See how easily the twist? ‘A cat does not have a collarbone and the bones in his backbone have more mobility than in many other animals’. They also have super-sentitive balance system in their ears so they know which way is up.
Unfortuantely, landing on their feet doesn’t prevent injury when they’re dropped from large heights 🙁
Interestingly the “cat twist” is also used by trampolinists to do a back-drop to front-drop, something I only achieved once at school and nearly broke my neck in the process! Basically, this involves transferring angular momentum from one body segment to another, using Newton’s third law. By producing an “L-shape” with the upper and lower body, cats (and trampolinists) are able to use the larger “moment of inertia” of the bit of the “L” that is parallel to the axis of rotation to generate motion along the axis of rotation. Half way through the movement, the axis of rotation is transferred to the other side of the “L” shape and the movement is completed. I haven’t explained that very well, which probably explains why I’m sat here typing this rather than trampolining!
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Mark commented on :
Interestingly the “cat twist” is also used by trampolinists to do a back-drop to front-drop, something I only achieved once at school and nearly broke my neck in the process! Basically, this involves transferring angular momentum from one body segment to another, using Newton’s third law. By producing an “L-shape” with the upper and lower body, cats (and trampolinists) are able to use the larger “moment of inertia” of the bit of the “L” that is parallel to the axis of rotation to generate motion along the axis of rotation. Half way through the movement, the axis of rotation is transferred to the other side of the “L” shape and the movement is completed. I haven’t explained that very well, which probably explains why I’m sat here typing this rather than trampolining!