Jessica Talmage played sports for as long as she can remember. She recalls smacking baseballs off tees at age 4. And she loved being on a team. Then, she hurt her shoulder playing high school softball. “It’s really hard to walk away from [sports],” she says. “Especially when growing up, I feel like playing sports was all I did.”
To help heal her hurt shoulder, Talmage visited a physical therapist. That’s a health expert who uses specific exercises to strengthen muscles and improve movement after an injury. She liked learning how to slowly strengthen her shoulder. When it came time to apply to college, she took a swing at studying sports medicine.
Today, Talmage is a biomechanist. This type of scientist uses physics to understand how the body moves. Talmage directs a biomechanics lab at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D. She works with athletes to see how different forces impact athletic movements, such as pitching a baseball. She also collects data on players and collaborates with sports medicine professionals to help athletes avoid injuries and improve their performance. In this interview, she shares her experiences and advice with Science News Explores. (This interview has been edited for content and readability.)
What inspired you to pursue your career?
I played softball through high school. I found sports so fun. There’s so many different life lessons you get from playing — from teamwork and competitiveness to learning how to deal with the highs and lows of winning and losing.
Then in high school, I was injured playing softball. I went to see a physical therapist. There was no true “aha” moment that made me want to study sports medicine. But I slowly realized that this was a career path that maybe I hadn’t thought about.
How did you get to where you are today?
It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college that I heard about biomechanics. I took a biomechanics class, and someone came and talked to us about different careers in the field. I learned that biomechanists interact with physical therapists, athletic trainers, team doctors, strength and conditioning coaches, team coaches and athletes. That’s what was really enticing about the field. I didn’t have to pick one career direction and could combine my interests.
In my senior year, I found a biomechanics research lab online. I literally just cold-called them. They were willing to take me on as an intern. That’s where I really fell in love with the research side of biomechanics. I got hands-on experience with what that field looks like.
After grad school, my university asked me to stay for my Ph.D. That was a tough decision. I didn’t know anyone who had their Ph.D. It was just such a new world and field, and it was never something that I had considered. I ended up staying. I taught some undergraduate biomechanics lab classes. I loved helping students identify a passion for biomechanics and understand its purpose. And that’s what led me to ultimately want to be a professor.
What does your work as a biomechanist look like?
We work with teams and individual athletes. For example, we had the baseball team come in for testing. In the biomechanics lab, athletes can do jumps, throwing and hitting. We also have these machines that measure things like hip and shoulder range of motion, quadriceps and hamstring strength, shoulder rotation strength and grip strength. And then we take all that information and use prior research to help us identify areas where the athlete could improve. These things are usually hard to see with the naked eye.
It’s really exciting as a biomechanist to identify something and help an athlete figure out what’s going on with them. There’s all these different reasons for why an athlete might be experiencing an issue. So, it’s fun to collaborate with everyone and brainstorm ideas as to what might be causing the problem.
What have you found challenging about your career?
Biomechanics is tough. There’s a lot of math and science that goes into it. And so I think that in the field of sports science in general, it’s a challenge content-wise. You need to understand physics and how to apply it to the body. And then you tie in anatomy and physiology, both of which are very complex fields on their own.
There’s also an education piece that’s a challenge with everyone that you work with, because no one knows what biomechanics is. Those who use older coaching styles might be hesitant to buy into it. Same thing with professional sports teams. It’s growing in popularity, but it really started in Major League Baseball. Other professional teams are waiting to see what happens before accepting it. And so there’s a hesitancy to take the leap to either get into the field, to hire a biomechanist or to go and see a biomechanist.
What piece of advice do you wish you’d been given when you were younger?
A piece of advice is just to keep your options open because you don’t know what’s going to get placed in your path. Not to be cliché, but it all works out.
And know that it’s OK to ask for help. Lean on your teachers and outside resources. I was in the tutoring center and at my professors’ office hours every week. I think that if I didn’t take advantage of those resources, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I would have just struggled.
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