Biomechanical feedback technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent in elite athletic training environments but how the kinematic and kinetic data they produce can be best used to improve sports techniques and enhance sports performance is unclear. This paper draws on theoretical and empirical developments in the motor control, skill acquisition, and sports biomechanics literatures to offer practical guidance and strategic direction on this issue. It is argued that the information produced by biomechanical feedback technologies can only describe, with varying degrees of accuracy, what patterns of coordination and control are being adopted by the athlete but, crucially, it cannot prescribe how these patterns of coordination and control should be modified to enhance sports performance. As conventional statistical and theoretical modelling paradigms in applied sports biomechanics provide limited information about patterns of coordination and control, and do not permit the identification of athlete-specific optimum sports techniques, objective criteria on which to base technical modifications that will consistently lead to enhanced performance outcomes cannot reliably be established for individual athletes. Given these limitations, an alternative approach, which is harmonious with the tenets of dynamical systems theory and aligned with the pioneering insights of Bernstein (1967) on skill acquisition, is advocated. This approach involves using kinematic and kinetic data to channel the athlete’s search towards their own unique ‘optimum’ pattern of coordination and control as they actively explore their perceptual-motor workspace during practice. This approach appears to be the most efficacious use of kinematic and kinetic data given current biomechanical knowledge about sports techniques and the apparent inability of existing biomechanical modelling approaches to accurately predict how technique changes will impact on performance outcomes for individual athletes.

生物力学反馈技术在精英运动训练环境中变得越来越普遍，但它们产生的运动学和动力学数据如何最好地用于改进运动技术和提高运动表现尚不清楚。本文借鉴运动控制、技能习得和运动生物力学文献的理论和实证发展，为这个问题提供实践指导和战略方向。有人认为，通过生物力学反馈技术产生的信息只能形容，有不同程度的准确性，什么都被运动员采取协调和控制的模式，但关键的是，它不能规定如何协调和控制的这些模式应进行修改以提高运动表现。由于应用运动生物力学中的传统统计和理论建模范式提供的关于协调和控制模式的信息有限，并且不允许确定运动员特定的最佳运动技术，客观标准作为技术修改的基础，将始终如一地提高性能无法为个别运动员可靠地确定结果。鉴于这些限制，提倡一种与动力系统理论的原则相协调并与 Bernstein (1967) 在技能获取方面的开创性见解相一致的替代方法。这种方法涉及使用运动学和动力学数据来当运动员在练习期间积极探索他们的知觉运动工作空间时，将他们的搜索引导到他们自己独特的“最佳”协调和控制模式。鉴于当前有关运动技术的生物力学知识以及现有生物力学建模方法明显无法准确预测技术变化将如何影响个别运动员的表现结果，这种方法似乎是对运动学和动力学数据最有效的使用。