STEM Olympics: How science and sports go hand in hand

With the Summer Olympics fast approaching, athletes are preparing for the games by doing everything they can to build up their strength and stamina.  A lot of science goes into helping an athlete reach their peak performance.  A few ways that science affects the Olympics are:

Biomechanics: Biomechanics is the study of human movement, including the interaction of a person and the equipment they are using.  It is generally broken down into two different areas.  Kinetics is the study of internal and external forces acting on the body.  Kinematics is the study of movements of the body as a result of these forces.  In sports, biomechanics uses a detailed analysis of sports movements in order to reduce injuries and enhance performance.  It can also be used to explain how some athletes excel in different sports.  For example, Simone Biles is 4 feet 8 inches tall, which is a good height for a gymnast.  She has trained her body to have near perfect control.  Combine that with her strength and speed and you can see the results!

Physics: Understanding practical applications of physics helps athletes and coaches develop better techniques in pretty much all sports.  Principles of gravity, force, and momentum, for instance, are at play every time a body is in motion.  One example of physics being applied in the Olympics is with runners.  Newton's second law, often summarized as force equals mass times acceleration, tells us that for something to start moving, a net force must get it going.  Aside from their own bodies, sprinters need a force to kick off their acceleration.  In order to get as large of an acceleration as possible,  they kick off of starting blocks as hard as they can to create as large of a net force as possible.

Nutrition and Physiology: There is no one size fits all method for eating a healthy diet, but science can certainly help us to optimize our diets to the lifestyle we are living.  When it comes to Olympic athletes, they generally tend to eat healthy diets that are designed to help them perform at their best.  Swimmer Michael Phelps famously ate 10,000 calories a day while he was training six hours a day for the Olympics, but that is not appropriate for every athlete.  Canadian boxer Tammara Thibeault is a vegetarian, though when she is competing and travelling, she is not as strict with her diet because it can be difficult to meet her protein needs without meat.  Nutritional science helps all Olympic athletes determine the diet that makes them feel the strongest and provides the proper nutrients to give them strength and stamina.

The 2024 Olympics will begin on Friday, July 26th.