How do champion skaters achieve their extraordinary jumps and spins? Neuroscience is uncovering clues.
Pam Bellack is a neuroscience reporter and figure skating fan.
Exciting results at the recent World Figure Skating Championships included a 19-year-old American landing a quadruple axel and a 40-year-old pairs skater becoming the oldest female winner of the World Figure Skating Championships. was born. As a neuroscience reporter, I've always wondered how skaters' brains work as they jump, rotate, and move at whirlwind speeds on the ice. Here's what scientists discovered:
When most of us step onto an ice rink, the sensation of slipping starts a chain of brain signals that tell us to lean forward to avoid falling. But for skaters like American Ilya Marinin, who landed her first quad axel in competition and set the highest score in free skate history at the 2024 World Championships, her reflexes become dull with repeated practice. In these top skaters, the brain embraces the sensation of skating and rewires connections in the cerebellum, an area associated with balance.
Brain scans of speed skaters provide further clues about the cerebellum. Research has shown that short track speed skaters have larger parts of the cerebellum, especially the right side, than non-skaters. This is probably because the right side of the skater's speed is activated as he balances on his right foot and turns left around the curve of the track.
Another brain network helps skaters perform complex routines. The basal ganglia receive signals from the motor cortex when a skater jumps or spins in the air. As skaters practice a program repeatedly, this network organizes the movements into chunks and sequences, promoting faster recall and muscle memory. In competitions, it helps skaters continue performing even after stumbling or falling.
Activity in this brain network may help 2022 Olympic men's figure skating champion Nathan Chen perform one of the most difficult jumps, the quadruple Lutz. He stretches his right leg and begins skating backwards. He takes off with his right foot, crosses his legs and soars upwards, spinning four times in the air. He landed on his right foot and finished by swinging his left leg back.
Figure skaters' brains suppress dizziness after lightning spins. As it rotates, fluid in the inner ear splatters. Most people continue to shake for a while after the rotation has stopped, which causes dizziness because the brain mistakenly thinks the rotation is continuing. The skater's brain learns when the spin actually stops and is able to maintain balance.
The way the brain adapts to rotational motion helps facilitate the extraordinary spins of skaters like Michelle Kwan, a five-time world champion known for being able to rotate in both directions without pausing. In one performance, she did her left layback spin followed by her right camel spin with her legs extended, then pivoted to the left again and did a sit spin, which led to an upright Y It developed into a spin.
Photos via Ng Han Guan/Associated Press, Mark R Cristino/EPA-EFE, Shutterstock and Tingshu Wang Tpx/Reuters.
