Bend It: The Science of Gymnastics

Pressure Cooker

Along with high-speed video, Sands has used Tekscan technology to map out the pressures applied by gymnasts during takeoff. While force plates are great for some applications, beneath a spring floor they’re rendered irrelevant. The Tekscan technology is worn on the foot of the athlete and with more than 1,000 sensors for foot. The result is a continuous color-coded pressure distribution of the footprint. The analysis showed gymnasts often relied on one foot more than the other (often in response to injury) and showed the normal progression during takeoff is toe-heel-toe. The data has been valuable for coaches looking to optimize form.

Shoe-In

Nike has done it again. For the second time in this series Nike is putting footwear on normally naked feet. The Nike Pidima (Greek for leap) is something between a shoe, sock and slipper designed specifically for the vault. The intent is to add some artificial stick to attempts at sticking the landing. A forefoot rubber pad provides the function while a skin colored single strap around the heel is intended to maintain a minimalist form.

A Youth in Asia

We close with a request of our readers. It’s likely, if not certain, that our women’s gymnastics team was cheated out of gold medals. While scoring will forever remain subjective, your age should not. Rumors before and during the Olympics swirled about female gymnasts on the Chinese national team who were supposed to be 16, thought to be only 14 and looked like they were nine. The Chinese were merely required to show a passport for proof of age— a passport that’s issued by the very authority which benefits from the gymnast inclusion. This isn’t the first time age has been a question on a national and international level. Daniel Almonte will forever be linked to the Little League World Series. Researchers associated with FIFA have looked at using wrist MRIs to verify ages of junior World Cup competitors. So to our readers we pose this challenge: if we can detect a whiff of marijuana by peeing in a cup, can’t we do the same for quantify age? As with our previous challenges, you develop it and we’ll write about it.