Biomechanics is the mechanics applied to biology.
– Dr. Y. C. Fung
Figure 1: An important book that can guide you into this interesting territory.
Modern biomechanics is one of the corner stones of the bioengineering. Human beings and living things all live around the surface of the earth and experience gravitational force. Humans, animals, and other living things have to move from place to place searching for food and water, responding to dangers, and performing many others tasks essential to their survival. Other than those locomotion needs, each individual being needs to move materials in and out of the body, or from one location to another location inside the body. All the above mentioned movements are accomplished by active or passive forces. Force, deformation, and motion thus govern the biology and functions of living things. Dr. Y. C. Fung, founding father of the modern biomechanics, had a concise definition to explain what biomechanics is. According to Dr. Fung, “biomechanics is the mechanics applied to biology (Figure 1).”
Biomechanics is fundamental to understand many phenomena in humans, animals, and other living things, either in normal conditions (healthy) or abnormal conditions (diseases/malfunctions). Moreover, biomechanics deals with force, deformation, and motion that possible take place at whole body level, organ level, tissue level, cellular level, and/or molecular level. Hence, both the research applications and technique approaches inherently have multidisciplinary nature (Figure 2).
Figure 2: One of the corner stones of bioengineering and multidisciplinary nature.