The University of Minnesota Alumni Association’s Winter issue of Minnesota Magazine features the body-sway research of Thomas Stoffregen, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology. Stoffregen’s research found that pre-bout standing body sway in boxers predicts the feeling of sickness or nausea after the bout.

“We naturally think that everyone is the ‘same’ before competition and that it is how hard you’re hit during the bout that determines how ‘sick’ a boxer feels afterwards,” said Stoffregen. “However, in this case, we found that movement before the bout is actually what predicts a feeling of sickness afterward.”
The study was published in the October 3, 2012 issue of PLOS ONE.