Emily Kwong

And for these bobsledders, they are experiencing up to 5 Gs.

It's like being on a massive roller coaster.

It's intense.

In fact, I want to show you a clip from the IBSF World Cup just a few weeks ago.

This is the German team.

All right.

So they're super fast and it's easy to just watch the speed, the athleticism, but think about the acceleration they're experiencing on those turns.

Their brains are like going in multiple directions as they're being whipped around the track.

And I mean, this is not a smooth ride.

I know that the ice looks kind of smooth to us at home, but it's bumpy.

And the concern is even a slight impact on the wall could cause the brain to move within the skull.

And no helmet is going to protect you from that.

No helmet's going to protect you from that.

So the concern for Peter McCarthy, he is a neurophysiologist at the University of South Wales, is what happens when the soft tissue of the brain moves in one direction and the skull moves in the other direction.

There's also, of course, the issue of nerve tissue stretching.

And it's not just your brain.

It's your brain stem, which connects your brain to your spinal cord.

That's kind of important for your whole nervous system.

So all these impacts, they add up.

Well, think about the fact that these athletes, when they are training, they are doing these runs multiple times a day.