Sport science is a new area of exploration to improve athletes' performance. It is already being applied worldwide, making athletes better, more effective, and incredible performers

Thanks to the Tec de Monterrey and special thanks to Dr. Juan Carlos Bello, biomechanics professor and biomedical engineering department president at the Tec de Monterrey Campus Guadalajara.

Big thanks to Dr. Edgar Miranda, sports medicine doctor and professor of Physiology and Musculoskeletal Physiology at the Tec de Monterrey.

This is an incredible experience I would not have imagined possible at this point in my academic career. I have been given the chance to participate in a novel research project that involves my two deepest interests: biomedical engineering and basketball. It is a merge of my curiosity to learn about biomedical engineering and my expertise in the world of basketball.

I have been playing basketball for as long as I can remember—over a decade. I have been in contact with sports scientists, physiotherapists, personal basketball trainers, gym trainers, and all the field of professional basketball team dynamics. So I was extremely eager to know that the new research project was going to involve basketball knowledge. I have been around it for so long and I have become proficient in its tactics and skills, but I have never deeply learned about its biomechanics and scientific variables of the sport.

Our research consists of identifying specific metrics of an athlete's countermovement jump to analyze its performance on the basketball court and its neuromuscular activation. A countermovement jump is one in which you begin in an upright position with your hands on your hips, you then flex your knees and explode up to jump—all of the jump is performed in one fluid motion and with hands on the hips. This is a novel idea as it has not been done before in Mexico. Having a protocol for the sport and type of athlete means that for the future, our process of improving players will be quicker and more effective. We aim to gather enough data to establish protocols for players and teams in the sport so they can enhance their training and perform better as individual players.

For me, this experience is so unique—the ability to combine these two fields. I am learning new, deep knowledge every day I go to the college. They are so advanced in all of their technology and resources, and of course the professors are also to a high standard. They are excited about what they do and always have new project ideas they want to accomplish.

Getting Started

The project began in summer, and I was introduced to the goal and purpose of the research. After I excitedly accepted being part of it, I was assigned a role to work on.

I began learning about electromyography, a device used in the clinical setting that can be transferred to a research lab. This technology uses electricity to measure muscle activation in a patient. The one we tested is wireless EMG, as this permits us to measure the muscle activation during the jump without the need of inserting a needle or having a big machine by the side of the athlete. How this device works is by measuring the current that the muscles emit when they get activated. If you were to imagine it in a graph, there would be a spike when the muscle is activated and a drop in voltage when it relaxes the contraction. This technology helps us identify how effectively the athlete contracts their muscle in terms of coordination—there should be different activation in each muscle during the span of a jump. It also helps us measure which muscles become more activated in the different stages of a jump, such as the eccentric or concentric movements. Eccentric is the movement of stretching a muscle, which can be seen as a movement that moves your limb away from the center of the body. And concentric is when you reverse that movement, to shorten the muscle, generate force, and move back to the center of the body.

The Technology Behind the Research

The main devices we are using are the force plates. This is our main tool to identify the force, power, strength, and velocity of the athletes—these are the metrics we are focusing on. Force plates measure the force exerted on them, they measure the time of that force, and how it relates to power and velocity. The force plates give out a large amount of data which we then use to synthesize and share with the team and athletes.

Lastly, the tool I am learning most about is Tracker, a video analysis and modeling tool for physics education. I handle all the jumps from all the players, recording them using a camera and analyzing the angle flexion of the knees of the athletes. We aim to see if there is relevance between how much the player flexes their knee with regards to metrics gathered from the force plates.

With Tracker, I am identifying patterns with players about their jumps as I can get to rewatch them and visualize the coordination and joint movements.

Early Findings

To evaluate the data we are gathering, we have decided to separate the athletes by their position on the court: interior players and exterior players. This way we can compare the athletes to similar teammates.

Building on these insights, we are now approaching half the study and we will begin to improve the players' physical qualities. We have gathered enough data to evaluate each player individually and identified each of their weaknesses when it comes to the countermovement jumps. In order to help them improve their statistics, we are designing personalized workouts. We are designing workouts that build a foundation like building blocks to make players become more explosive and powerful. All to help the athletes generate high amounts of force in a short period of time and with control. The values we are gathering from the force plates and Tracker are related to their abilities on the basketball court, so these workouts also keep that in mind. We will not only be improving their stats in the jump but also hope to improve their physical performance on the court. This is exciting, as we are using science and data to specifically tailor these athletes' workouts. This is a big change for Mexican women's college basketball.

Overall, this professional experience is opening my mind to new possibilities within sports engineering and player performance. What began as a curiosity about combining biomedical engineering with basketball has turned into a journey that could change how athletes train in Mexico. This technology can be used in various college sports, such as soccer, tennis, or volleyball. The methods of collecting the data should adapt to each sport in order to get a more accurate result.

The Beauty of Research

Research is not just about finding answers—it's about asking better questions. It's about those collaborative moments where formulas on a whiteboard become paths to discovery, where different variables reveal their hidden connections, and where theory meets reality on the basketball court.

I find research to be about connections and mental exploration. The whiteboard became our thinking space, where Dr. Juan Carlos and I could visualize complex relationships and challenge our previous assumptions. Drawing diagrams, arrows, formulas, and mathematical problems, we questioned what we thought we knew until we discovered clarity. We have the answers in our heads; we just have to get them out and work them through.

Those moments of discovery—figuring out how to evaluate a new metric, watching the pieces fall into place—that's what I found beautiful.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. - Einstein

This experience has taught me that curiosity, combined with rigorous methodology and collaborative exploration, doesn't just advance science—it transforms how we understand human performance itself.