MILAN — When Amber Glenn takes to the ice this week for her short program, she is expected to skate a graceful routine that ends with a series of spins. If she performs as expected, the spins – more than two dozen in all – will be a dramatic crescendo, the culmination of a meticulously prepared routine.
And many of the millions watching at home will ask, How do you do that? Very quickly followed by, Hey, why aren’t you throwing up on the ice right now from dizziness?
An advertisement
The answer to both questions – the ability to turn, and the ability to remove the stun – is the same: practice. Lots and lots of practice.
Amber Glenn of the United States competes during the women’s figure skating team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Let’s start with a basic but neurologically complex question: What exactly is dizziness? You know it when you feel it, but what exactly is it?
“There are many causes of dizziness, but neurologically speaking, which I think is the most relevant here, dizziness is caused by a dysfunction of the vestibular system,” Dr. Lindsay J. Agostinelli, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told Yahoo Sports in an email. “The vestibular system is a device in our inner ears that detects head movement and rotation, sending signals to our brain to then rotate our eyes in order to maintain balance and prevent dizziness as we move through space.”
An advertisement
Skaters, like dancers, begin to prepare for spinning by focusing on one spot in the distance as they spin, then quickly turn their head and relocate that point, notes Dr. Agostinelli. This allows them to stabilize themselves quickly and remove the stun.
But that method won’t exactly work on ice, when skaters are hooking up about five or six times a second. The only way to solve that problem, Dr. Agostinelli suggests, is by repeating, breaking your traditional giddy reaction to spinning.
“Research studies have shown that figure skaters actually have a less reactive vestibular system, and when exposed to a ‘nausogenic simulation’ that rotated/twisted them, they felt less motion sickness compared to non-skaters,” Dr. Agostinelli says. “This is likely a result of their training getting used to their vestibular systems.”
An advertisement
The fight against dizziness is a mental battle that becomes a physical one. “I think the initial training requires mental toughness to fight through the necessary dizziness,” says Dr. Agostinelli, “but the ability to perform at high speed without dizziness is clearly a result of the physical training and the desensitization process.”
So there you go. If you want to stay as cool as a skater, start spinning now. With care.