Research in ski jumping in Finland has started in the turn of 1970's and since then the University of Jyväskylä has played an important role in this area. Many studies have been published related to biomechanics in ski jumping by Paavo Komi and Mikko Virmavirta as the main researches. Ground reaction forces, pressure distribution, muscle activation have been measured and combined with motion analysis in laboratory, wind tunnel and in field conditions. International co-operation has taken place in several winter Olympics over the past decades. Scientific knowledge obtained from these studies has been utilized in coaching in Finland as well as in many other countries. It has also had an impact to the rules and regulations end equipment development. The main focus in ski jumping research has been on take-off forces and aerodynamical forces. In the teams where I have coached also our coaching philosophy and practice has been based on the research findings. E.g. related to the crucial influence of the force impulse in obtaining high vertical velocity of the center of mass of the jumper during the last phase of take-off and to the behavior of aerodynamical forces during the flight phase. In order to take this information closer to practice we have used different technical equipment for the development of simulated jumping and training and testing in wind tunnel. The challenge in ski jumping is to estimate what is the importance of different parts of the jump to the final outcome. It is known that the horizontal velocity on the ski jumping table is the most important part of the successful jump (Virmavirta & Kivekäs 2012) but it is difficult to improve it by coaching. From a coaching point of view it would be important to know the potential energy of the jumper during the early part of the flight phase (about 30m) in real-time. This way it would be possible to differentiate the impact of jumping and transition phase from the flying and aerodynamics (including equipment). In coaching it would be possible understand what kind of series of individual movement will lead to optimal outcome for each athlete and thus would help to aim the focus of training on the correct part of the jump. Finland has a long and successful history in ski jumping. During the past decades Finland has won several Olympic and World Championship medals. Over the past years, however, other countries have dominated the competitions and there is clearly a need to take some actions to bring Finland back to the top. Going back to the basic research can be one way of helping our country to become successful again. It would be of interest with the current methodology to examine the state of the central nervous system during the crucial phases of the jump, how individual is this behavior and how it can be affected by training. From a bigger perspective it would be extremely important to attract more young athletes to the sport. Science can be of help in doing the correct things in training for physical attributes and proper jumping technique but it is critical that the amount of training can also stand in the competition with the other countries. --- The hosting University of Jyväskylä is planning to publish conference proceedings "Science and Nordic Skiing III". In case you are interested in this publication please contact the editors (Anni Hakkarainen anni.s.j.hakkarainen@jyu.fi) to become registered for the book.
© Copyright 2015 3rd International Congress on Science and Nordic Skiing - ICSNS 2015. 5-8 June 2015, Vuokatti, Finland. Published by University of Jyväskylä; University of Salzburg. All rights reserved.