Living Longer, Leaping Higher: AI’s Impact on Human Performance
A Conversation with Sports Physician Dr. Marcus Elliot
Welcome to The Next Renaissance Newsletter, where every month we explore how AI is transforming human potential.
With each edition, our goal is to ask and answer two key questions:
How can we harness AI to help humans reach their fullest potential?
What will it take to turn innovation into real-world impact?
Living Longer, Leaping Higher: AI’s Impact on Human Performance with Dr. Marcus Elliot
Every year, human performance strengthens – athletes run faster, jump higher, and lift more. While these feats are often attributed to human evolution, experts like Dr. Marcus Elliott have dedicated their careers to optimizing human performance via science and innovation.
Combining expertise in precision biomechanics, machine learning, and sports science, Dr. Elliott and his team at P3 (Peak Performance Project) have leveraged AI to redefine how we approach performance and injury prevention. For over two decades, they’ve revolutionized sports medicine to help elite athletes in the NFL, NBA, and beyond reach their maximum potential.
In this exclusive conversation, Dr. Elliott shares his insights into how AI is reshaping sports medicine, why scalability is on the horizon, and how these advancements could benefit everyone – not just professional athletes.
AI in Sports Medicine: A Revolution in Progress
Machine learning has made significant advancements in predictive sports medicine over the past few years. In 2020, a study achieved 84% precision in predicting youth soccer injuries.1 By 2022, the University of Tennessee reported 91.9% accuracy in forecasting post-concussion injuries among 74 football players.2
Dr. Elliott emphasizes that AI is more than just a predictive tool; it’s a revolution in how we understand human movement. Traditional models often fail to account for the interconnectedness of movement, but AI is uniquely equipped to address this complexity.
“Movement is more like a symphony than a single note. You don't know the quality of any one movement unless you know what came before it and what came after it… Machine learning and AI are the exact tools we need to study those symphonies.”
With this interconnected analytical power, P3’s data-driven methodologies have enabled them to predict traumatic knee injuries – a historically difficult injury to forecast – in NBA players with up to 70% accuracy over a two-year period. AI-powered models have been and continue to be instrumental in identifying injury risks and performance patterns, allowing for precise, personalized interventions.
Data Ownership and Ethics
As AI becomes more integrated, Dr. Elliott highlights the need for clear boundaries regarding data ownership and use. If new data is classified as medical data, like an MRI scan, there is strong historical precedent for regulation under HIPPA. But if it is classified as performance data – like benchpress metrics – the implications shift dramatically. This distinction changes how AI models are trained, how athletes are treated, and ultimately shapes the future of the industry.
Data classification is also critical in determining who benefits most from its collection and implementation. P3 adopts an athlete-first approach, as described by Dr. Elliot:
“Whether we're hired by a team or we're hired by a league, or it's an individual athlete showing up to see us, we treat it as if this is the athletes' data we need to make their life better.”
This stance is driven by ethics rather than regulation, which can create challenges in a profit-driven industry. Without safeguards, organizations may prioritize their financial backers over athletes, enabling teams or leagues to make decisions – such as hiring or compensation – based on players’ genetic predispositions for performance.
The Role of Human Judgment
In addition to human regulatory judgment, Dr. Elliot also emphasized that while AI excels at generating insights, its implementation still requires human expertise:
“These advanced analytical models are incredible at showing us pathologies, showing us where there's a movement component that, say, triples the risk of having degenerative wear across your left knee. But what do you do about that? What does the intervention look like? That still requires someone with subject competence.”
The true potential of these models lies in their ability to enhance human expertise rather than replace it. Dr. Elliot’s goal isn’t to replace the human decision-maker but to empower them – providing sharper insights so they can develop smarter, more effective interventions.
Scaling Beyond Elite Athletes
Historically, P3 has focused on elite athletes, but Dr. Elliott envisions a future where everyone can benefit from an AI-enhanced understanding of their body. Within the next decade, advancements in wearable technology and AI will allow everyday individuals to access insights currently reserved for professionals.
“You don’t need hours in the gym. With the right data, 20 minutes of focused effort a week can make a dramatic difference in how your body performs and feels.”
This democratization of sports science could redefine preventative healthcare by addressing the underlying mechanics that cause injuries, shifting focus from injury mitigation to proactive prevention.
A Future of Enhanced Longevity
When asked about the future, Dr. Elliott expressed hope for a world where people can use their bodies incredibly well into their later years:
“The next revolution isn’t about living forever; it’s about living really well. Playing pickup basketball in your 70s instead of just walking.”
He envisions AI-driven tools empowering not just elite athletes, but anyone seeking to maintain their physical capabilities as they age.
“I love this idea that we can empower people to take control of their own health through better information. Our information is incredibly insightful, fairly easy to action, and will absolutely change outcomes.”
Ultimately, these insights into the advancements of sports medicine remind us that the true power of AI lies in helping us better understand, preserve, and elevate our own capabilities.
Share Your Thoughts With Us!
We’d love to hear your thoughts. What excites or concerns you about AI’s role in expanding human potential? Leave a comment or question below, and we’ll do our best to respond directly or write about the topic in an upcoming post.
Thank you for imagining The Next Renaissance with us.
A machine learning approach to assess injury risk in elite youth football players. Rommers N, Rössler R, Verhagen E, et al. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2020;52:1745–1751. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000002305. [DOI]
A predictive paradigm for identifying elevated musculoskeletal injury risks after sport-related concussion. Mansouri M, Roland J, Rahmati M, Sartipi M, Wilkerson G. Sports Orthop Traumatol. 2022;38:66–74. [Google Scholar]