Ice skating and brain
How do ice champions achieve their remarkable jumps and turns? Neurology reveals clues. Pam Belluck is a neuroscience reporter and figure skating fan.
Excerpt from The New York Times by Pam Belluck
March 27, 2027
The recent World Figure Skating Championships yielded exciting results, including a 19-year-old American who jumped a quadruple axel and a 40-year-old doubles skater who became the oldest woman to win a world figure skating championship. As a neuroscience journalist, Pam Belluck wondered how the brain works when skaters jump, spin and slide on the ice at the speed of a whirlwind. Here's what scientists have discovered.
When most of us step on the ice, the sensation of slipping triggers a chain of brain signals that tell the body to lean forward so it doesn't fall. But repeated training dampens that reflex to skaters like American figure skater Ilia Malinin - the first person to reach the quadruple axel in the competition, breaking the world record for a long lineup at the 2024 World Championships. In such high-end skaters, the brain accepts the feeling of slipping and restores connections in the cerebellum, the area that commands balance.
Scanning the brains of fast skaters gave more hints about the cerebellum. Studies have found that parts of the cerebellum are larger in short track speed skaters than in non-skating, especially the right side. This is probably because the right side is activated when the quick skater balances on the right foot when turning left around the curves on the track.
Another brain network helps skaters perform complicated routines. The basal ganglia receive signals from the motor cortex as the skaters jump and spin in the air. When the slider repeatedly repeats its routine, this network breaks down and organizes movements into parts and sequences, stimulating faster memory and muscle memory. In competitions, this helps skaters to continue with their performances even after stumbling or falling.
The activity of that brain network is likely helping Nathan Chen, the 2022 Olympic figure skating champion in the men's category, when he performs a quadruple luc, one of the toughest jumps. It starts sliding backwards, stretching out his right leg. He then bounces from the right spike of the skate and follows the swing with his left foot and side, quickly crosses the hocks and arms allowing a fast enough rotation to perform four rotations around his right axis. Then he jumps on his right foot, and decorates the exit with a swing of his left leg. An endlessly difficult element.
The brain suppresses the feeling of dizziness after lightning turns. Turning causes fluid to spill out in the inner ear. In most people, this fluid continues to spill for some time after the turning stops, causing dizziness because the brain falsely assumes that the rotation continues. The slider's brain learns to give the command when turning actually cares, allowing them to maintain balance.
The way the brain adapts to rotational motion helps facilitate the extraordinary pirouettes of skaters, such as Michelle Kwan, a five-time world champion known for being able to spin pirouettes in both directions without a break. In one performance, she performed a twisted pirouette to the left, followed by an entrance to the swallow pirouette on the right side, and then entered the lower pirouette on the left side from which she pulled an upright string pirouette.
