Science and sports: a brief history of muscle, motion and ad hoc organizations

Abstract

Both the history of biolocomotion (later to become motion analysis/biomechanics) and of electrology (later kinesiological electromyography) are to be traced back to approximatively the same period in the second half of the seventeenth century. The major contributors to these emergent sciences were Swammerdam in 1658 and Borelli in 1680. Some 150 years later, electrophysiological methods were derived and motion-cinephotography was developed from their pioneering work. Subsequently, use was made of motion analysis by means of cinephotography, forming a basis for biomechanics. The work of Marey in 1873 in particular stimulated the multidisciplinary study of human activity, providing models for contemporary sports scientists working in applied settings. The link between theory and practice in motion sciences and the multidisciplinary model of Marey were the motive and the example for establishing the Working Group of Biomechanics in the 1960s. This body has gone through a series of progressive developments, culminating in the approval of the World Commission of Science and Sports as a service group of the International Council for Sport Science and Physical Education (recognized by UNESCO).