A successful figure skater must have a combination of steady balance, speed, strength, control, and grace. The seemingly effortless jumps and spins can be deceiving until you give them a try yourself. Exploring the rigorous forces involved in every maneuver, the intense psychological aspect, and the conditioning techniques gives us a behind-the-scenes look at a competitive figure skater.
The layback spin is a signature spin for female athletes. The skater leans their upper body backwards or sideways and transitions between different poses such as grabbing the skate blade or lifting their leg overhead. As a skater transitions between varying positions, their moment of inertia changes. Decreasing their moment of inertia leads to an increase of angular velocity, or spin speed (Hoo, et al., 2021). This increased rotational speed could be as simple as bringing arms closer into the body (Pérex, 2015). Skaters must develop plans for maximum rotation and stability when completing spins. Figure 1 shows different spin positions and their moment of inertia that skaters may consider. Position four has the greatest moment of inertia, and position one has the least.
Performing jumps also requires rigorous planning and practice. In long programs, male skaters must complete eight jumps that are entirely triple and quadruple revolutions (King, 2005). Vertical velocity is generated when the skaters apply a downward force on the ice, and the amount of velocity acquired determines the time they have in air for revolutions. The skater moves their limbs to create a torque, generating an angular momentum to complete the required revolutions (King, 2005). These physical challenges may be heightened by the emotional and mental barriers that come along with figure skating as well.
The competitive nature of the sport may cause deep psychological impact. Many skaters feel the need to achieve both self-satisfaction and display competence to spectators (Vealey and Campbell, 1998). More competitive skaters rely on social approval of their ability and orientation to feel achieved, whereas recreational skaters rely on developing competence in relation to other skaters on the ice (Vealey and Campbell, 1998). The competitive nature of the sport may even prompt adolescents into developing an eating disorder. Weight control behavior is often developed as a response to physique anxiety and the high-performance environment controlled by judges (Monsma and Malina, 2004).
Many figure skating associations also require competitive athletes to undergo aerobic and anaerobic conditioning. Anaerobic conditioning is important for developing a base that may be used in short programs that are two-three minutes in length (US Figure Skating, n.d.). This is a short period with intense maneuvers such as jumps, spins, and footwork which require cells to go without oxygen, where lactic acid may build up. A long program is typically 8 minutes long and cells often undergo aerobic respiration. The goals of aerobic conditioning are prolonged increased heart rate with limited lactic acid buildup (US Figure Skating, n.d.).
A lot of time and practice goes into the sport, whether that is planning maneuvers, managing mental health, or conditioning. Decoding the background work of a figure skater helps to develop an appreciation for the graceful, elegant programs you see in the Olympics!
References
Hoo, Q., Liu, X. and Cao, X., 2021. Strategy on choice of layback spin in figure skating. European Journal of Physics, 42. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6404/abb6c6.
King, D., 2005. Performing triple and quadruple figure skating jumps: implications for training. Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology, 30(6), pp.743–753.
Pérex, J.-P., 2015. Feynman and the kinetic energy of an ice skater. European Journal of Physics, 37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0143-0807/37/1/015003.
US Figure Skating, n.d. Conditioning Aerobic and Anaerobic. Available at: <https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/51012524/conditioning-aerobic-and-anaerobic-us-figure-skating>.
Vealey, R. and Campbell, J., 1998. Achievement Goals of Adolescent Figure Skaters: Impact on Self Confidence, Anxiety, and Preformance. Jounral of Adolescent Research, 3(2), pp.277–243.
Monsma, E. and Malina, R., 2004. Correlates of eating disorders risk among female figure skates: a profile of adolescent competitors5. 5(4), pp.447–460. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1469-0292(03)00038-4.
Comments
15 Responses to “Behind the sport: figure skating”
Hi all,
To celebrate the skating season coming to an end I decided to write about my favourite sport… listening about how figure skating is related to the rotation unit in physics inspired me to dive deeper into the science behind the sport! I hope you enjoy, and thank you ahead of time for any suggestions or edits!
Cheers,
Carly
Hi Carly,
This post was well-written and on a very interesting topic. I learned a lot about the science behind figure skating and have gained a better appreciation of the sport. However, I have made note of some suggestions you may want to consider:
1) When citing 4+ authors in-text using Anglia Ruskin Harvard, add a comma after the last name of the first author and a period after “et al”. For example, it is “Hoo, et al., 2021” not “Hoo et al, 2021”.
2) You seem to have accidentally started paragraph three with “Preforming” instead of “Performing”.
3) When writing numbers under 10, write them out. For example, that includes writing “eight” when you say “must complete 8 jumps”.
4) You do not need to include hyperlinks in the reference list.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading your post. I look forward to the final copy. Happy editing!
Best,
Tushar
Thank you so much for your suggestions! I really appreciate it!
Hi Carly,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post! Figure skating is also one of my favorite sports and I enjoyed reading about the physics behind it. Also specifically, I really liked your conclusion as I found it tied everything up nicely! Here are some minor suggestions:
1) After the third sentence of your second paragraph, I would suggest adding a sentence explaining how a figure skater shifts their position to either increase or decrease their moment of inertia. As in the previous sentence you said it can change, then your next sentence goes into what happens when it decreases. It just seems like there’s a missing link.
2) Your fifth reference is a little dated, I would try to find a more recent source that provides the same information. I usually aim for the source to be less than 10 years old.
Overall loved the post!
Shania RM.
I appreciate all your help! Thank you Shania!
Hi Carly,
Great post! I especially appreciate how you explored figure skating from both physical and psychological perspectives. I have a few suggestions for you:
1. Just a minor edit for the second sentence of your intro: change “it” to “them” to stay consistent with the plural “jumps and spins” and avoid sounding too colloquial. “The seemingly effortless jumps and spins can be deceiving until you give [them] a try yourself.”
2. I really like your figure! I might recommend being more explicit in the figure caption about why position 4 has the largest moment of inertia and position 1 has the smallest moment of inertia. Even just a brief mention of how the skater’s mass is most spread out in the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation in position four (or least spread out in position 1) would make that connection especially clear for readers.
3. I think you might have meant to write “performing” instead of “preforming” at the beginning of paragraph three.
4. Once again, awesome job incorporating psychology and mental health into your work! I would encourage you to expand a little on your fourth paragraph because I feel it ends just a little abruptly the way it is now. For example, you could mention how the development of eating disorders is (or is not) being addressed in the world of figure skating and how the culture of the sport may need to change for the safety and wellness of the athletes. I realize the word count may not permit you to delve too deeply into the topic, but even an additional sentence or two could contribute a lot to this paragraph.
5. In your fifth paragraph, you may want to change “2-3 minutes” and “8 minutes” so that the numbers are spelled out rather than written as numerals to follow the writing guideline for spelling out numbers less than ten.
6. In the conclusion, avoid the use of the contraction “that’s” for academic writing.
7. I realize this post is hot-off-the-press, but don’t forget to remove the hyperlinks from your references!
Once again, I really enjoyed your post and I think you did an especially amazing job integrating concepts from many disciplines. I look forward to reading the final version!
Cheers,
Maya
Hello Maya! You made some great suggestions, thank you for your help. I’m really glad you enjoyed it!
Hi Carly,
This is a very well done blog. I can defiantly see the passion you have for the sport in your writing. Here are a few suggestions.
-In the last sentence of the second paragraph, I thing you mean Figure 1 instead of Figure 4. Also be sure to italicize your figure caption.
-You mention that decreasing their moment of inertia leads to an increase of angular velocity. This would really be a good place to include the conservation of angular momentum. In addition, in the sentence after that, it would be good to mention that L=mvr.
-The last paragraphs look good and I like that you were able to incorporate the psychology of the sport, something that is often overlooked.
Again great work, I hope you find my suggestions useful.
Cheers,
Joey
Hello! Yes I did mean Figure 1.. silly mistake! Thank you so much for your suggestions. I really appreciate it!
Hi Dude,
This was a great blog post, good job! I learned a lot. I have some comments, although these are just my opinions so feel free to ignore them.
– I would prefer to have the frist sentence in reverse; like “A successful figure skater must have a combination of balance … bla bla”. I think it would flow a bit better into the next sentence but that might just be me.
– Same goes with the first sentence in P2; “The layback spin is a….”
– “8” in P3 could be changed to “eight”; someone once told me if the number is less than 10 that it should be written out
That’s everything I could find, great job Carly!
Congrats on being done your last blog of 1st year 🙂
Micah
Hey Micah! Thank you so much for your suggestions, I totally forgot about the number rule so I really appreciate that. Congrats to you too!
Hi Carly,
I was actually just watching the World Figure Skating Championships as well so what great timing! A few points to consider:
– I believe this has been mentioned before but I agree that it would be helpful to explain position 4 has the most amount of inertia and position 1 has the least. It’s not immediately obvious to me why that is so even just a sentence or two would help clear things up!
– Super interesting discussion of the psychology of figure skaters, but the transition into that paragraph seems fairly abrupt. Perhaps a sentence or so just explaining the difficulty of figure skating on both your mind and your body would make that seem a bit smoother for me. I think the transition into the discussion of conditioning would benefit from something similar.
– If you have the space, there’s lots of interesting (and upsetting) case studies on eating disorders worth mentioning, particularly with the way they train girls in Russia. As well, I imagine that “older” figure skaters currently feel a lot of pressure with the bias for younger girls that can do more difficult jumps.
– This is kind of a small one but if you can find an alternative source to U.S. Figure Skating, that would probably be ideal.
Happy editing!
Jennifer
Hello! I watched the championships over the weekend too, so awesome! I appreciate your suggestions, I tried to clear up the inertia between the different positions. Thank you so much!
Hi Carly,
Great blog post, I found it really interesting! As someone who knows how to skate, figure skating seemed way too difficult to even try. I do have a few suggestions:
– In your second last paragraph you mention aerobic and anaerobic respiration during various routines. It may be helpful to include a diagram to show the differences between the processes
– You should replace the “we” at the end of paragraph two when you say “In figure 4, we can see …” to just “Figure 4 shows…”
– Avoid the use the contractions such as “that’s” which was used in your concluding paragraph
Other than that it was a solid blog post and I hope you have a good time editing!
– Yash
Hey Yash! Thank you so much for your suggestions and catching the grammatical/structural errors.. I really appreciate it. Also, happy birthday!