Force of flight: BYU skating device measures impact of jumps and landings
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- Опубліковано 22 сер 2024
- When a figure skater lands a jump, the landing force on the skater's body is estimated to be 5-8 times body weight. These extreme forces lead to injuries to a skater's hips, back, and legs, and can contribute to ailments like early onset arthritis. A BYU team is developing a skate-mounted device that will measure impact forces on ice for the first time.The research, spearheaded by Sarah Ridge (Exercise Sciences), Steven Charles (Mechanical Engineering) and student Danny Smith (Mechanical Engineering), is partially sponsored by the U.S. Figure Skating Association, which aims to keeps elite skaters -- including Olympic skaters--healthy. Read more about the project here: news.byu.edu/ar...
Figure 8: Skaters feel eight times their body weight when they land a jump
When Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner head back out onto the ice this week they will be competing against the world's best for Olympic gold.
But they will also be competing with an unseen foe-one they will battle with until they hang up their skates. That nemesis is force, and it is going against them every time they take off and land a triple lutz.
Until now, figure skaters have never been able to get a fully accurate picture of the impact their leaps put on their ankles and feet. Thanks to a novel device they're developing, two BYU professors are undertaking the challenge of putting some hard numbers on it.
"When figure skaters land, they can experience five to eight times their body weight," said BYU exercise science professor Sarah Ridge. "And that happens within 50-125 milliseconds, which is not a lot of time for the body to absorb that magnitude of force."
To get that data, Ridge has teamed up with BYU mechanical engineering professor Steven Charles and professor Deb King of Ithaca College in New York to create a device that attaches to ice skates and measures the compressive forces coming from each impact.
Up until now, the only way to observe indirect measures of the force figure skaters feel was to have them jump from a box onto a force plate in a lab. The new device lets the researchers observe the real impact on the ice by using strain gauges to record that compression, storing the data on the boot, and calculating forces from the data.
"We aren't just applying known technology to a new application, we are operating at the limit of what the technology can do," Charles said.
Charles and Ridge don't just want to see the data, they want to use it to address a major problem for skaters: overuse injuries. Common overuse injuries for skaters include stress fractures in the feet and lower leg, as well as hip and back injuries.
Just last week Russian figure skater and Olympic gold medalist Evgeny Plushenko withdrew from the men's individual competition after injuring his back.
"Skaters do at least 50 jumps a day, every day that they're training, and they train at least five days a week if they're competitive skaters," Ridge said. "They have a lot of force that they're landing with, over and over again, and this contributes to overuse injuries."
Ridge said the plan initially is to provide the impact data to coaches, physical therapists and anyone else working with the skaters to help form training routines that minimize overuse risk.
She likens it to the idea of pitch counts in baseball-especially little league baseball-which help monitor the amount of stress on a pitcher's arm. Right now she and Charles are working with the U.S. Figure Skating Association to provide the impact data.
They will combine their force measurements with high-speed video to understand exactly how the body is absorbing the forces, how the body generates the forces, and other things-like how far into the ice a toe pick goes.
"It may be that we need to limit the number of jumps that developing skaters are doing to keep their joints safe," Ridge said. "The U.S. Figure Skating Association is interested in this research because they want to be able to keep their elite skaters healthy and help make figure skating safe for all participants."
Ridge and Charles have collaborated on the project over the past three and a half years with the help of five undergraduate research assistants (four mechanical engineers and one exercise science student who is a competitive figure skater).
Ridge researches the relationship between force and injury in athletic activities, and has recently published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. That study focused on the foot injuries that can occur when people transition too quickly to barefoot minimalist running shoes.
You can read more about that research by clicking here.
![Figure Skating Training - What It Takes [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Yf1xOmEkz5c/mqdefault.jpg)
![Figure Skating Training - What It Takes [HD]](/img/tr.png)
Now just imagine the force of quads...
cassi farcas I've heard of skaters who can do quads saying that falling on a quad feels like all your insides are being forced up into your throat, because the impact is so hard. So I can only imagine
Skaters definitely deal with extreme forces when they come down on jumps. They are not landing on an incline, snow, dirt, or mat or anything else that absorbs shock. Also, coming down on one foot after completing rotational forces is said to be more stressful than just doing a straight up and down jump of the same height with no rotation. And falls on rotational jumps can be very traumatizing. On throw jumps in pairs skating, the girl sometimes comes down from 5 feet in the air on throw triples and quads. That takes a strong landing leg.
1- I would love to see how much changes from single to double/triple/quad jumps. 2- I would also love to have someone measure us roller skaters.
Mandy Lynn I think it's gonna be the same or worse. I remember that going from inlines to ice was like a holiday, because rollers are so much heavyer
5x8x body weight!! Even at 100 lbs., a skater is landing between 500-800 lbs. on ONE foot! I absolutely *ADORE* all aspects of figure skating!! Hands down, best Olympic sport to watch!! I have a newfound respect ✊🏼 to ALL ice skaters ⛸ who even attempt greatness!!!
Edea has light skates and a shock absorbent undersole. Might switch from Reidell to Edea. Looking to get the Piano skates when I get to doubles because they have two built in shock absorbers so that plus the undersole will help a lot.
I wouldn’t get a piano skate which is the most advanced Edea skate if your only doing doubles and going from a lower boot, I’m moving only on my flip so I got my chorus skates knowing that doubles may come soon and I knew that going straight to piano would crush my feet because of the strength of the actual boot just thought I’d say
Anyone else noticed that she's an opposite skater?
Yan Qin I’m a opposite skater 👍👍👍
What does opposite skater means?
Brianna J same but i jump to the right, spin to the left but my back spin is to the right. I‘m weiirddd
I’d love to see the whole dada set based on variables such as skater’s height, weight, type of blade, temperature of ice, density of ice, skill level (American/Russian/pro or not, etc). Super interesting device that allowed to quantify the obvious, but if the research would be full, that would be very interesting.
It's sad that age 30 is considered old in the figure skating world. Your body can only take so much :/
then its time for better shock absorbing materials in skates and other shoes
I started at age 33...don't see why yet.
I skated competitively for 10 years at the lower levels and only practiced 3 hours each week (ice time constraints). I'm having hip surgery next week due to torn hip labrums in both hips. I'm 36 and have arthritis in my hips, knees, and ankles. This type of injury/disease is closely related to sports like skating, hockey, dance and gymnastics.
@@jrg305 Have you gotten to axel/doubles or bullet spins/lackbacks yet?
So if I've rolled my ankle in gymnastics twice really bad, I was considering this sport to learn how to land properly....my right ankle is the weaker/shorter leg I always roll, and in this sport you land everything on your right leg.
Ppl saying your body only takes so much, but I'd think if you rest and recover and cross train and strengthen both sides to avoid asymmetries in strength, you should be good.
Wow, thanks for this research.
Well, we only get to know about the problem from this video. But what is the solution? They say they want to keep skaters safe while they continue to skate in high level competitions, but they didn't say how. Anybody know more on the subject? Did they implement something new in the shoes, may be?
Vanya Staleva they have anti shock skates that are good but they cost a fortune. Their called edeas there apparently the lightest skate you can get.
@@chilan142 thank you for the answer. But still I don't believe they solved the problem. I guess the shock absorption is minimal comparing to the force of landing with 5-8 times your body weight. I think it's not possible to fix this problem. The shock absorption would get in the way of the take off when attempting a jump. I hope they figure out something in the near future.
@@chilan142 Edea doesn't cost a fortune relative to other brands. They're about the same price. Mine are $750 (Ice Fly). All high level skates are expensive.
Coolest cousin ever!
Why is it always “she” in the beginning? You guys figure skate too, it’s already considered a sport for girls, don’t push it
BYU spin at 2:23 looks like Legacy profile blades with steel frames. Instrumented stress strain shots look like skate blade is a Matrix Legacy. Ie With aluminum frame an steel runner. The BYU research paper mentions the Matrix Legacy blade ie aluminum frame with steel runner. Thus i wonder if the shot at 2:23 is with her normal blades? ( or another skater?)
at 1:23 its an SP teri boot which has a matrix legacy blade, whereas 2:23 looks like Jackson legacy with also SP Teri. and 2:08 is edea concerto with (I think) matrix legacy. so they might have a bunch of different skates / blades which they tried.
They should do that with the russian top skaters, not with these amateurs. They would get a whole different load of numbers, believe me.
Isn't a lot of it absorbed by strong hips? Like if I can do a 315 lb squat...I think I can land on one leg bodyweight.
I think it's more just stress on the sockets from doing it thousands of times and not always doing it correctly
Random thought but maybe Tonya Harding being banned from professional figure skating actually saved her from needing several hip replacements
They have antishock skates now
where? what brand?
The brand edeas the new ones have anti shock souls you can get them at pro skate
Chi Lan yup especially on EDEA skates
Do u land with ur toe pick first when ur doing waltz jump?
Linn Huynh yes, in all jumps, from a waltz jump to a quad Axel (which no one has landed yet) even if you're an opposite skater
I was thinking the same thing but as far as I know I would say yes
Yes we always do
Linn Huynh yup this counts for any jump
Her arms weren't pulled in :(( yes I know they were singles but still!!
Trees they aren't supposed to be pulled in. When doing a single your arms are supposed to be held out as if holding a beach wall, so your arms should be in a big circle shape. Only when you do doubles do you pull in your arms to make your rotate faster. When doing Singles you need your arms out like that to keep you from over-rotating or rotating too fast to prevent injury.
If you pull your arms in on singles, then do the same on doubles, you don't have enough power to get that rotation on the double jumps, because your were putting all your force into singles. Its basically a bit of resistance training for your singles so you can do doubles and triples.
it is sad to see 373 years after the birth of Newton ,
new engineers
not knowing to calculate the impact force of a falling object !
then I challenge you to tell me the impact force in kg of a falling 1kg iron ball dropped from 1 meter height on a steel plate (with the calculation note)
That's silly. You didn't even give us all the information we need to apply the work-energy principle and yet you say that it's sad for people to not know how to calculate impact? We're talking about a bunch of rotational inertias on figure skaters with various spin speeds and take off forces leaping to varying heights that are all difficult to measure. A simple "impact" problem like the one you provided isn't sufficient to cover the varying forces that are experienced in a jump.