KNEE AND BOOT 3D KINEMATICS DURING FORWARD ACCELERATION IN ICE HOCKEY SKATING MEASURED WITH A MOBILE CAMERA ARRAY

Abstract

The purposes of this study were three-fold, the first purpose was to determine the spatial kinematics at both the knee and ankle joint, the second objective aimed at identifying differences in the kinematics of the joints over consecutive push-offs (PO) and the third objective was to verify the adequacy of using a novel method for video-data acquisition for the analysis of ice hockey skating. Statistically significant (ANOVA, =0.05 & Scheffe post-hoc) differences between knee joint Range of motion, angle of maximum and initial knee flexion were found between the first and subsequent PO. Ankle joint data were more similar than knee joint values. This uniformity at the ankle joint could result from hockey skate boots being very stiff. Future research using this approach is warranted and should focus on the effects of skate design on the skating motion as well as include the hip joint into the analysis.