$], and a copolymer of poly(12-hydroxystearic acid)--poly(methyl methacrylate) [PHSA-PMMA]. Although the sign of the particle charge is positive for Zr(Oct)$_{2}$, negative for AOT, and essentially neutral for PHSA-PMMA the different micellar systems display a number of common features. In particular, we demonstrate that, over a wide range of concentrations, the colloid charge is independent of the number of micelles added and scales linearly with the colloid size. A simple thermodynamic model, in which the particle charge is generated by the competitive adsorption of both positive and negative micelles, is in good agreement with the experimental data

Use of Self Organizing Maps in Technique Analysis

This study looked at the coordination patterns of four participants performing three different basketball shots from different distances. The shots selected were the three-point shot, the free throw shot and the hook shot; the latter was included to encourage a phase transition between shots. We hypothesised lower variability between the three-point and free throw shots compared to the hook shot. The study uses Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) to expose the non-linearity of the movement and to try to explain more specifically what it is about the coordination patterns that make them different or similar. The SOM proved to draw the researcher\u27s attention to aspects of the movement that were not obvious from a visual analysis of the original movement either viewed from video or as computer animation. A speculative link between the observational learning literature on the importance of the kinematics of distal segments in skill acquisition and the visual information a coach or analyst may rely on for qualitative technique analysis was made. Although making the distinction between the three shooting conditions was meant to be a trivial exercise, in many cases for this dataset the SOM output and the natural inclination of the movement analyst did not agree: the SOM may provide a more objective method for explaining movement patterning