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B2PLUS U4 Accessible Reading

New technology is helping coaches train athletes more precisely by providing detailed biometric feedback and three-dimensional modeling of an athlete's movements. Understanding an athlete's genes can help coaches create personalized training plans tailored to each individual. As science continues to advance our knowledge of genetics, biomechanics, and psychology, it will transform sport by pushing the limits of human performance and allowing athletes to go beyond what was previously thought possible. Unless regulations are put in place, technological innovations will continue to enhance athleticism but also raise questions about fairness in competition.

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19 views

B2PLUS U4 Accessible Reading

New technology is helping coaches train athletes more precisely by providing detailed biometric feedback and three-dimensional modeling of an athlete's movements. Understanding an athlete's genes can help coaches create personalized training plans tailored to each individual. As science continues to advance our knowledge of genetics, biomechanics, and psychology, it will transform sport by pushing the limits of human performance and allowing athletes to go beyond what was previously thought possible. Unless regulations are put in place, technological innovations will continue to enhance athleticism but also raise questions about fairness in competition.

Uploaded by

dyener
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Reading Unit 4

HOW SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ARE


CHANGING SPORT
If you watch any sports event, you’ll almost certainly see athletes setting new records
as they become faster and stronger. As we learn more about genetics and biomechanics,
and as we develop better types of technology, athletes will continue to improve
their abilities and become capable of feats that were impossible to imagine just
decades ago.

(1) ………..
TECH-ENABLED TRAINING
We all know that if you train hard, you get faster or stronger. But new technology
is helping coaches to decide more precisely what to focus on in training. Before,
coaches could only stand and watch their athletes, or at most film them, in order to
make suggestions about how to perform better and improve their technique. Now,
with three-dimensional modelling and biometric feedback on things like heart and
breathing rates, an expert can see far more about what’s happening with an athlete’s
body. Thanks to biomedical engineering, coaches can know exactly how their athletes
are moving and how their bodies are reacting. This allows them to give immediate
feedback to the athlete and helps athletes to really enhance their performance.

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Reading Unit 4

(2)............
PERSONALISED BIOLOGY AND GENETICS
We’re learning more and more right now about how genes interact and lead to different
traits and behaviours, and that knowledge will transform sport, along with everything
else. Your genes might make you respond better to certain types of workouts, and
knowledgeable coaches will have the chance to come up with individual exercise plans
based on that information in case they are able to give their athletes an edge.

(3)...........
And it’s not just a question of genes. An athlete’s muscles are also influenced by
training, environment and diet. Understanding how all these things interact can help
coaches design workouts to enable athletes to go beyond their present limits.
Of course, to become the best in any area of sport, it isn’t only about physical
preparation. It also requires mental training and developing essential psychological
characteristics such as determination and tenacity. Mental strength can help your
body keep going when you feel like you’re done and you think to yourself: ‘I wish
I could stop right now!’. Psychology and neuroscience can help us learn how to coach
someone through to the end of an ultramarathon, for example.

AUGMENTED REALITY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE


Augmented reality (AR) could also have a major impact on sport. AR allows you to see
the world, but with extra data added on. So, in the world of American football, AR
could allow the players to get live information from their helmets, reminding them
of their next moves, for example. Or, taking the idea one step further, some kind of
algorithm could be used to make intelligent guesses about the rival team.

(4)...........
FAIRNESS
Of course, some of these innovations, particularly technological ones, prompt
questions about fairness. Modern runners benefit from new shoe technology, for
example. If only great athletes from the past had had the same technology. If they had
had the same shoes, would they have been even faster than today’s athletes? Is it right
to compare the speed of someone wearing performance-enhancing running shoes to
someone without them?

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Reading Unit 4

(5)............
Perhaps the people who decide the rules of a particular sport will one day decide to
ban some new technological advance or other. Until then, as long as science and
technology keep improving, we’ll continue to get faster and stronger.
a Although such an example may seem far-fetched, if players had a system like that,
one day maybe they would be able to read the line-up of opposing players and make
a guess as to what their next move would be, informed by a quick search through
videos of old games. At that point, your IT department becomes just as essential as
your scouting team.
b These are questions that society will have to answer one day. Unless it does,
everything will be open to debate. Because whatever happens, and whatever we
think of it, technology will continue to push the limits of sport, in both minor and
major ways.
c Meanwhile, some experts expect to see sports people training with masks that
provide a higher level of oxygen while they work out, something which has been
shown to help an athlete push harder than they normally could.
d While many of the benefits of this type of information still lie in the future, there
are already genetic markers that can tell how well a particular athlete’s body will react
when they do specific workouts such as weight-training or intensive sessions.
e Of course, there’s one central question here: supposing technology keeps improving,
will there be an absolute maximum limit to what we can do? Will we ever hit a point
where training and technology will go beyond our physical capabilities? If we look now
at all the new ways to maximise our bodies’ and brains’ performance, it seems those
limits may still be some distance away.

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