In the final of the men's big jump for snowboarding at the Beijing Winter Olympics, Su Yiming of the Chinese team won the gold medal and once again reached the podium.
In the previous slope obstacle course competition, Su Yiming twice flipped out of the 1800-degree movement of the body, becoming the only player on the field to complete the five-turn body.
Image source: Central video
As early as October 2021, at the age of 17, he completed the ultra-difficult action of the internal rotation 1980-degree grab board in a training session, and was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the first athlete in the world to complete this action.
Whether racing on snow or ice, the movement of the circle appears very frequently.
This is especially true in figure skating, where the athletes on the field are constantly spinning at high speeds, turning several times in 1 second. They didn't faint, and the audience was already almost dizzy.
After so many laps, how come the athletes don't faint? Today we will explore this problem.
Extreme Turn:
Best record next time
Anyone who has tried it knows that spinning in circles is not a simple little sport.
The ice pier that is obsessed with 4A should have a deep understanding, after all, the record of the past.....
A lifelong strong pier, adhere to the Olympic spirit / Source: Sichuan Observation Weibo
Even after practicing for several days, it is still...
Image source: Elizabeth bone essence Ah Weibo
In fact, some people (Xiaobian) fall down in a few laps, and some people easily turn a dozen times without fainting. There are also people who are extremely gifted, and seem to be born to challenge the limits of human beings.
In the Spring Festival Gala of 2014, the 15-year-old small bunting flag rotated on the stage for more than 4 hours, turning about 8,000 times, and it is not too much to say that it is a "human gyroscope".
In 2014, when the small editor came to the world to make up a number, the small bunting flag turned more than 8,000 times in a row / Source: CCTV Spring Festival Gala
In the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, various difficult circle movements also took turns.
On February 8, in the freestyle ski women's big jump event, "genius ski girl" Gu Ailing swooped down from a 50-meter high platform and won the gold medal with a difficult move of 1620 degrees in a two-week flip body. At the same time, she was also certified by Guinness as the first woman to complete a freestyle ski forward flip of two weeks plus a turnaround of four weeks.
1620 This action, which has never been completed in training before, makes Gu Ailing a god in battle / Source: Central video
1980 degree grip plate with internal rotation, more than 8000 laps, 14 hours, two-week flip body 1620 degrees...
How did the creators of these numbers overcome the feeling of vertigo?
Vestibular system:
The sky is spinning in the center
Before answering this question, we need to know how the feeling of vertigo occurs.
The body maintains balance through the collaboration between the vestibular system (the ears), the visual system (the eyes), and the proprioception system (the body).
The visual system, as the name suggests, refers to looking directly with the eyes and determining its own state of motion by observing surrounding objects. The proprioception system refers to the sensations produced by the muscles, joints, and other motor organs themselves when they are in motion or at rest.
The last motor "perceptron," the vestibular system, is hidden inside the ear. Think back to when we were riding the roller coaster, even if we were scared to close our eyes, whether we could roughly tell whether we were going up or down, and this is where the vestibular system is at work.
In the vestibular system, there is an organ called a semicircular canal, which consists of three semicircular tubes that are responsible for perceiving the rotation of the body.
Vestibular system, consisting of balloons, oval sacs, and 3 semicircular tubes, each of which corresponds to a different axis of motion (up and down, left and right, both sides) / Source:
The inside of the seminal duct is covered with many hair-like cells, which are covered by two layers of gelatinous lymph. When rotating, these small villi are swaying back and forth under the drive of the gelatinous liquid, so as to perceive the movement, and the ear then transmits the rotational information to the brain, and at this time, the small villi and the body are in a state of motion, and we do not feel dizzy.
Villous cells float like aquatic weeds (3D schematic) / Source: blausen
And when it was time to stop spinning, the feeling of vertigo came from all directions.
Because at this time, the brain itself is also "dizzy".
Why? The reason is simple. We all know that when we just put down a bucket of water, the water in the bucket will continue to shake for a while due to inertia.
As mentioned earlier, villous cells are covered with fluid. So when the body stops, the little fluff will continue to sway like water in a bucket under the action of inertia. The brain receives the wrong message that the body is still spinning, but our proprioception system and eyes tell the brain that the body has stopped.
The brain has difficulty processing this information gap, so the feeling of vertigo arises. Motion sickness, sickness 3D movies, and sickness high-resolution games are all similar.
Vestibular dress:
Habitual "desensitization" training
Why can athletes not faint? In addition to congenital factors, more or more rely on day-to-day scientific training, so as to stabilize the vestibular system, compete with the feeling of vertigo, and achieve vestibular habituation.
Studies have shown that regular, targeted rotation exercises can improve an individual's vestibular dressing ability and enhance the stability of vestibular function.
Vestibular habituation is a phenomenon in which the vestibular system is gradually reduced or attenuated after being stimulated by the same series of stimuli.
In layman's terms, it is just a matter of getting used to it. After a lot of repetitive training, the body's sensory system will become accustomed to the state of vertigo, and under a certain amount of accumulation, this habit can be stored in our sensory nerves, thus "desensitizing" the feeling of vertigo.
Therefore, under a large amount of training, the athletes' bodies will gradually adapt to the state of rotation, and the stimulation threshold of the vestibular system by the rotational movement will be increased, and it will not be so easy to faint.
Some people may ask, after practicing, can you never be afraid of fainting? Vestibule gowns are time-sensitive, and the "shelf life" generally ranges from a few weeks to several months. But if you can continue to train, it can last longer.
It is not only the athletes who need to overcome the feeling of vertigo, for astronauts and pilots, the stable vestibular system is also an important part of physical training. Some surveys have shown that at present, the highest proportion of the reasons for the grounding of flight cadets is air halo disease caused by excessive sensitivity to vestibular function.
In the spiral ladder exercise, the pilot has three major physical fitness tests: rotary ladder, solid roll, and live roll; the spiral ladder test standard of the Civil Aviation Flight Academy of China is 23 forward and backward rotations within 1 minute / Source: NetEase News
Usually, everyone has the ability to practice vestibular dressing, but it must undergo a lot of scientific training to be effectively improved. The innate condition of the individual represents both its initial value and affects the upper limit. After all, excellent professional athletes, pilots, and astronauts have all undergone layers of screening, and they are one of the best.
But training always has gains, even talented players such as Su Yiming and Gu Ailing have repeatedly mentioned in interviews that their achievements are inseparable from the efforts of more than ten years.
Therefore, if you want to balance well, you may wish to learn from us to insist on jumping the ice pier of 4A all our lives, not to give up when we fall, and to actively carry forward the Olympic spirit. And of course don't forget to be safe!
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Author/Editor: One Man White
Acknowledgements: Wang Jianhong, deputy chief physician of the Department of Neurology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, provides scientific guidance for this article
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The reproduced content represents the views of the author only
Does not represent the position of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Source: Shanghai Science and Technology Museum
EDIT: Hidden Idiot