Fundamentals of Biomechanics

176 FUNDAMENTALS OF BIOMECHANICS
ment of inertia of body segments can help
or hinder movement, and the moment of
inertia of implements or tools can dramatically
affect their effectiveness.
Most all persons go through adolescence
with some short-term clumsiness.
Much of this phenomenon is related to motor
control problems from large changes in
limb moment of inertia. Imagine the balance
and motor control problems from a
major shift in leg moment of inertia if a
young person grows two shoe sizes and 4
inches in a 3-month period. How much
larger is the moment of inertia of this
teenager's leg about the hip in the sagittal
plane if this growth (dimension and mass)
was about 8%? Would the increase in the
moment of inertia of the leg be 8% or larger?
Why?
When we want to rotate our bodies we
can skillfully manipulate the moment of in-
ertia by changing the configuration of our
body segments relative to the axis of rotation.
Bending the joints of the upper and
lower extremities brings segmental masses
close to an axis of rotation, dramatically decreasing
the limb's moment of inertia. This
bending allows for easier angular acceleration
and motion. For example, the faster a
person runs the greater the knee flexion in
the swing limb, which makes the leg easy to
rotate and to get into position for another
footstrike. Diving and skilled gymnastic
tumbling both rely on decreasing the moment
of inertia of the human body to allow
for more rotations, or increasing the length
of the body to slow rotation down. Figure
7.8 shows the dramatic differences in the
moment of inertia for a human body in the
sagittal plane for different body segment
configurations relative to the axis of rotation.
Figure 7.8. The movement of body segments relative to the axis of rotation makes for large variations in the moment
of inertia of the body. Typical sagittal plane moments of inertia and axes of rotation for a typical athlete are
illustrated for long jump (a,b) and high bar (c) body positions.