Introduction to Sports Biomechanics: Analysing Human Movement ...

INTRODUCTION TO SPORTS BIOMECHANICS
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movement patterns would not be easy to analyse at first sight. Such movement patterns
in games will not be considered further in this book – sports biomechanists, to date,
have rarely been involved in analysing such movement patterns.
To appreciate why I say that video recordings are complex, did you find it easy
to follow all the flexion and extension descriptions for walking and running in the
previous section? Could you easily perceive within-leg and between-leg coordination
patterns in walking, or arm and leg coordination patterns in running, using the
sequences above or videos from the book’s website? If your answers to these questions
are a resounding ‘YES’, then you are already a talented qualitative movement analyst!
Many of us struggle at times to extract what we want from video or from selected video
picture sequences; for one thing they contain so much information that is irrelevant
to the patterns the movement analyst wishes to observe. So, what alternative representations
of a movement are available, not only to the quantitative analyst but also
to the qualitative analyst? We will answer this important question in Chapter 3.
COMPARISON OF QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE MOVEMENT ANALYSIS
Sports biomechanists use two main approaches to analysing human movement patterns
in sport – qualitative and quantitative analysis. The previous section focused on qualitative
analysis. A third approach fits somewhere between the two and is often known as
semi-quantitative analysis. These approaches will be developed and explained more
fully in later chapters, but here I give a bullet-pointed outline of each, focusing on the
two main approaches, including why they are used and by whom, as well as some
advantages and drawbacks of each.
Qualitative analysis
What do we use for this?
Video recording or observation.
Other movement pattern representations, such as graphs (see Chapter 3), focusing
on their patterns, not their quantification.
Qualitative analysis software packages, such as siliconCOACH.
Who uses this?
Teachers, coaches, athletes, physiotherapists, gait analysts, and judges of ‘artistic’
sports, such as ice dance and gymnastics.
‘Performance analysts’ working with athletes and others.
Movement coordination researchers (this one might surprise you, but it shouldn’t
once you have read Chapter 3).