Technology in sports

Sports have always been about competition. Whether it's one on one or a team sport, it has always been about who is the best competitor, but lately in some sports, it's about who's equipment gives them the best advantage.

In baseball, it seems we are just leaving the steroid era. Steroids were intergrated into the game by people who wanted to take the easy way to success instead of do the hard work that it takes along with the natural skill to get better. At first it was just steroids, but when the MLB started enforcing policies on steroids, developers started coming up with new ways for players to take performance enhancing drugs without being caught. They came out with "the clear", a human growth hormone (HGH) that was not detectable by the methods that the MLB was using.

In swimming, they had the "super suits" controversy and they have now been banned. The suits made the swimmers too aerodynamic and because of it, records kept getting broken and people were complaining that it was too much a product of the suit than real talent. Michael Phelps refused to wear the suit because he believe that if he broke any more records, they would then be tainted because of the suit.

In NASCAR, this is very prevelent. Though NASCAR isn't a true sport, it does take a degree of skill to drive like they do, but its not always the best driver that wins, most of the time it's the best car.

Golf is a sport where the equipment is making mostly a generational difference instead of giving players unfair advantages. Most players in the PGA have the best clubs and equipment they can get.

technology in physical tests

In the older days, physical tests were all done by simple means, like seeing how many push-ups one can do, or how far or fast someone can run. Today, these tests are still used to measure physical skills/wellness, but there are a lot more technology based tests today that give educated measurements of all kinds of things.

The VO2 max machine measures all kinds of things from someones heart rate, to the amount and concentration of gases expired from the mouth. These things together measure a persons VO2 max, which is thier maximum oxygen uptake. This number gives you the best idea of an athletes anaerobic threshold.

There are devices that are like scales that hook into computers that can measure ones strength, both static and dynamic. With a machine like this, the person would exert force the surface that does the measuring and the computer would calculate how much force was being exerted.

Another good strength test is the hand grip dynomometer. This machine measures grip strength, which is very indicitive of a persons upper body strength. There are many more machines that measure physical thresholds and there continues to be more that come out every year.