![]() The brain can then tell the body what necessary corrections it may need to make. When the athlete performs that move again later, the brain compares its model to the sensory input it’s now getting. Jamie Squire/Getty Images SportĪs an athlete practices a skill, “the brain builds an internal model of the sensory input it expects, based on its experience,” Cullen says. Her routine had no twisty flips like one that had given her problems on a vault. Gymnast Simone Biles (pictured) won a bronze medal on the balance beam at the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan on August 3. ![]() The brain puts all those data together to inform our bodies of where they are in space. Sensors in the rest of our bodies tell how our muscles have flexed. Additionally, five structures in our inner ears report to the brain about how our heads are rotating and moving forward or back and from side to side. We get some clues from our sense of vision. She’s a biomedical engineer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. The brain uses multiple cues to keep us in balance as we move, explains Kathleen Cullen. One possibility is that different parts of the brain don’t work with each other the way they should. “It kind of built up over time,” she said, “and my body and my mind just said no.”īut what actually happens to the brain when a gymnast gets the twisties? In a video made after the Olympics, Biles said she had felt stressed even before Tokyo. Stress may also play a role, Youdan says. So the sights and sounds were different from what athletes were used to at major competitions. In Biles’ case, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, gymnasts at the Olympics did not have an audience in the stands. One factor that could trigger the twisties is a change in an athlete’s environment, Youdan says. So they have some ideas about what might trigger the twisties. But scientists know a lot about parts of the brain that let athletes do complex skills and sense where their bodies are. Nor can they say how long it will take to recover. No one can predict just who will get the twisties or when. “Flying through the air is a much bigger risk to the athlete than losing your orientation during a dance turn.” But the twisties can be especially dangerous, he says. Golfers with the “yips” can’t follow through on swings, for example. Problems similar to the twisties happen in other sports, Youdan notes.
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