Introduction to Biomechanics
- Etymology: Biomechanics and biomechanical come from the Ancient Greek words for 'life' and 'mechanics'. The term was coined in 1899. It refers to the study of mechanical principles in living organisms, with a focus on movement and structure.

Subfields of Biomechanics
- Biofluid mechanics: Studies fluid flows in biological organisms, including blood flow in the cardiovascular system and respiratory systems in insects.
- Biotribology: Focuses on friction, wear, and lubrication in biological systems, particularly in human joints like hips and knees.
- Comparative biomechanics: Applies biomechanics to non-human organisms, providing insights into human physical anthropology and overlapping with ecology, neurobiology, and other fields.
- Computational biomechanics: Uses computational tools, such as the Finite Element Method, to study biological systems, predict relationships between parameters, and reduce time and costs of experiments.
- Experimental biomechanics: Applies experiments and measurements to provide practical data for biomechanical studies, validate computational models, and understand the mechanical properties of biological materials.
- Continuum biomechanics: Analyzes biomaterials and biofluids using concepts from continuum mechanics, taking into account the hierarchical structure of biomaterials and the different mechanical behaviors of hard and soft tissues.
- Plant biomechanics: Applies biomechanical principles to plants, studying resilience to environmental stress, development, and morphogenesis at the cell and tissue scale, and its importance for agriculture and plant biology.
- Sports biomechanics: Applies mechanical physics to human movement in sports, aiming to improve athletic performance, reduce injuries, and involving various fields like mechanical engineering and computer science.
- Vascular biomechanics: Focuses on the mechanical behavior of vascular tissues, studying the properties of blood vessels, and contributing to the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Historical Figures and Industrial Era Advances in Biomechanics
- Leonardo da Vinci, Andreas Vesalius, Galileo Galilei, Descartes, and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli made significant contributions to biomechanics, studying anatomy, muscle forces, joint functions, animal masses, and bone strength.
- Étienne-Jules Marey used cinematography to investigate locomotion, and Christian Wilhelm Braune advanced biomechanics using engineering mechanics.
- Julius Wolff proposed Wolff's law of bone remodeling based on stress patterns in a human femur.

Applications of Biomechanics
- Biomechanics encompasses the study of cells, limb movement and development, mechanical properties of soft tissue and bones, forces acting on limbs, aerodynamics of flight in birds and insects, and hydrodynamics of swimming in fish and locomotion across all forms of life.
- Biomechanics plays a role in understanding the movement and functionality of the human body, leading to the development of prosthetics, sports equipment, rehabilitation techniques, and advancements in medicine and healthcare.

Growth and Future of Biomechanics
- The field of biomechanics continues to grow, with dedicated institutions and labs opening over the last century.
- The American Society of Biomechanics was created in 1977 to promote the field and expand its research to various disciplines, such as engineering mechanics and materials science.
- Biomechanics has the potential to contribute to personalised medicine, improve healthcare outcomes, and has applications in tissue engineering, orthopedics, muscle activation, human ground reaction forces analysis, and more.

Biomechanics (Wikipedia)

Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems, at any level from whole organisms to organs, cells and cell organelles, using the methods of mechanics. Biomechanics is a branch of biophysics.

In 2022, computational mechanics goes far beyond pure mechanics, and involves other physical actions: chemistry, heat and mass transfer, electric and magnetic stimuli and many others.