Body Mass Centers
The golf world is familiar with seeing a video, a Gears avatar, or a torso and pelvis moving around to explain the kinematics of the swing. That is all fine and dandy but we need to dig deeper to find the answers we are looking for. What you are seeing in this image is a Tour Player we captured in our Full Body Alpha Man Model.
A very important feature of a bio-mechanical analysis is to be able to define the mass center of the entire body BUT also to identify and define the inertial properties of each segment of the body.
So when we discuss the kinematics in our program, we are reporting on the kinematics of each mass center. So if we report on the left arm, we will be reporting on the upper arm mass center (humerus bone area) a lower arm mass center (radius and ulna area) and a hand mass center. These segments are connected by the elbow and wrist joints.
