MILAN — When Amber Glenn takes the ice this week for her short program, she’s expected to skate a graceful routine that ends with a series of spins. If her performance lives up to expectations, the spins – more than two dozen in all – will reach a dramatic climax, the culmination of carefully prepared moves.
As millions of people watch the game at home, many will be wondering, How did she do it? soon, Hey, why isn’t she throwing up on the ice now because she’s dizzy?
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The answer to both questions—the ability to spin and the ability to avoid dizziness—is the same: practice. Lots and lots of practice.
Amber Glenn of the United States competes in the women’s team figure skating competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Sunday, February 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
(Associated Press)
Let’s start with a basic yet 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 from a neurological perspective, I think this is the most relevant, dizziness is caused by dysfunction of the vestibular system,” Dr. Lindsay J. Agostinelli, assistant professor of neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, told Yahoo Sports in an email. “The vestibular system is a device in our inner ear that detects head movement and rotation, sends signals to our brain, and then moves our eyes to maintain balance and prevent dizziness as we move through space.”
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Dr. Agostinelli noted that skaters, like dancers, start a spin by focusing their attention on a point in the distance as they spin, then quickly turn their heads and reposition that point. This allows them to stabilize themselves quickly and avoid dizziness.
But this method doesn’t entirely work on ice, where skaters spin five to six times per second. Dr. Agostinelli suggests that the only way to combat this is to break your traditional dizzy response to spinning through repetition.
“Research shows that figure skaters actually have less vestibular system response and experience less motion sickness when they are exposed to ‘disgusting simulations’ of spinning/twirling than non-figure skaters,” said Dr. Agostinelli. “This may be a result of habituation of their vestibular system.”
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Fighting dizziness is a psychological battle that becomes a physical battle. “I think the initial training requires mental toughness to deal with the necessary dizziness,” Dr. Agostinelli said, “but the ability to move at high speeds without dizziness is clearly a result of the physical training and desensitization process.”
So that’s it. If you want to stay calm like a skater, start spinning now. careful.
