Abstract
Physical activities, now considered part of our leisure time, as well as sports in which certain individuals demonstrate exceptional abilities, were once daily and vital practices for our most remote ancestors. Adaptations to climbing, bipedal walking, endurance running and throwing played a central role in human evolution.
Innovative techniques are now available to study the modalities of these adaptations. Skeletal and muscular biomechanics, movement analysis and the human body's energy consumption also occupy a central place in sports science, and form the basis of training for top-level athletes. They are also of interest to those who seek to maintain the health of their bodies through regular physical activity.
The neural bases of these adaptations can now be studied thanks to the physiology of perception and movement, neuroscience, and skeletal and muscular biomechanics. Brain imaging, combined with mathematical models and computer simulations, reveal and predict how they work. The human body's energy consumption also occupies a central place in sports movement sciences, on which the training of top-level athletes is based. This new knowledge has an impact in fields as wide-ranging as the understanding of neurological pathologies or child development, education, and even new technologies such as robotics. It is also of interest to those who seek to maintain the health of their bodies through regular physical activity.
