Welcome to the official website for Biomechanics of Movement: The Science of Sports, Robotics, and Rehabilitation by Thomas K. Uchida and Scott L. Delp.
Here you will find vast resources to deepen your knowledge of this field and connect you with the vibrant communities and technologies that are redefining the field:
- Access homework and lectures to expand your understanding of concepts introduced in the book
- Download models and data to design your own biomechanics experiments
- Use OpenSim software to reproduce the simulations described in the book
- Join our educators' community and gain access to exams, class project ideas, and other materials to teach biomechanics
- Highlight your research and ideas and contribute to our growing community library of videos, problem sets, demos, and data.
<<I think we should have a "Buy the Book" button here instead of more text] Of course you'll want the book, Biomechanics of Movement, an engaging introduction to human and animal movement seen through the lens of mechanics.>>
Homework & lectures
Our "Community Website" <<Should come up with a name for the site vs. calling it the homework site or teaching site or Confluence>> is a dynamic community-driven place for you to expand your understanding of biomechanics. Access an ever-growing collection of homework problems for each book chapter and learn from the rich lecture slides created by university instructors <<are there slides from others being offered??>>. (These links go to two separate pages)
Data & models
Data underpins the fundamental concepts presented in the book. We have made this data available for you to explore these concepts and to launch new biomechanical studies:
- Experimental data
- Models derived from experimental data
- Simulation results
OpenSim software
OpenSim is open-source, state-of-the-art simulation software for musculoskeletal modeling and dynamic simulation. Cited by over 3000 scientific articles, OpenSim is being used to address fundamental issues in movement science and advance our understanding in clinical areas such as stroke, spinal cord injury, and osteoarthritis <<are there more popular keywords to use here?>>. Learn more
Download the software at SimTK, a free project-hosting platform for the biomedical computation community
Find examples and tutorials along with all OpenSim documentation
Teachers
Whether you are looking for one example to include in a physiology course or teaching an entire semester on biomechanics, we provide free resources and the opportunity to collaborate with other educators to make biomechanics engaging for your students.
When you partner with us, you will get access to:
- Lecture slides from experts around the world <<Is this different than the lecture slides we mention above? If so, we should clarify?>>
- Test problems
- Curriculum for teaching diverse audiences, including high school students, undergraduate mechanical engineering students, XX, XX <<Maybe mention the types of classes instead of or in addition to types of students? could you use this in a medical school physiology class or physical therapy course, etc.??>>
- Class project ideas
Join us
Contribute your work
We'd love your contributions and feedback.
Do you have a great homework problem to share? Or some data from your own research, simulation examples, or OpenSim tutorials?
How about a neat video?
Contribute to the growing community of students, teachers, and researchers.
<<I didn't update this section yet as it is unclear how we want this structured. "Feedback" and "Contributions" seem like two distinct actions. Do we want them in the same box? "Contributions" could be further divided into two areas - research-related contributions and teaching-related contributions. The actions and motivations might be different between the two, so potentially we might want to distinguish.>>
An engaging introduction to human and animal movement seen through the lens of mechanics.
How do Olympic sprinters run so fast? Why do astronauts adopt a bounding gait on the moon? How do running shoes improve performance while preventing injuries? This engaging and generously illustrated book answers these questions by examining human and animal movement through the lens of mechanics.
The authors present simple conceptual models to study walking and running and apply mechanical principles to a range of interesting examples. They explore the biology of how movement is produced, examining the structure of a muscle down to its microscopic force-generating motors. Drawing on their deep expertise, the authors describe how to create physics-based simulations that provide insight into muscle coordination during walking and running, suggest treatments to improve function following injury, and help design devices that enhance human performance.
Just as human movement turns complexity into seemingly effortless elegance, Uchida and Delp distill the intricate, interdisciplinary world of biomechanics into a foundational text. Approachable, illustrative, and inspiring, this book will have you making leaps and bounds into biomechanics.
— Helena Scutt, Olympian & Mechanical Engineer
Throughout, the book emphasizes established principles that provide a foundation for understanding movement. It also describes recent innovations in computer simulation, mobile motion monitoring, wearable robotics, and other technologies that build on these fundamentals. The book is suitable for use as a textbook by students and researchers studying human and animal movement. It is equally valuable for clinicians, roboticists, engineers, sports scientists, designers, computer scientists, and others who want to understand the biomechanics of movement.
A beautifully-illustrated, cogent, and comprehensive treatment of biomechanics for legged locomotion, with a dash of physics, computer simulation, and robotics stirred in for good measure. It is written in the language of engineering, making it accessible to biologists, scientists, and engineers alike.
—Marc Raibert [byline pending]
The authors
Thomas K. Uchida is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Ottawa. Scott L. Delp is the James H. Clark Professor of Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Orthopedic Surgery at Stanford University. David Delp is a user experience designer, graphic designer, and illustrator in San Francisco.
Delp and Uchida have created a masterpiece of biomechanical integration! This textbook provides a deep but accessible view of movement while explaining underlying physiological and engineering principles. Their writing style is relaxed but rigorous and the illustrations delightfully engaging.
—Richard L. Lieber, Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President, Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, Professor of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, author of Skeletal Muscle Structure, Function and Plasticity
Biomechanics
of Movement
The Science of Sports, Robotics, and Rehabilitation