Behind the Science of Sports

Have you ever wondered how our bodies work during exercise and how sports and physical activity promote health? When a lay man starts exercising or trains for a specific sport, he never really thinks about how his psychology, physiology and anatomy affects his game.

Sports Science is a discipline that covers a broad range of fields including human physiology, psychology and biomechanics and their relationship to sport’s performance, health and well-being. For achieving the best possible results in the sporting world, the demand for sports scientists and consultants is also increasing.

Karishma Boolani, a well known sports scientist and the founder of HUMANICS — a sports consultancy firm, completed her education from the Bond University, Australia. She recalls,“I have always been a nerd, a very curious kid. I naturally took sciences in high school and after my board exams I went to Australia on vacation and ended up enrolling in some study program. During my vacation I studied human physiology, Sufism, Math, World philosophy, later from the same university I ended with a double degree in Neuroscience and Psychology. I came to India for a holiday and did a six month internship at the Saifee Physiotherapy Clinic and I was most fascinated by sports injuries and sports related surfers, this is what led me to study sports science.” She is very fond of her family and gives the credit of her success to her grandfather, mother, father and her brother. “When I came back to India in 2013, no one even knew what sports science was and I spent the first year explaining to people what it was,” she says.

Karishma in her early days, along with a sports education company KOOH Sports, created a program called FOCUS — India’s first and only quality fitness testing program with the different levels to form the backbone of testing in schools. After working for it for three years she came up with an idea of creating HUMANICS- with the aim to implement sports science through the lens of humanism. As an addition to her firm, she created Humanics FOOD LAB since food plays an important role in a person’s life especially for an athlete.“I spent many years studying various perspectives in addition to science.

I set up the Food Lab with the idea of merging science and humanism, through the food lab I look at issues such as — what are the foods we are not supposed to eat- why and what is the science behind it? What ingredients are nourishing? What is the best way to cook these?” She gets candid and talks about her brother Karan Boolani, the director of the web series Selection Day. “So I started training the cooks through the food lab and I came up with a lot of innovative solutions with the ultimate aim of ensuring that our population can eat better” she concludes.