Technology Comes to the Playing Field: New World of Sports Promises Fewer Injuries, Better Performance

A bus pulls up at The Ohio State University (OSU) Sports Health and Performance Institute, and a high school basketball team piles out, ready to hit the court. However, this is not an ordinary practice session. While the players go through their paces, cameras monitor their every move, and multiple force plates in the floor log the torques acting on their joints. This is the new world of sports, where biomedical engineers combine devices, such as sensors, accelerometers, and high-speed cameras, with specially crafted computer software to provide intricately detailed views of all types of sports and the wide variety of people who play them. The goal is to understand sports injuries on a level necessary to improve prevention and treatment and, in some cases, to enhance athletic performance.