During the 2026 Winter Olympics, athletes will leap off ramps, slide throughout ice and spin by means of the air. These performances will look totally different to my college students who’ve studied physics by means of sports. These feats might be one thing the scholars have already measured, modeled or felt. As a physicist, I assist my college students see the video games as a spot the place classroom classes come to life.
I spend a whole lot of time interested by how summary concepts equivalent to kinematics, forces, power, momentum and movement are understood in the true world. Recently, I listened to a gathering of the Clemson soccer workforce’s offense to acquire an appreciation for what my student-athletes do. But I got here out with an thought for a brand new introductory physics class.
While sitting in the again row, listening to the coach break down the Tigers’ upcoming sport, I spotted that I might perceive each single phrase mentioned, regardless of by no means having performed soccer. Most of the blokes have been known as Sam or Mike, they usually regularly talked about gaps and containers. I knew the terminology. I adopted the diagrams. I might repeat the language. And but, I understood completely nothing about how that data translated into a technique for profitable the sport.
It dawned on me that my confusion is probably going comparable to what number of college students expertise physics. They can comply with the person items, equations, definitions and vocabulary, however they’ve hassle connecting these items to real-world that means. Physics is smart as a topic of research, but it usually appears disconnected from on a regular basis life.
I created Clemson’s Physics of Sports class to shut the hole. The course begins not with summary issues or idealized programs, however with sports that individuals already care about. The class then reveals the physics that make these actions attainable.
Physics in snowboarding
Many introductory, algebra-based physics programs have college students research frictionless blocks sliding down imaginary planes. In my course, college students analyze the most recent Olympic sports.
Ski mountaineering, making its Olympic debut in 2026, requires athletes to climb steep, snow-covered slopes totally below their very own energy. My college students uncover a chic physics downside involving friction, the pressure that resists sliding between surfaces.
AP Photo/Antonio Calanni
To speed up uphill, the skis should expertise a small quantity of friction whereas shifting in the ahead route. However, the identical ski should present sufficient friction in the wrong way to stop the skier from sliding again down the slope.
Skiers resolve this contradiction using climbing skins on their skis which are engineered to grip the snow in one route whereas permitting easy sliding in the wrong way. In class, college students study how the pores and skin materials’s design helps climbers summit the mountain effectively.
Students additionally have a look at how specialised supplies help in ski jumping.
The skintight suits skiers wear aren’t for aesthetics; they assist control the physics of air. Loose cloth will increase drag and might even generate carry, very like a wingsuit worn by skydivers. Tight-fitting clothes minimizes these results, making competitors fairer by leveling the sector for all athletes.
AP Photo/Matthias Schrader
Physics in skating
When it comes to skating, small adjustments in physics can set medalists aside from the remainder of the sector. In class, college students examine how speedskaters can lean dramatically towards the ice with out falling by analyzing their centripetal acceleration and the forces performing on their our bodies throughout high-speed turns. Centripetal acceleration is the accelerating pressure directed towards the middle of a flip. It retains the skater shifting in a curved path moderately than shifting alongside a straight path.
Figure skating gives one other placing instance the place small adjustments in physique positioning can dramatically have an effect on the athlete’s efficiency. Angular momentum, which describes how a lot rotational movement an object has, is determined by each how briskly the article spins and the way its mass is distributed. Angular momentum permits skaters to management what number of instances they spin in midair.
Sketchplanations, CC BY-NC
In class, college students don’t simply watch the elite athletes – they mannequin these ideas with their very own actions. By sitting on a rotating stool with weights in their outstretched arms, college students emulate a determine skater by pulling their arms inward and spinning a lot quicker as their mass strikes nearer to their axis of rotation.
Physics in action
By finding out sports, college students start to see physics not as a set of formulation however as a framework for understanding how the world works. A fundamental understanding of physics permits college students to critically consider on a regular basis claims, starting from viral sports clips to deceptive headlines and exaggerated efficiency claims.
In spotlight reels, for instance, athletes usually seem to steer left or proper after taking off on a bounce. Physics college students know that may’t be the case – as soon as airborne, there isn’t a manner to change that path with out pushing on one thing.
Elite athletic performances aren’t the one locations to see physics in action, after all. The similar rules underlie most on a regular basis experiences. With sports as an entry level, college students can be taught a language that permits them to interpret the bodily world round them.
Physics doesn’t dwell solely in textbooks or exams. It is written into each stride, flip and bounce, at each degree, from leisure actions to Olympic competitions.