Thomas K. Uchida - Biomechanics of Movement: The Science of Sports, Robotics, and Rehabilitation

2020 Thomas K. Uchida and Scott L. Delp

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was set in Adobe Garamond by the MIT Press. Selected old style numerals were designed by Ray Larabie.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Uchida, Thomas K., author. | Delp, Scott, author. | Delp, David B., illustrator.

Title: Biomechanics of movement : the science of sports, robotics, and rehabilitation / Thomas K. Uchida and Scott L. Delp; illustrations by David Delp.

Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019050152 | ISBN 9780262044202 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Human mechanics. | Biomechanics.

Classification: LCC QP303.D45 2020 | DDC 612.2/1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050152

10987654321

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To my parents Carol and Marvin, and my brother Robert, for teaching me the value of swimming against the current.

Thomas K. Uchida

To my kids, Stella and Quincy, for their love and support, and to my parents and brothers for showing me the joys of adventure and discovery.

Scott L. Delp

To our mother who, when I was eleven, found me a great art teacher.

David Delp

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 5
3. Chapter 6
4. Chapter 12

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13

Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah...

it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.

Rumi

biomechanics has been a positive and sustained force in my life. Playing sports dominated my life as a kid in the Delp family. I felt alive playing baseball and lacrosse, and loved to run and ski. The only two books I read before graduating from high school were a technique manual on alpine skiing and a coaches guide to the long jump. I had dyslexia, and these rudimentary biomechanics manuals were the only books I found worth the struggle and embarrassment of reading.

I studied biomechanics in college to learn how to recover my ability to walk after injuring my hip in a ski accident. I learned everything I could about biomechanics and entered graduate school a few years later when I could walk well enough to limp around the Stanford University campus. I studied design, robotics, neuroscience, and biomechanics in graduate school. I felt I was in a good position to help people with impaired movement because I had empathy for their issues and had gained a strong background in engineering design and computer science, which was not so common in biomedical research at the time. I had the good fortune to study biomechanics with Felix Zajac, who greatly influenced my thinking.

After I finished at Stanford, I took a job as an assistant professor at Northwestern University and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. As a new professor, I wanted to share my joy of biomechanics and teach principles that would enable students to understand and analyze muscle and movement.