The Ohio State Clinical, Functional, and Performance Biomechanics Laboratory is a state-of-the-art facility for developing, validating, and advancing the most cutting-edge injury prevention and performance enhancement programs. The lab currently accepts research participants. This 3500 square-foot facility is designed to be able to stimulate real-life sports, home, and community environments such as a pitcher’s mound, golfing tee box, batting cage, running track, or staircase so that we can study the motion of the person’s body and the forces acting at their joints. By understanding these motions and loads, we can learn to identify those at a greater likelihood of injury or disease, and assure that our training and treatments are effective at correcting those motions and loads. With the same technologies, we also hope to learn why some athletes can perform better than others, and can train our athletes to perform at their highest level.
High speed motion capture cameras record split-second movements, while hidden force plates embedded in the floor record the forces acting on each foot. Electromyography equipment allows us to record the activations of muscles during an activity, while isokinetic strength testing allows us to test muscle strength. Using these technologies, we can identify the wrist movements resulting in a service ace or service fail in tennis, torques acting on the knee that may lead to an ACL rupture, motor control deficits that mat lead to back pain, or strength imbalances that may lead to rotator cuff tears. The facility also includes real-time software and large projection screens so that trainers and therapists can get and give real-time feedback, allowing for the incorporation of personalized treatment regimens to get each athlete back to competition as quickly as possible.
The Clinical, Functional, and Performance Biomechanics Laboratory is a collaborative effort between engineers, athletic trainers, physical therapists, physicians and coaches to measure how people move. The goal is to discover the mechanisms behind injury, rehabilitation, and performance, and apply them to continually improve the outcomes and optimize performance for our patients.
Mission
Our mission is to improve personalized, evidence-based healthcare by researching the mechanisms behind injuries and diseases that affect movement, developing interventions to improve prevention of these injuries, and by creating innovative technologies and techniques to enhance these research objectives.
Celebrating National Biomechanics Day