"Everything Biomechanics"

You’d be hard pressed to find a more passionate professor on Auburn University’s campus than Wendi Weimar.  

A biomechanist by trade, Weimar has been the Director of Auburn’s Sport Biomechanics Laboratory for more than 25 years.  The lab consults with professional and college athletes, Olympians, national teams, military members, veterinarians and the community. Weimar primarily focuses on the function of the lower extremity — everything from footwear choice and shoe tying to walking and running. She empowers her students to analyze movements of the body to help individuals put on an armor of protection, while also improving their performance.

“First of all, we do motion and gait movement analysis to help people be better movers,” Weimer said. “In our research, we do studies that help people perform better, and hopefully by performing better, we put them in a better position to avoid injuries.”  

Weimar’s journey to the Plains is as fascinating as her gait dynamics research. The Vermont native got her undergraduate degree from Castleton State College.

“I had a double major, double minor,” said Weimar. “I was secondary education, physics and chemistry, and then I had a minor in math and a minor in theater. I went into theater because I thought that would help me be a better teacher.”

After graduating with her master’s in Adapted Physical Education from the University of Virginia, Weimar started teaching at New York’s Colonie High School. When it came time to consider getting her doctorate, it was Weimar’s parents who urged her to visit the loveliest village on the Plains.

“It was 1996, and we drove up College Street and saw all the beautiful brick buildings: quaint, quaint, quaint. It reminded me of a New England town,” recalled Weimar.  “Then, when I met the professors in the School of Kinesiology, it was like putting on a jacket that just fits the length of the sleeves.”

While working to obtain her doctorate from Auburn, the native New Englander learned to embrace the Auburn spirit that is not afraid.

“The Auburn family permeates outside of campus,” said Weimar. “When I went home on my first Christmas break, I had on an Auburn shirt, and somebody yelled ‘War Eagle’ at me. I dropped back ready for a fight.” 

“I was like, ‘You feeling froggy, Kermit? Just jump. Let's go.’ I wasn't up on the lingo then, but I am now. I've been all over the country, all over the world, and if I'm wearing Auburn gear, I hear it. It’s great.”

In addition to being a professor, Weimar is a renowned author and scientist. She is the co-author of a widely used textbook, Kinesiology: Scientific Basis of Human Motion. Her study on flip flops, footwear choice and shoe tying led to an interview on Good Morning America where an estimated 600 million people engaged in her research.

Using her infamous phrases like ‘slice o’ pie’ and ‘wicked cool,’ Weimar’s classes are a favorite among Auburn students.

“I like to create an environment where students feel comfortable and have access to opportunity,” Weimar said. “One of the biggest things I learned being a theater minor is that the play doesn't happen on the stage. If you’re on the stage, it’s your job to create the environment in the reach of the audience and it's their job to come and get it.  You must bring it to them and make them excited to engage.”

Photo courtesy of Jared Long ‘19, College of Education, Auburn University

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Transcript

0:06

Weagle Weagle War Damn Eagle, Kick ‘em in the butt, Big Blue. It's Dalton Odom and my co-host Carter too! Back at the Everything Auburn podcast. Carter, how's it going? It's going man, I wasn't ready for it, but it's good. I'm ready. That was very loud. Was it loud? I’m sorry. It's good, I love it. That's what you get. Its just the mic man voice. I’m sorry. He's used to the megaphone, I am Im sorry. I suppose. Well, welcome to it. Dalton's been torturing me with this cinnamon broom for another month. Yeah. So if you were here in the last episode, And if you have it, make sure you go check it out. We learned that Carter hates cinnamon. So what I decided to do was I had a miniature cinnamon broom in my office. Just cause I love the fall. I went and put it on. I do love the fall unit to try and make it blow cinnamon air into his office. It just didn't work. You found it immediately. Instantaneously. I also didn't have the air conditioning on. So because apparently I hate things. Yeah, well, welcome to another one. And I am very happy to say that it's not just me and you talking and waffling back and forth all day, but we have an incredible special guest, Wendy Wymer, who, The shoelace queen herself. If I may, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. So, we'll get into it, I'm sure. But you do have the can. Is it fair to call you the shoelace Queen? There's people that compete for that. Okay. Sure. That that's a, I haven't officially been awarded that title. You have now. Outstanding. Yeah. Congratulations. We should have made it plaque But you're big time now, so. No, no, you are. You have been, What? Good morning, America. You've been on. So you've you've been able to you've blessed us with our, you know, rinky dink little show here. I'm doing my best. But I appreciate it, you know, coming down here. But you're doing some really cool. You're so. But you actually do research on shoes and shoe laces, which is the reason for the shoelace queen title. But before we get in there, Dalton has a list of grievances I think, that he wanted to share with you. Which is particularly why we think you're a, a special guest to have here. So starting out with number one. So these are all from former students in here. Okay? Okay. We don't know who said these things, but this is what they have been anonymized. Yeah. But Doctor Wymer, has been by far my favorite professor in graduate school at Auburn. She is driven to help you succeed and will do anything to help you understand, even if that's a funny YouTube video. She is awesome and uses phrases like slice of and wicked cool. A truly great professor. Can you explain what slice of pie means? So just that just, my curiosity. So a lot of people use the term piece of cake. Sure. So piece of cake, slice of pie. Okay. It is. Do you understand? Do you feel comfortable with it? Are you kind of in that that zone I love it. Yeah, yeah, I see I'm a Yankee too. And so, you know, my my, not that I'm a Yankees fan. I'm a Red Sox. Make that clear. But yes. Well, because I'm a Red Sox fan. Right. So, important distinction. Yes, very much so. And so some of my phrases are very common where I come from down here, the you know, it's like first time I heard what cattywampus. Yes, yes. cattywampus cattywampus. Yes. That is very southern. Yeah. That's how I would describe growing up like the people, like I had my next door neighbors and people live on my street. And the people have cattywampus from me, and they lived right over there. Yeah. We call that catty corner, so. Oh, okay. Okay. Cattywampus same thing? Yeah. So a Wampus is a corner? Yeah, sure. I think it works. One other thing, another student said there there's more. There's more. But but wait, there's more, there's more. I'm a junior at Auburn and she is by a landslide. The best professor I've had. Great teacher. I had her class at 8 a.m. and I seriously didn't mind waking up. And that's high praise, right there. That sure is. Because let me tell you, those eight. And they're rough. They are tough. They are indeed. But I think this is part of the reason why we thought you'd be a great person. Because if you can make an 8 a.m. class fun for people, then you're doing something right. Yeah, you really are. But I did have to ask because you did mention you are a self-proclaimed Yankee, not Yankees fan, but a self-proclaimed Yankee. That's not very close to Auburn. Nope. If I may, how did you find yourself on the Loveliest Village on the Plains? Yeah. Great question. Came up with it myself. I think it's, so as part of my teaching technique to encourage people. So, like when they ask questions to, to support them in that. So great question. But it is a great question above and beyond that. So, I had always thought that I would get a PhD. I started my collegiate career as, an engineer and realized that that was not my passion. And universe higher power. God, whatever you want to interpret it to be kept putting teaching experiences in front of me. And so I became a teacher, and I really think that that was my best destiny. I do think that that's that's how I interact with the world in addition to my research. So, when school became a teacher, and then in my senior year of my going into my senior year, I got hurt and athletic trainers fix me using them. And I said, I need to know everything that you just did to me because this was fascinating And that was the day I became a biomechanicist. So my undergraduate degree, I had a double major. Double minor. I was secondary education, physics and chemistry, and then I had a, minor in math and a minor in theater. And I had gone into the theater because I thought that would help me be a better teacher. I thought if I could create an environment where the students feel comfortable and have the opportunity to have access. And what I learned, one of the biggest things I learned as being a theater minor was that the play doesn't happen on the stage. It's your job. If you on the stage to create the environment in the reach of the audience. And so it really goes on in the to the mind and the grasp of the audience. And it's their their job to come and get it. So you have to bring it to them, make them to be excited to engage in it. when I graduated from my master's, I started teaching high school. Actually, I worked a year working with individuals with traumatic brain injury to try and help them recovery. Realized that that was too hard on my heart. Yeah. It's not. That's not how I interact with the world. There are some beautiful people who do beautiful things with individuals who are recovering from catastrophic injuries and whatever you believe, your higher power, the bless them give them the energy and strength to do it. So I was teaching high school, coaching, field hockey, basketball, softball, loving my life. And I started to feel like I was relaxing and I said I could retire from here. This would be okay. And I said, do you want to get a PhD? And I said, I think I do. And I said, look, I don't care if you change lanes, but you got to decide. And I decided and I applied to a bunch of places, and I had no intention of coming to Auburn. None. Zero. Okay. The only reason I applied was because my folks moved to Florida and I was like, oh, all right, oh, get one close because I was in Indiana, Penn State. Sure. So, we visited Indiana and we're driving back to Florida, and, my dad said, if I turn right here, I can be in Auburn in an hour. And I was like, good, Im not going there. But good for you. And he said, and my mom said, come on Wen, you got to look at it. I was like, oh, well, we drove a college street and it was beautiful brick. Now this is 1996, okay. Beautiful brick buildings. You right by Samford. Auburn was still small. It's smaller than it is now. Not that it's big now. Quaint. Quaint, Quaint. Quaint. And there were a lot of components of it that reminded me of a New England town. Okay. Yeah. And then when I went and I met the professors and I was over in the school of kinesiology they it was. I describe it as putting on a jacket that just fits. Oh, what a what an analogy. I'm. Wicked artsy. So I was like, okay, I think this is where I'm supposed to be. And I used that story to tell a lot of students when they come in, they're like, hey, we're going to school here. I'm like, you need to find your path We need to find where you fit. And if that's at Auburn, that's awesome. We're so excited because I truly believe that a rising tide does lifts. All boats in the world can only be what it's supposed to be if people are where they're supposed to be. Wow. No, no. If you want to be here at all, we want to do everything we can to pick you up. But if you're supposed to be at Indiana State and we're here for you to help elevate you because that's going to make the world better. And that's that's kind of what I'm trying to do in my little way. So I'm glad you found Auburn. Thank you, I appreciate it. I'm very glad. Yeah. And then I brought my cynicism and and, New England crassness down here and, a young lady that was getting their PhD when I was getting my PhD here, walked up to me and said, are you a jerk? Is you prepared for that? You pretend to me. I said, well, welcome to Alabama. And bless her heart. I said, you know what? What why why would you say that? And she said, you never speak in the spoken to you never look anybody in the eye. And when somebody asks you a question, you answer it and move on. And I said, everything you just said is a survival skill where I come from. Okay. It's flippin cold up there. We don't chat outside. Okay? We answer the question and then we go inside and people, the strangest things have happened. Like one of my doctoral students said, why don't you like my wife? And I said, I like your wife. She's fine. And he said, well, how come every time she calls, you just give the phone to me? Just what do you mean, exactly? I was like, because she wanted to talk to you, not to me. So. And so. Yeah. You have to chat. So there's that. You got to. You got to figure out how to do some chatty Cathy's around. Yeah, yeah. So if I carry that up, some people make podcasts and everything. What jerks. I know, I go back up north and they're like, did you get to the point? Which is probably kind of like for the problem right here. So now I'm gonna answer your biomechanics question. Oh, please. Yes. It's complicated. So the 50 cent definition of biomechanics is the application of mechanical principles to biological systems. Okay. That does not help a lot. It's a lot of syllables. Feel free to do that okay. So what people use biomechanics. So think about an engineer. Those tools to study movement. And that's what we did. So and there's people that study geckos walking, roaches walking. Oh yeah. Mice. And matter of fact, I just got a I was on a call today. A faculty member wants me to help them. Study the gate of chickens, you know, casual Wednesday. Yeah, yeah. What an interesting phone call that would be. Well, and that's one of the reasons why I love my job, you know, because the Raptor Center will call us and say, hey, can you come over and take a look at this Eagle? It was hit by a car. We're not sure if it has arthritis in its wings. And if we can release it back into the into the. Well, I mean, now they make the decisions. They're the veterinarians. I'm not saying we did, but we do contribute to them, you know? Yeah. We work for the swim team. We've I worked with a bunch of Olympians on the swim team and the track team, and, and we just give that feedback, to the coaches and to the athletes, and they kind employ that. So. Yeah. And we basically apply Newton's laws of motion to how people move, like there was a stroke or his name was Mark Gangloff And I, we used to work with David Marsh way back in the day, and we'd go over. It was a lot of fun. We have an underwater camera. We put a TV on the side of the pool and we walk next to them. And so they're they're strokes. And then the person would lean on the edge of the pool and watch the TV and the coach and say, what do you see? And I'd say, I see this. And then he'd say to the athlete, get your elbow higher. You know, really cool stuff. Yeah. And he went with Mark Gangloff. We pointed out the, the what are the deficits in his stroke? He and I'm not taking credit. I'm saying that I provided an idea. Okay. He's the one who worked from the time he was six to the time he was, however, when he, you know, won his gold medals. So he went from number 13 and 17 of the world to, number three. Well, Michael Phelps, I'm one of the. So that's the key because understanding like the human body and how it moves is one thing. But if I may. Yeah, you're not a expert at knowing the proper technique for swimming, but how does it translate to know like, I know how the arm and the leg and the, you know, shoulder and everything moves. But to know how it translate to a sport that, you don't just not you're not you're not an athlete in that sport. How do you do that? Yeah. Great question. And so what I tell people when I go to work with swimmers, is that what I know about swimming is how not to drown. Okay. That's a good that's a good skill. If you start on that, say sure. Okay. And but they didn't they didn't care about me, knowing the intricacies of, you know, the breaststroke kick, which I think is really bothersome to me in my propulsive mode, you know, when I'm like, dude, why would you do that? It's like, it can do. You have to do that? Yeah, we have to do that. Well, all right. So because the tools are the tools. Okay, they're the same tools that a mechanical engineer applies when they're trying to build, a car or a, a a dolly system for your camera. Sure. Okay. So decreasing the friction, improving and making a better wheel, those sorts of stuff, those rules. I'm just applying them to a different set of conditions. Okay. Okay. So, my dad was an engineer. My brother's an engineer. I fell in love with science when the Tacoma Narrows Bridge fell. Because I didn't think concrete and steel could bend and twist that much before, and still stay intact. Yeah, it eventually failed, but that was that was one of my first things that really kind of got me in that direction. So incredible. Interesting. Well, then. So another thing I want to ask is because I did kind of tease this earlier with the shoe laces, you've done a lot of work in like, I don't know what the right word you'd know better in like walking gates, posture, how you're you were telling us before about how you tie your shoelace affects and cascades up the whole body and, can you tell me what's the right way to tie my shoe? Okay. Was. Let's let's get into it. There you go. And it's all for different things. And if you have, like. Okay, so let's go back to the beginning. Let's do it first of all, I would like to thank Auburn University for giving me the opportunity to run the lab the way I run my lab. And I, I came in and kind of part of the old school and a lot of labs have a very specific line of research where they might have a clinical population that they pay attention to. I have been gifted the opportunity to be diversified. Okay. Here's the bottom line for me. I love biomechanics and I love to do everything I possibly can with it, which is why we've done birds and dogs and horses and people. It's a pretty wide breadth. Yeah. And now maybe even chickens now apparently. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's that's anyway, that's all. So one of the things that the evolution of my doctoral students is they come in, they work on a project that's going on in the lab, then they take on a small project of their own, and then they follow us into their dissertation. So one of the things we used to do when we were over in the Coliseum, they would have a lot of cheerleading camps going on in the Coliseum. And so cheer. Yeah, it's full circle. Look at us. We're doing it. We're we're doing it. It's a family. Auburn family. It's real, it's real. That is so real. It truly is. I've just. And now we've really gone on. I said I've, I so I went to Auburn, worked Auburn I left for few years and I came back and everyone likes to joke about them and it's the Auburn family thing is like kind of cliche. And I don't think Auburn is only people who use that terminology. However, as lame as it sounds, it it's real. It really is. And it's like you can't explain it. No, it does a little bit. It does a little bit, but it is real. It's, it's it's a physical thing that you feel walking around on campus seeing someone with the Auburn shirt on like it does do something. So on campus I expected. You know if I was on any campus I would expect somebody was here. That was you bump into oh buddy I'm sorry you know or hey great game last night where you go okay cool. No problem. I'm talking about how the Auburn family permeates outside of the campus. So again being the suspiciously New Englander that I am when I first, when I went home from my first Christmas break and I had an Auburn shirt on and somebody yelled War Eagle at me, I dropped back ready for fight, I was like, You want to go? Lets, you feeling froggy Kermit? Just jump. Let’s go. You know? So, I got all upset, and I was like what are you doing the guy looked at me and he’s like War Eagle! I'm like, Hey! because I had heard War Eagle Hey! I wasn't up on the lingo. It’s a call and response, That’s right, so I came back and I told the story and people pounded the table much and laughed as much like you guys did like you're such a dodo head. Yeah, I was so but that was my first thing. So now I've been all over the country. I've been all over the world. And if I'm wearing Auburn gear, I it there. People walk up to me and this is the difference too. So I was in DC and this guy with a lot of medals on his chest walked by me very closely and very quietly, said War Eagle. War Eagle. And is this going to sound stupid? But I felt safer. Yeah, him. Right then I was like, somebody got my back. Yeah. I believed in my heart right then that if I turned that guy and I was like, hey, that he would stop and take a minute and you know, tell me how not to be lost or whatever it is. Yeah. And that has happened to me multiple times. And I tell these people, not these people. I tell people these stories and they tell me stories, unbelievable stories about, you know, flying out to California for the ball game and, you know, the the husband, the wife couldn't fly. And the 15 year, the 20 year old daughter was going to fly out and meet the father. Will the father get caught in weather? And so these people who were sitting next to her when she heard her story said, we'll take you. And they just drove her in and then they all had dinner together. I mean, it really is it's a real thing. And I yeah. And like I said, you can't tell the story without it sounding a little cult like. And yeah, that when that man yelled War Eagle, my mom wanted to fight him too. She doesn't play, you know, that's just that's just the thing, you know, she knows middle people with the middle name The. oh, that's good. You know, just please just give her a wide berth. Yeah. So yeah, we've had a couple of not it doesn't matter. We should. Anyway, sorry, but you were talking about. You were talking about shoes. We're talking about shoes, War Eagle everybody. Sorry. That's so my, My doctorial student is. So we would we would go out and we would watch, the first day of camp, we would watch the young ladies perform and dance and do their things. and men. Excuse me. Yeah. No disrespect. None at all. Disrespect. None at all. And, they would walk in and their flip flops. Then they would don their appropriate cheer shoes and do their thing, and then they would don their flip flops. And I was like, they walk different in flip flops than they do in their shoes. Yeah. And nobody had talked about that. And whether it was good for you or not and that kind of thing. Yeah. And so the purpose that we would go in there and watch them on Monday and then predict who would be hurt by Thursday. And then what a fun game based on the deficits that we would notice and weaknesses and things. And we're like, oh, you know like a coordination issue. And then we would go back and see if our predictions were correct. A coordination issue like that one, it looks clumsy. It's not about that. It's about the coordination can be associated. And this is why we do our job. So if if we were at a sports team or if we had a cheer team, we would walk up and we would then talk to the strength and conditioning coach and say, hey, this is a deficit in your performance. This could actually lead them to injury. And so we believe that, if you do X, Y, and Z or work on x, y, z, they potentially could avoid injury and become a better performer. And so that's and what I was doing was teaching my students how to analyze motion, how to identify breakdowns in form and technique. And again, like I said, I don't know a lot about swimming, but I know a lot about the, the the rules of the road. You know, that Newton's laws are going to tell us. Yeah. And there's an equal opposite reaction. If your action is bad, you're going to get a bad reaction. So it's all that kind of stuff. And so we noticed the whole flip flop shoe thing. And so my junior project for one of my students was to, to compare walking in sneakers to walking in flip flops. Cool. We did it. We wrote it up, we submitted it to, National Conference WebMD and picked it up and it went absolutely viral. The Office of Communications Management, communications marketing, that's that's us. That's us they stopped counting at 600 million interactions with our research. We actually got an award that year for the most positive interactions with Auburn University. Wow. Yeah. That's a that is truly incredible. Yeah. Well, and we got phone calls from the BBC, from Australia, from India, from the West coast. And people were just curious about this. And then I was at the pool. As a matter of fact, I got a phone call from one by the faculty members that are colleagues and they said, when, Good Morning America wants to talk about the whole flip flop thing. And I was like, look, I am really busy right now. I don't have time for jokes. We can talk later and come back to doing what I was doing. And he calls me back and he's like, I'm serious. And I'm like, come on, really? And they're like, yeah. So he gave me the information. And so we did the whole Good Morning America thing. It was great. But that got even more attention. That was cool. And so, that was that was how we evolved into that. So then the next step was we were doing research and more research about flip flops and things like that. And I ran into, that got me in one with Dana Marquez. Used to be the equipment director here for athletics. Dana. Oh, fascinating. Fascinating guy. I've received a lot of shoes from him. So. So they were at the end of the season or the end of their fiscal year. They'll give us shoes that we can do research on. So we can do that, which is tremendous because shoes cost money. And so for us to be able to do these things and so we can and right now we're working on a partnership with, barefoot to do minimalist shoes. And you also talk about the lacing stuff there where there's actually a lacing survey project that we're doing right now that's out there, and there's QR codes all over the place that if you go to our website, there you go scan the QR code. Yeah. So, I talk we were talking to Dana and we were talking about them being able to take advantage of the qualities of the shoe, you know, like the arch support, the grip of the toes, the heel cup, those sorts of stuff. And he said, well, you know, you can tie the shoe differently to take advantage of that. And my mind was you used to be a first commercial where the head blew off and purple just came out. It was purple dusted. Oh yeah. And, so I was I was like somebody had given me permission to unlock. And like, I never even thought about tying my. Yeah, I talked Dana. And so Dana started to introduce us to ways to tie your shoes to, to keep the foot more engaged. And that's the beginning of it. Right. So the there's a, called The Runners loop where you tie the top of the, the top to eyelets of your shoes a little bit differently. And what it does is it sinks the heel cup in and you're, it engages the heel of your foot and the heel cup of the shoe better so that it's more connected. And it doesn't feel like your foot is in a shoe hitting the ground. It feels like your foot shoe is hitting the ground. It's one unit, okay. And so we do that for, cleats and shoes and that sort of stuff. But if somebody has turf toe, if somebody had a, you know, a lot of runners will get, what's it called, a bruise on their big toenail. Oh, yeah. You can replace your, your sneakers to take the pressure off your big toe. And we've done this with, we worked with a doctor one time who was, having neuropathy symptoms at the end of the day, and he had tried every shooting on demand. He had gone barefoot. He had done everything, and it just kept happening. And so we retied his shoes and took some of the pressure and guided his foot a little bit differently. He called us two weeks later. He said, I can't believe it. Wow, I don't know this. You guys are magic. I think you did some voodoo thing on us. Well, you might have. We're not allowed to talk it. That's the secret sauce. I do think it's remarkable. Like how the. I think you said I never. I've tied my shoes the same way every single time my entire life. And, frankly, I don't want you to see how I've tied my shoes, because I feel like you'd probably be appalled. But you said there's 214, depending on the number of items on your shoe. Of those 214, give or take. How many do you know that you could do? Do you have like, memorized? How many? How many different ways can you tie your shoes right now without looking one up? So ish. I'm just now I'm just really curious. Okay. So it's the it's the application of techniques at different locations along the eyelet range. Oh, that the way they come up with the math for that. And, you know, this is the other reason why I'm a little uncomfortable when you say that I'm the queen of lacing because there is a guy out of Australia and I think he's called Doctor Shoelace or something. Oh, did I, did I, did I hit a copyright? I don't know man, I don't I yeah yeah okay. It's all about peace, love and understanding. Good to know okay. Yeah. Because we want to bind with the shoe laces. Yeah. Everybody climbs a tree. Nobody falls off. That's. So so it's basically kind of a runner's loop technique that we applied to put the force at a different point along the shoe to give you better. Like if you have a tendency to fall off the outside of your shoe, we would tie your shoes differently along that outside border of your your laces, support over there. And so all of this goes back to taking advantage of the science that's in the shoe, and then also taking advantage of the lines of force and lines of action that can help, you be more engaged with your, with your shoe and foot interface and that's, yeah, that's that's kind of what we will be trying to do with I, we know one thing that, the School of Kinesiology does, they, they have the sports lab, and Carter and I have both had the opportunity to go down there, and it's extremely cool space. So if you don't mind touching on that a little bit and just telling the people what you'll do down there. Oh, yeah. So my lab has three prongs of activities we work in. First of all, we teach we we do motion analysis, movement analysis to help people be better movers. And then we have a research people. And so that's the part of the training with my doctoral students. Now with regard to our research, we are primarily a lower extremity lab. Who needs that sort of stuff. So we do studies that, contribute to, people performing better and hopefully by performing better, putting them in a better position to avoid injuries. Like, you know, there's a lot of people that are like, oh, can you can you prevent injuries? You know, okay. But right now we just can't do that. But we can help people. B to develop an armor to be as most protected as they possibly can. So for instance, right now we're looking at a study looking at that is addressing movement variability and gait. And so what we do is we have people who just do 20 gait trials where they just walk up and down, and then we put a static obstacle in front of them, and they have to walk and then they step over it. So the idea is, you know, you think that when you walk, you walk the same way every day and every step, but you don't, because if a ball runs in front of you or a bug is coming or the traffic, the foot traffic is addressed in a certain way. We don't want to have a whole new plan come in to, adjust for every little perturbation that happens. So you have this window of variability that you have when you walk. Well, we believe that as you get closer to the edge of those windows of variability, that that's where you begin to look at injuries and that sort of stuff where you've got, almost a cognitive, logjam where you're trying to figure out how to handle that situation. So we have them walk, we have them step over a static obstacle, and then we have, and, where we have a moving obstacle that we have a, remote controlled car area. Then we're also looking at, individuals who that was with, high calf. So some people have higher, higher calfs or smaller calf muscles. Does that change your foot structure. Does that change how strong your toes are. Do you get it? Does every change in the position of the muscle actually yield a greater force? Production because it has less of a acceleration road to go through? And then, we're looking at, whether the the partnership with Vivo Barefoot is to see is this, barefoot shoes actually help people wake up their foot more because when we wear these big, fluffy shoes, you know, the body's the biggest slacker there is. And if there's a way to, get out of something to not work hard, it shuts down. It says, oh, you've got big, fluffy shoes. I don't have to work so hard with my intrinsic foot muscles to engage the ground and have a good force exchange. So, we're looking to see if a shoe worn periodically could actually help reengage the brain foot body connection and make you a better mover and engaging some of the the smaller muscles in your pelvis that would help to stabilize your pelvis and your strengthening. So those and then we're also working with the vet school on the on the Detection Dogs project, helping them, helping the dogs be healthier in their gait cycle. So wow, that's incredible. And it's really cool because like, there's this like poetic thing with like, that's your connection to the Earth and the planet and the world that you experience. And it just cascades all the way up. Exactly. Incredible. Well, just thank you for coming here and just having, you know, a good time, a little chat with us and teaching us about sport biomechanics and how it works. And now and I feel like I know a little bit better now. I can tell people what it means. I've learned a few words, what have you. But before we go, if you could. What if I'm a student pending grad student. So I want to do a where. How do I find you? What classes are you teaching? What if this is something I want to get involved in? What are my steps? So, we have a website. The Auburn University sport biomechanics lab. We're over in the first floor of the kinesiology building. If you Google me. And I know the famous, well, there was a swimmer one time. He was an international student, and he tried to come back into the country and they're like, no, you've left and come back into the country too often. You're gonna have to stay out for six months now. And he's like, no, I'm a swimmer. And we said, Google me. I just started laughing so hard. I actually, that was a great line. But, yeah. So if you, if you Google Auburn University biomechanics, the sport biomechanics, you're actually going to find three labs. There's Doctor Oliver's lab, and she does work with the upper extremity throwing events. There's Doctor Roper's lab, who works more with clinical populations evaluating helping people with Parkinson's and the elderly move better and have stay healthier longer. And then there's us who are just fascinated by by movement and, and get involved. If you're if you have any curiosity, if you want to be involved, you know, your education is your responsibility. You have to take that next step. We're not we can't go out and ask every individual on campus if they want to be involved in our stuff. You want to be involved in our stuff? Drop us a note. Yeah, this is what's interesting. Me, you know, and we have a really good, we're kind of the, one of the the pillars of, orthopedic physical therapy. And so, understanding the body mechanics of the body and the anatomy of the body better. And the skeletal. Now we can put you in a better position to be successful in those careers as well. Beautiful. Well. That's incredible. Well, maybe we can find you a few more, few more students, few more, test subjects, if you will, to come out there and get, you know, figure out good ways to, Tyler shoes and whatnot. Thank you for coming. We appreciate it. Thank you for listening. And if you enjoyed this, we have more episodes. So find our podcast hub, or you can find us wherever you get podcasts. Listen to our past episodes, and we'll have another one next month. Speaking to another incredible member of our of our Auburn family. And, we'll see you again next time. So thanks for listening. Thanks for coming. War Eagle War Eagle War Eagle.