Summary

This unit of the CBSE Class 11 Physical Education course examined how the human body moves and the forces that produce and control that movement. The key ideas, in the textbook's order, are:

Kinesiology and biomechanics

• Kinesiology is the scholarly study of human movement (through anatomy and mechanics); biomechanics is a sub-discipline of kinesiology that applies the principles of physics — the forces — to the living body. Kinesiology describes movement; biomechanics explains and improves it.
• Both are important in sport: for analysing and improving technique and motor skills, preventing and rehabilitating injuries, ensuring economy and effectiveness of movement, designing equipment and training, and selecting players and techniques.

Principles of biomechanics

• The nine core principles apply to all human movement: Force-Motion, Force-Time, Inertia, Range of Motion, Balance, Coordination Continuum, Segmental Interaction, Optimal Projection and Spin. They split into those that create movement (process) and those about the outcome of a projectile (product).

Kinetics and kinematics

• Kinematics describes motion (distance, displacement, speed, velocity, acceleration; linear, angular or general) without reference to force. Kinetics studies the forces that cause motion — including Newton's three laws and the body's levers (bone = lever, joint = fulcrum, muscle = effort). Kinematics describes, kinetics explains.

Types of body movements

• The eight fundamental movements, produced at the joints and occurring in opposing pairs: flexion / extension, abduction / adduction, rotation, circumduction, and supination / pronation.

Planes and axes …