INTRODUCTION: A significant (p =.05) correlation between flexion of the knee joint just before pushing away and the jump distance of elite ski sportsmen was found (Paradis et al. 2001). The aim of the research was to study the influence of a skiers body pose at the beginning of pushing away on the ski jump length. METHOD: Thirty three ski jumpers (age 16.8±0.8 yrs) were filmed during the first round (94.1±24.1 points) HS-77 m competition in Szczyrk, Poland, on January 30, 2010. As a result of video analysis, 7 joint angles and 4 angles of attack were calculated (Figure 1): ankle (a), knee (/?), hip (/), shoulder (y/), elbow (<p), wrist (T), trunk-head (ff), and hip — shoulder (K), ankle — CG of the body (£), ankle — shoulder (a>), ankle — hip joints line (v). A two-tailed Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Negative correlations between the jump length (L) and a,ß,y,£,co body pose angles were found (Table 1). DISCUSSION: The more compact the body pose at the beginning of pushing away, the longer the jump length because of smaller air drag, greater velocity of sliding and higher pushing away. CONCLUSION: Based on the negative correlations between the jump length and body pose angles, we can recommend to ski jumpers to group body segments as compact as possible at the beginning of pushing away.
© Copyright 2010 Book of Abstracts. 5th International Congress on Science and Skiing, Dec. 14 - 19, 2010, St. Christoph am Arlberg. Published by University of Salzburg, Interfakultärer Fachbereich Sport- und Bewegungswissenschaft/USI. All rights reserved.