Definitions of Kinesiology

Several scholars have defined kinesiology, and the standard definitions a Class 11 student should know all point to the same idea — the study of human (and animal) movement.

Standard definitions

• "Kinesiology refers to the whole scholarly area of human movement study, while biomechanics is the study of motion and its causes in living things." This definition neatly places biomechanics inside the wider field of kinesiology.
• Rasch and Burke (1978): kinesiology is "a term formed by the combination of two Greek words, kinesin, meaning to move, and logos, meaning to discourse."
• Burke, R. K. (1977): viewed as a discipline, "kinesiology can be defined as studying the movement behaviour of all living organisms."

A note from the history of the subject

The book recalls that Aristotle (384-322 BC) is called the "father of kinesiology." Writing about three centuries before Christ, he observed that an animal moves by pressing against that which is beneath it — which is why athletes jump further with weights in their hands and runners run faster when they swing their arms. Aristotle was the first to analyse the complex process of walking, in which rotatory motion is transformed into translatory motion, and to subject the actions of the muscles to geometrical analysis. His ideas on leverage, gravity and the laws of motion were the forerunners of the work of Newton, Borelli and others.

From Aristotle to the modern science

The chain of thought that began with Aristotle was carried forward by later scientists. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608-1679), often described as the father of modern biomechanics, built on these early ideas in his book De Motu Animalium ("On the Movement of Animals"), applying the mechanical principles being developed in his era — building on Galileo's work and anticipating Newton — to muscles, bones and animal movement in a systematic way for the first time. This historical line, from Aristotle's early observations through Borelli's mechanical analysis to the formal definitions above, is why kinesiology is sometimes introduced as one of the oldest questions in science: why and how does a living body move the way it does?

Applying a definition …