The University of Michigan’s new Exercise and Sport Science Initiative, which launched last week, aims to address three areas of focus including sport technology, data science and analytics and optimal performance.
The initiative is a joint effort between the University’s Office of Research and Athletic Department, and includes researchers working on physical activity and exercise research from more than 10 departments on campus. The collaboration aims to create a sense of interdisciplinary research to study athletic performance and physical ability over a person’s lifetime.
The schools and departments involved in the initiative include LSA, the School of Kinesiology, the College of Engineering and the School of Social Work. The inclusion of a wide range of disciplines aims to allow research teams to receive feedback from other departments to encourage innovation and improvement of current technologies.
According to the ESSI co-director Ronald Zernicke, a professor of kinesiology, ESSI is unique because it enables the University to tackle the common problem of health relevant across various disciplines. To foster this relationship, ESSI has a scientific advisory board that has regular meetings to discuss the joint efforts and progress of the program.
“We will now have clusters of scientists working with students with new ideas, and thinking of how to approach a question from multiple directions,” Zernicke said. “It really brings the depth and breadth of Michigan together.”
As another part of the initiative, the Kinesiology School, the School of Public Health, and the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning are designing active classroom environments for third to fifth graders which will encourage physical activity. If everything goes according to plan, the technology will be tested in Ann Arbor school classrooms and may be used as a model for active classrooms at other schools across the country.
Zernicke, who is also a professor of Orthopedic Surgery with co-appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Kinesiology, said the initiative encompasses his interests and passion for solving health issues such as lack of exercise.
“What I am really interested in is physical activity and exercise across the lifespan,” Zernicke said. “Keeping people active, whether your kids are overweight, or you’re an elderly person and are getting arthritis, exercise has a huge influence on reducing immobility and preventing arthritic injuries.”
ESSI’s other co-director, Engineering Prof. Ellen Arruda, is the head of one of ESSI’s most high profile projects: manufacturing and designing football helmets to prevent concussions and head injuries. The design, Mitgatium, contains lightweight elastic and viscoelastic components that are intended to reduce the intensity of impact.
Several other ESSI researchers are also working on concussion issues, including James Eckner, physical medicine and rehabilitation professor, and Mechanical Engineering Prof. James Ashton-Miller, who created a concussion stick that tests reactivity. Arruda said concussions are a major challenge that are commonplace among athletes, and there is much more to be discovered regarding the impacts of head injuries and the damage associated with them.
“Neurologists do not understand the mechanisms of brain injury,” Arruda said. “Our goal is to mitigate all the potentially harmful effects of impact events in helmeted sports.”
Other key players in the initiative are industry innovators such as Kellogg’s and Intel, which provide funding and research opportunities to the University. Student entrepreneurs also have a significant role in the initiative, either working on their own projects or as undergraduate research assistants for faculty members.
Rackham student Michael Jocz is a 2015 mechanical engineering alum and former Michigan Football tight end, said he decided to seek out a position in Arruda’s lab because of his passions for engineering and athletics.Having heard stories and witnessed injuries of his teammates on the football team, Jocz said he hopes that the work of Arruda and her team will be one step toward decreasing the likelihood of concussions.
“The collaboration of all these great minds gives me hope that we can make sports safe for the next generation of athletes while also developing new training methods to improve overall fitness and prevent injury,” Jocz said.