SPORTS: THE NEXT DECADE : TECHNOLOGY : Searching for Perfect Fit With Designer Genes : ELLIOTT ALMOND / Times Staff Writer

The Tech Heads are out there. Men and women in little white suits tooling with test tubes, dabbling with diodes. They are drenching us with the machinery of the future as we enter the final episode of the 20th Century.

Enough already?

Hah.

These software sissies are just starting to roll.

Already, they are wedging their way into the vast sports science market. As athletes stride toward new frontiers, a retinue of technocrats are tagging along for the ride.

Joining coach and trainer are biomechanicists, orthopedists, nutritionists, massage therapists. All user friendly. All claiming to have a stake in the construction of tomorrow’s athlete.

What in God’s name are they going to build?

Let’s find out.

BIONICS: Send in the Clones “By 1996, a marathon runner equipped with a super-efficient artificial heart might actually be disqualified because he would have an unfair advantage,” Dr. Willem Kolff of the University of Utah said.

Perhaps Kolff seems flip, but the construction of artificial humans is under way.

You want parts? They’ve got parts: artificial pacemakers, artificial heart valves, blood vessels made of polyester fibers, prosthetic hip joints and knees.

They make shoulder, elbow, wrist and ankle joints from acrylic plastics and metal alloys. And one of the latest--artificial stapes, a Teflon and metal substitute for a tiny bone in the middle ear that restores hearing in patients suffering excessive bone growth.

As science progresses, every RNA-DNA will be overturned to understand the mystery of life. Physics and molecular biology will be trying to decipher the inner workings of genes and atoms.

Perhaps, said Dr. Stephen C. Jacobsen at the University of Utah, scientists will graft arms of gorillas for football players of the future.

However, Jacobsen, director of the Center for Engineering Design, said science is not ready to introduce a humanized robot.

“The first thing you learn, human and animal bodies are absolutely ferocious machines,” he said. “A machine that has the strength, speed and control of a football player is beyond imagination.

“I can build you a robot as strong or as fast as a person. But I can’t get whole thing together in one package.”

That’s not to say Jacobsen and his colleagues are not trying. The Center for Engineering Design produces an artificial arm that is electronically manipulated to perform menial tasks.

Willem hypothesizes about the future artificial hand: “It will be gentle enough to hold a tomato or to peel an orange. At the same time it will be strong enough to crack a nut. Some artificial arms will move fingers 1,000 times faster than normal.”

It is feasible to implant muscles and direct their movements from a computer. And wouldn’t that be fun? Athletes would be living, breathing Foosball players, manipulated by outside sources.

Stop, says Gideon Ariel, a biomechanicist from Coto de Caza in Trabuco Canyon.

“You can do amazing things but you defeat the purpose,” he said. “It’s not sport anymore. You can create all kinds of situations, create movement that is not natural. You can create electric shocks, change tendons. You can use remote control to control muscle movements. To even think about it is horrifying.”

Horrifying, perhaps, but on the cutting edge.

For those about to panic, remember this. Scientists have not devised a machine to duplicate that special something that turns Joe Namath into Broadway Joe . . . Joe Greene into Mean Joe Greene.

“There still is that inherent something, whatever it is, that you can’t really quantify,” said Dr. Lewis A. Yocum of Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood.

So when you find it, what do you do? Clone it?

“You’re not going to clone or try and recreate the Nolan Ryans, the Tom Kites,” Yocum said. “But you can take certain attributes from these people, and apply them to the average amateur athletes.

“In no way shape or form are we going to try and create a 900 m.p.h. fastball. But what we can do is to start to groom the athlete the right way.”

And that means giving an athlete a perfect model to emulate.

BIOMECHANICS: VidKids Are All Right You have seen Six-Million Dollar men and Bionic Women. R2D2s and 3CPOs. RoboCops and cyborgs.

Even Sons of Flubber.

On film, anyway, man and machines mix.

They also are mixing on computer screens everywhere. Biomechanicists, who take the principles of engineering and apply them to the human body, are utilizing high-speed film of movement and translating it into digital form.

What they get are a series of stick figures that can pinpoint flaws in technique. Computerized stick figures were introduced about 20 years ago. Since then, athletes have compared their movements on screen to opponents’.

Robert O. Voy, a sports medicine doctor working in Las Vegas, said the technique is being refined so scientists can accurately gauge specific movements.

That is what the next decade of sports science will be about: Isolating muscle deficiencies with regards to specific activities.

At UC Davis, Mont Hubbard is experimenting with computational tools that do just that.

Hubbard, a professor of mechanical engineering, has used the computer to show the mathematical flight of the javelin.

Hubbard has applied the methodology to ski jumping and bobsledding, two sports that are decidedly more difficult to compute.

In ski jumping, for instance, Hubbard simulates the effects of certain muscle action during a flight. He takes into account lift, drag and pitching moment, the tendency of mass force to move a jumper up or down. Pitching moment is measured in a wind tunnel, he said.

The information tells athletes how to maximize their jumps by indicating exactly what position they should be in at any particular segment of the jump.

This, however, is theory. It’s something for futurists to consider.

Hubbard has expanded his experiments to bobsledding where he is measuring moves on a three-dimensional track.

“Ultimately, we’d like to do optimal control calculations . . . best steering projectory,” he said.

By studying the geometric dimensions, Hubbard hopes to be able to tell a driver how to get through each turn most efficiently. Hubbard said it will take at least a year to collect the necessary data to develop a computer model of a bobsled path.

He also hopes to develop a simulator, something akin to a flight simulator, to allow drivers to practice runs over and over. Conceiveably, a driver having difficulty with turn No. 10 at St. Moritz, Switzerland, could practice the course on the simulator until it was perfected.

On a simpler plane, the theories of visual enhancement are used at every video arcade where youths are honing their hand-eye coordination skills. This will naturally improve racquet sports, baseball, football and basketball, Voy said.

“I see our younger generation as having a real advantage,” he said.

The stick figure, the friend of every fledgling Pictionary player, is well established in this game.

But scientists are using a host of other devices to aid performances. LEDS (light emitting diodes), Orthotrons, electrostimulars, force plates. They have a playpen full of electronic equipment that monitor the body.

Sheldon Langer, president of Langer Biomechanics in Deer Park, N.Y., deals solely with the feet.

His company’s research has helped create a new science called Clinical Eltro Dynography.

“It’s sort of an EKG for the feet,” Langer said.

Basically, his machinery monitors the variety of functions of foot bones. The data can help prevent foot injuries by identifying unnatural movement before damage occurs. This, in turn, could strengthen legs and upper body, he said.

Such instruments are available for many parts of the body. Elite athletes have access to computerized exercise machines that will someday replace the coach. The machine will recognize deficiencies and provide a program to overcome them.

Until then, we can continue going to the movies.

MEDICINE: Brother, Can You Spare a Dimenhydrinate? In 1984, the world’s record-holder in the women’s marathon injured her knee during a training run. Joan Benoit might never have run successfully again if not for arthroscopy surgery.

The arthroscope is a thin tube containing a fiber-optic cable and magnifying system that enables the surgeon to see clearly inside a joint.

The procedure enabled Dr. Stanley James to cut some fibers in front of Benoit’s knee that he thought were disturbing her.

Seventeen days later Benoit won the U.S. Olympic Marathon trials. Later that summer, she won the gold medal in the first women’s Olympic marathon.

Once thought to be a miracle of medicine, arthroscopic surgery has become part of sport vernacular.

Now there are synthetic muscle tissue to replace the natural substances when they snap.

Centinela’s Yocum said researchers are continuing to improve synthetics.

“Right now we are just starting with some of the artificial synthetic ligaments,” he said. “There is a lot of uneasiness in certain areas. The synthetics are such that they are holding up, but we want to get them to a point where we can hold them up for an athletic population.”

Before artificial ligaments, doctors used grafts from healthy tendons to shore up damaged ones. A bionic knee ligament used for the past three years is said to be four times as strong as a natural one.

George Goodheart, a chiropractor from Detroit who coined the phrase Applied Kinesiology, said understanding body chemistry will go a long ways in aiding athletes.

Using an electronic device to measure muscle strength, he said he discovered why Baltimore Oriole pitcher Dave Ford lost his velocity a few years ago.

Ford came to Goodheart complaining of shoulder soreness late in games.

“The lymphatic drainage was diminished,” Goodheart said.

The yellowish fluid found in the lymphatic vessels of vertebrates can cause energy loss if malfunctioning, which was Ford’s case.

Goodheart said closer attention will be given to such conditions when examing future athletes.

And such treatment will begin with diet.

NUTRITION: You Are What You Keep Look for the latest best seller at your favorite mall bookstore: “Eat to Lose.” Never has more confusing information has been disseminated than when it comes to eating.

Is there an overemphasis of proteins and amino acids? Or is that an underemphasis? Does the body need more carbohydrates to run at full force or is carbo loading an excuse for overweight pasta lovers?

Most scientists agree that nutrition will be important in improved athletics, but just try finding some agreement on what works best.

The importance of trace minerals such as zinc, copper and magnesium is just beginning to be understood, Goodheart said.

The understanding of these micronutrients is aided by high resolution thermistor technology. By using heat sensitive devices, scientists can determine micronutrient deficiencies that could cause all sorts of problems.

Dr. Keith Wheeler of Ross Laboratories in Ohio thinks with scrutiny of diet athletes can improve by as much as 40%.

He said the timing of eating carbohydrates becomes important in achieving ultimate performances.

“It’s critical to recovery and performance,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing going in the next decade.

“The issue of protein is becoming a dead issue. Protein is not the answer for people who want to increase muscle mass.”

Wheeler said future athletes will eat within minutes of competition to restore energy sources. He predicts bananas, apples and specialized liquid solutions will be the main courses.

In the ‘80s, the solution was anabolic steroids. Pharmacology played as big a role in the progress of performance as anything.

This might not change much in the next 10 years, and will be an issue society must face.

“Where does enhancement occur and where does doping occur?” asked Voy, the one-time medical chief of the U.S. Olympic Committee. “We’re going to have to answer that question in the ‘90s. Are we really going to control it through (drug) testing and education or is it something we’re going to have to accept and can’t stop?”

Wheeler is concerned with all quick fixes, artificial and otherwise.

But he thinks the table is set for a healthier, stronger athlete by the year 2000.

Artificial inner ears:

Cochlear implants enable profoundly deaf patients to improve their understanding of speech. These implants take the place of the cochlea, the seat of the hearing organ. The tiny wire device, implanted in the inner ear, uses a microphone and speech processor to translate sounds into electronic signals. The cost: $8,000-$20,000.

An artificial arm:

Designed by the University of Utah’s Center for Engineering Design. It can lift two to three pounds, but it has only two or three movements compared to the real thing. According to Dr. Stephen C. Jacobsen, the center’s director, “If a (football) lineman hit it it would break into 10 pieces. This is an electronic arm and costs: $30,000, including fitting and training.

Myoelectric arms:

They are lightweight, mostly plastic prostheses designed for amputees and people born without limbs. They are powered by small nickel-cadmium batteries. The artificial limb responds to minute electrical impulses from the muscles in the wearer’s stump. It has the gripping force to perform such tasks as holding a knife or riding a bicycle. The cost is from $6,000-$10,000.

Artificial hand:

According to Dr. Willem Kolff of the University of Utah, it is gentle enough to hold a tomato or peel an orange. At the same time it is strong enough to crack a nut. Some will be able to move fingers 1,000 times faster than natural. “You’re going to have to keep it away from your face,” Willem said.”

Artificial knee ligaments:

The six-inch ligament which looks like a braided rope with eyelets in either end, attaches to the shin and thigh bones with stainless steel screws. It is made of Teflon-like material, and is four times as strong as a natural knee ligament.

Times staff writer Maryann Hudson contributed to this story.