How Technology Changes Sports || The FUTURE of Athletics

it's no secret that the world of sport

is different today than it was a hundred

years ago even in the last few years

we've seen significant changes to the

sports that we know and love

athletes are faster stronger fitter

recover faster Lots has changed in the

last few decades even Rafael Nadal says

technology is changing sport as we know

it so maybe not everything that's

happening and that's changing is good in

this video I'll go through the four

major areas that have seen change

because of improvements and changes in

technology so let's get started now I

want to make this a really quick video

so we'll go through these sections

rather quickly

but if you have additional questions

about any of these parts of sport or

want to talk about something else please

leave that in the comment section below

so the first section to talk about is

probably one of the most obvious and

that's safety now athlete safety safety

of the fans lots is improved over the

last few decades and a hundred years

let's talk about football helmets I

think when you think about sports safety

the collisions and concussions in

professional football American football

is quite famous they even have a movie

about it let's talk about the changes in

just football helmets over the last

hundred years if you took one of the

helmets from 1925 and you decided to

play against JJ Watt for example you may

see some problems and honestly I think

we'd probably see deaths in football

there's a huge difference between the

protection that players had back in 1925

compared to what they have today so

safety has improved significantly in

technology has facilitated a lot of that

improvement along with in game and in

sports safety you see a lot of

improvements in recovery there's a lot

more active recovery that goes on and

even from injuries you can see athletes

getting back to their former level of

fitness much faster because of the new

techniques available to them there are

even zero-gravity treadmills that can

help runners and others keep their

fitness up after an injury that would

cause some problems with any

weight-bearing exercise like running on

a treadmill so it changes like that we

see from technology and are helping the

best athlete

the world recover faster and perform

better in their sports the second change

we see is in skill and performance this

is one of the major changes that we've

seen over the last hundred years and

even in the last decade or so many

changes have occurred in world records

we're seeing those fall every single

year recently we saw a runner passed a

two-hour barrier in the marathon so many

things are changing and it seems like

it's happening more and more rapidly

over time to give you just a few brief

examples the 100-meter sprint has seen

24% improvement over a hundred and eight

years pole vault has seen 86 percent

improvement in 94 years javelin 95

percent over 76 years and moving over

into the world of cycling which is

obviously one that I know a little bit

better the four kilometre individual

pursuit has improved in just 32 years

and the one our cycling record has

improved 221 percent over a hundred and

eleven years now a lot of that

improvement can be based on new ideas

new training regimens that have been

implemented based on tried-and-true

methods and better coaching better

accessibility to time and devotion to

these training because professional

athletes is more prevalent they make

more money they're able to dedicate

themselves just a little bit more but in

addition to that better aerodynamics on

the cycling runs is significant and

let's talk about that one-hour record

just for a little bit

jens voigt back in 2014 set the record

the one our cycling record at 51 point 1

1 0 kilometers and 2019 fast forward

just 5 years that's already improved by

7.8 percent to over 55 kilometers that's

huge in just five years the 1-hour

cycling record has gone up almost 8% so

much technology change has occurred in

that time frame that we're starting to

see these athletes and their skills

amplified by the technology that they're

using now as we see these records start

to fall and World Records being set

every single year

the bar for athletic performance is

continually rising I think one of the

aspects that is causing this is the fact

that sport is becoming more globalized

than before we're able to pull athletes

from multiple continents to compete

against each other the Olympic Games I

think is an excellent way to show

athletic performance across the world

and bringing more people into sport is a

huge benefit to the human race in

general and sports to see that

improvement just seeing more people

compete is helping us become better

athletes but the technology that we use

makes a big difference as well

wearable technology specifically is

letting us track so many new things like

distance heart rate speed jump height

fatigue muscle activation respiratory

rhythms neurological activity even sleep

patterns are being identified and

tracked using this new technology so the

more we know the more data we have if

it's used wisely by people who know what

they're talking about we can see

significant improvements because people

can do better at what they've been

trained to do they can see more detailed

analysis of what they're currently doing

and improve some of those things and

make those micro adjustments that they

may need to make to take their

performance to the next level okay so

for number three we're gonna move into

something just a little bit more

controversial now this is adjudication

so the referees using technology to

improve their work so we see instant

replays we see line judging technologies

finished line

goal line cameras so much has gone into

making the referees job just a little

bit easier but obviously this comes with

its own fair share of controversy I love

watching tennis I love watching those

tournaments of the majors are always

very exciting throughout the year but

one of the things that has caused a lot

of stir is the Hawkeye system which is

the line judge that they use for

challenges now this Hawkeye system

measures whether the ball landed in or

out if a player challenges they're able

to go back to the tapes and decide

whether the ball was actually in or out

now the controversy comes in because

this system is not perfectly accurate

even though when it measures it measures

to within millimeters of that line it's

not perfect it carries a margin of error

just like anything you need to realize

that it's not a perfect measurement now

the margin of error on this system

specifically is about three point six

millimeters obviously that's that's very

very small and very accurate but it's

not perfect after you've seen some of

these competitions where the ball can be

called in because of a millimeter

touching the line you start to realize

that maybe it was out with the system

because of that margin of error is

incorrect so maybe we shouldn't rely on

these technological advances quite as

much as we do but I think that's a

conversation for another video in this

specific case the argument in opposition

to using technology for adjudication and

referees has two main arguments the one

being it interrupts the play so it

interrupts the game itself people are

chopping up the flow to look at instant

replays and to look at all these things

where they really just want to play the

game the second reason is because it

takes the referees the human referees

out of the game and digital refereeing

is becoming more popular now while this

may be exciting for people watching on

TV you need to have that human effect of

sport and it's a lot of what we do as

athletes one of the things that has

happened in the adoption of a lot of

this digital aspect of the referees job

is the concept of a challenge so not

necessarily going back to every single

play or every single shot and reviewing

it but giving the players and coaches an

opportunity to challenge something that

has occurred in the past and therefore

drawing on the instant replay and being

able to limit those challenges helps to

keep the game flow as smooth as possible

okay to wrap this up one of the most

common elements that we see and that

technology has helped us to see is

engagement with the sport engagement

with the athletes themselves and seeing

them compete on a world stage now anyone

in the world practically can watch the

FIFA World Cup when it airs anyone can

watch the Olympics we can stream live

NBA games to our phones now but just a

few decades ago that was completely in

so huge improvements have been made in

letting people watch the sports that

they love and being able to follow along

in real-time keeping up with social

media seeing what's going on with your

teams and your sports even in the

offseason has been an exciting way to

follow along with the sports that are so

popular today along with televised live

sports and streaming you can even

interact these days with the specific

players that you want to watch now I

personally really enjoy watching golf

one of my favorite golfers of all time

is definitely Rory McIlroy so let's go

ahead and try this out for ourselves

we'll start a new tweet and we'll send

that out to Rory McIlroy so hey Rory

best of luck this season excited to see

the start of 2020 this week at Torrey

Pines

and just like that you can interact with

your favorite players the fans can

participate even more in the sports that

they love and chat with their favorite

players I think that has specifically

been an excellent part of social media

really allowing people to reach those

that otherwise would be unreachable and

adds a little bit of extra depth to the

sport and the athletes themselves well

that's the end of this video hopefully

you enjoyed the content if you did don't

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see future videos coming very very soon

I post each week with an emphasis on

sports and how technology is really

helping us evolve as athletes in today's

world so until next week thanks for

watching

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