2007 September | Quintic Video Analysis Software... Hot off the Press!

Why Sports Shoe design isn’t all Cobblers – Definitive

The Open Champion Padraig Harrington five years ago approached a sports shoe manufacturer and asked, “Why do I play golf in a pair of dress shoes with spikes? A hundred-metre runner wouldn’t run his race in the same pair of shoes as a marathon runner…”

The shoe that The Open champion wore (to win The Irish Open as well, by the way) was developed as a direct result of this interrogation by Harrington, the golf world’s undisputed man of the moment.

The launch coincided with the time when the rules and regulations of golf balls and drivers were made significantly more stringent, and golfers were looking into new ways of improving their game within the rules of the R&A. Hi-Tec was one of the first shoe manufacturers to do extensive Biomechanics research into hardware development, but according to Hi-Tec’s Frederik Sundstrom, the really unique part of the whole undertaking was that they did it in collaboration with one of the best players in the world.

“After our success with CDT Power most of the major brands have jumped on the bandwagon and tried to create game improvement golf shoes,” says Sundstrom. “I am not sure if all of them do biomechanics research, but I know the company that works with a player of Harrington’s calibre does.”

While Hi-Tec contributed the commercial clout and business acumen, it was towards biomechanist Dr Paul Hurrion and his Quintic Consultancy that they turned for chapter and verse on how actually to design the shoe itself.

Hi-Tec now has a patented technology with its outsole that helps them stay ahead of the competition. It is a combination of parts, says the manufacturer, that make their shoes perform better than any other. Essentially, the concept gives better stability and grip for better balance. The balance gives greater consistency and – consequently – the ability to hit the ball further when desired.

It is the biomechanical perspective that proves the overriding importance of balance in this area of golf.

Hurrion falls short of becoming too high-falutin’ about the biomechanical angle to this, but the contribution of the ‘strictly scientific’ cannot be underplayed. His strength is an comprehensive understanding of the behavioural dynamics and implications of athletes and their environments – and that includes their equipment.

“Our focus is not exclusively on the sort of performance that can be quick-fix addressed,” explains Hurrion. “Performance can be enhanced with chemicals, for example, but we know where that can lead.

“The strategy has to be a more all-encompassing approach that combines performance, comfort, ergonomics, injury-prevention and musculoskeletal optimization. And that informs our product development across all sports and hardware provision from toe to body, hand, shoulder, neck and head.”

Hurrion uses a perspective that is as broad as it is far-reaching. Specifically, as a committed sports fan himself, he sees his mission as ensuring athletic excellence as part and parcel of – and not averse to – physiological well-being and longevity.

Whether he’s involved with a Dubliner golfer in his 30s like Harrington or a javelin-thrower like Goldie Sayers in her late teens, or a cricketing colossus like Graeme Hick, Hurrion is the man with X-ray eyes. Rotate more at the shoulder, you risk injury if you continue on that path, flex more at address, brace during the impact and follow through…

Frederik Sundstrom : “I don’t think the golf shoe industry would have been where it is today if it wasn’t for Padraig Harington and Dr Paul Hurrion. They pushed Hi-Tec to come up with something that helped Padraig swing the club even better… a shoe that gave him better grip and a very stable platform that enabled him to hit the ball with better consistency and with more power. I think the new shoes were a catalyst that enabled Padraig to take his whole game to a new level. According to Padraig, he now has the best clubs, ball, caddie, putting coach, swing coach, management team and now the best shoes. He’s at the top of his game, and we aim to help keep him there, as part of the team behind him.”

http://www.golfbusinessnews.com/news/news.asp?storyid=4083

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Rocket Science for Everyone!

September 1st, 2007 | Biomechanics Consultancy, Golf Biomechanics, Quintic Video Software

Arnold Palmer has recently been credited with being the single most important sporting icon to begin the transformation of golf into the ‘game for everyone’.

A generation before marketing became a byword for charlatanism with testosterone, Palmer’s looks, undoubted athletic prowess and his charisma made him much more ‘bankable’ than any other golf professional of his age. But here’s an interesting thing…

Recently re-produced photos of Arnie in his heyday show the young dragon pouting strangely. This was mentioned in passing to John Lewis from Bay Hill by Palmer UK & Ireland, who explained that it’s because the young Palmer smoked like a chimney, but modern custom forbids this and so the Lucky Strikes have been airbrushed out but the facial expression of the habitual smoker remains.

It’s representative of how sport has turned against nicotine and related sybaritic pleasures – many would have thought that golf didn’t really number among the sports where self-denial and discipline were that evident.

At the Open in 1976, Johnny Miller walked away with the champion’s purse of £7500, having beaten Jack Nicklaus in to second place by 6 strokes. And the biggest attraction on the Royal Birkdale ground was the Guinness Tent, says an observer of the time.

Golf was slightly rarefied, slightly Bertie Wooster, slightly… well…

Then Tiger Woods happened. With his shameless athleticism and firebrand physicality he has 60 PGA victories and 13 majors and will surely go on to break the Jack Nicklaus record of 18 majors … ‘did him no good at The Open, mind you.

Padraig Harrington didn’t gain possession of the Claret Jug at The Open using a metal detector. His training regime is strict, well-researched, rigorously executed. And what’s behind it all?

Biomechanics.

When kids go to school today, if they’re taught physical education by a recent graduate of any decent training college, biomechanics will have been written large in the syllabus of what physical education teachers have to master. For those of us who aren’t aware of the term Sports Biomechanics uses the scientific methods of mechanics to study the effects of various forces on the sports performer. It is concerned, in particular, with the forces that act on the human neuromusculoskeletal system; velocities, accelerations, torque, momentum, inertia… It also considers aspects of the behavior of sports implements, footwear and surfaces where these affect athletic performance and injury prevention.

Harrington has mastered this concept, because as an athlete his in depth knowledge of how his body works in golf competitions allows him to monitor his performance in fine detail, accentuate positive and eliminate negative aspects, as well as avoid strain or injury.

Dr Paul Hurrion is a doctor of biomechanics, and consults regularly with Padraig, as well as with the likes of Andrew Coltard, David Howell, Philip Archer, and Lee Westwood… During interviews with the press at the Scottish Open, much was made of Westwood’s recent visit to a putting lab to sort out his erratic performance on the greens. “The laboratory is a room with a hard floor, green carpet, cameras all over the room and mirrors – it’s a bit kinky really,” Westwood told reporters.

It’s quite an accurate description of The Quintic Putting Lab in the centre of England where Dr Paul Hurrion is based. It would also describe the set up Padraig Harrington has at his home in Dublin; a faithful replica of the lab at Quintic.

“Quintic Performance Analysis Software provides comprehensive, easy to use, tools that allow me to analyse my full swing, chipping and putting in fine detail, whether I’m on the practice range, indoors or away on Tour,” explains Padraig. “I am able to synchronise and compare my swing action and tempo immediately, whilst the use of the drawing tools enables me to calculate the speed and acceleration of my club and arms.”

This science is what is making the single most meaningful contribution to sport in our time.

Quintic’s portfolio of clients embraces professional athletes, amateurs, sports education establishments and professional coaches across disciplines that include cricket, rowing, boxing, gymnastics, skating, rugby and football. The company’s expertise and software has benefited Irish clients such as Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast, The Maher Sports and Wellness Centre in Dublin, Irish Athletics, The University of Ulster and the country’s water sports governing body, Swim Ireland.

But Paul Hurrion has a special soft spot for golf, and putting in particular. As a gifted all-rounder in sport at school and university, golf did feature among Hurrion’s leisure sports, but it became a commercial interest after he compiled a paper for the World Congress of Golf in Scotland on the principles behind the C-Groove putter. His definitive work here on the mechanics of golf ball roll remains a key component of Yes! Golf’s strategy for C-Groove worldwide, and has earned Quintic lucrative biomechanical and product development work as far afield as China, Hong Kong & Australia.

In an entirely separate undertaking, Hurrion several years ago was retained by shoe manufacturer Hi-Tec to research and develop the ultimate golf shoe. The result was the Custom Directional Traction (CDT) shoe. Three guesses what shoes were worn by the Open Champion Harrington… and the first two don’t count.

Golf is especially interesting from a biomechanical point of view, due to the fact that enormous torque and power are in play when driving a ball off the tee, yet chip shots and putting around the greens involve a much different set of physical movements, relying on control and great deftness of touch. Common to all golfing movements, however, and a key consideration in so much biomechanical study is balance & stability. In looking at sport performance literally from the ground up, the way a golfer distributes his body weight is a factor of which he’s generally unaware, and yet so much depends on it, ‘The power comes from your feet! – How far would you hit a driver in your bare feet?’

For analysis of both the full swing stroke and putting stroke, weight distribution and balance is measured using a force platform. This is a small mat packed with sensors and chips to monitor initial balance and shifting of weight during athletic movement. Hurrion is able to look at unlabelled computer-generated pressure graphics of various golfers’ movements whom he has coached and identify it as a Harrington, Howell, Westwood or Nancy Jones from down the road – each display being so much an individual signature.

This might not appear that interesting at first, were it not for two distinct facts relating to this.

Firstly, there has never been a visitor to the Quintic lab whose athletic aberrations have not been immediately impacted by addressing balance to one degree or another.

Secondly, the experience derived from this type of analysis has allowed Hurrion to design a range of training and adjustment solutions that this year and next will be on sale to the general public. No exaggeration or sleight of hand, the complex methods used to coach the world’s most successful golfers will literally be available to everyone. More of this later…

“I often work with amateur golfers as well as the Tour Professionals,” says the biomechanist in an aside. “Most of them have favourite Tour players whose progress they will follow assiduously. One of these keen amateurs said to me once that being privy to these methods we use to help Tour players was akin to an extreme form of memorabilia-collecting… but instead of having the ball David Howell used to hole out and win the BMW, or the glove Padraig was wearing when he won The Open, he had the very technique, mind-set or drill that was in use, and not mere equipment.

“It’s probably the only acceptable form of super-athlete-stalking there is,” he says – almost smiling.

Avoiding injury is also clearly a key consideration. For Tour golfers, injury actually means more than just discomfort, it’s a loss of earnings. The vast majority of the world’s 65 million golfers, though, aren’t professional golfers. But the sheer number of players over 55 whose physicality is more prone to strain and damage makes injury at this level just as important.

It is through a comprehensive understanding of the body’s mechanical characteristics that biomechanists know what a body can and can’t, or should and shouldn’t do.

Understanding all the physiological stuff is one thing. But it’s an entirely different matter discovering the best hardware and software possibilities that are available to turn it into diagnostic, explanatory and remedial reality.

The use of video cameras to capture images of athletic motion is very important. The human eye can only separate a maximum of ten to twelve images per second. When it comes to analysing athletes’ techniques, even the coach’s practised eye cannot extract all the necessary details in a live sporting situation. The way that video cameras work is by creating the illusion of motion by ‘tricking’ the human eye. They play 25 flashing still pictures each second (fps). As the eye cannot separate those pictures, we perceive continuous movement.

Quintic video analysis software enables video capture at 25, 50 and 100fps. At 100fps each still image is 10ms apart, capable of capturing even the fastest of human movement. Quintic also has the capability of capturing four live video images simultaneously, allowing for still further potential for kinetic comparisons.

More and more athletes, coaches, scientists are using video feedback as a coaching aid. Video can help athletes to understand the basic fundamentals of a specific movement, and these images are used to assist coaches in their task, as the athlete’s performance can be repeated afterwards and slowed down during critical phases.

By comparing performances of previous movements, or even other athletes, the Quintic biomechanical software enables the user to compare video images via the computer screen. Differences between the techniques can be identified (competition vs. training) and this information made available immediately to the athlete. The coach and the athlete can discuss what they see and plan a strategy for improvement, then repeat the process. How the feedback is presented to the athlete when using Quintic is highly dependent upon the skill of the coach or analyst.

And your point is…?

Golfers are extremely vulnerable. No seriously.

A lot of club golfers come to the game late in life and a strange metamorphosis occurs the first time they walk into the pro shop at their new golf club.

Imagine a successful professional man. He could be a surgeon, company director, stockbroker or Formula one racing driver. Supremely confident in his own sphere of expertise, he is putty in the hands of a PGA pro (or his 17 year-old assistant perhaps) and is entirely reliant on the advice he is given. This is widely known among the entrepreneurial community.

There is virtually a gadget for every one of those 65 million golfers, costing anything between a few Euros and thousands of dollars they can cure your slice, enhance your confidence, stop the shanks, yips and DTs, align your stance, help read the greens, make you drive further, chip more accurately… all geared to lower your handicap and make you a better golfer. Golfers pursue lower handicaps like a knight after the Grail and will pay loads for any and every chance to make it happen.

Most devices have only the kind of research behind them that comprises likely profits after 12 months’ trading (if they last that long). Even well-meaning golfers who ‘have an idea’ are arguably on the prowl to be behind the next big thing in golf.

The work carried out by Dr Paul Hurrion and Quintic Consultancy is grounded in proven academic fact and tested application of physics. He personally is cagey about when his training products will be available, partly because this sort of commercialism is not his primary area of expertise. Also, it’s partly due to the fact that on most occasions when he sits down to apply himself to refining the product, he’ll get another urgent summons from his client list of PGA players who need his consultancy… there aren’t enough hours in the day…

We all look forward to Paul finalising the designs so we can benefit from the science… what will that be worth to us golfers?

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Why Sports Shoe design isn’t all Cobblers – Definitive

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