LOWER AND UPPER EXTREMITY COORDINATION PARAMETERS DURING THE FENCING LUNGE

Abstract

The fencing lunge executed by a combined action of leg extension and stretching of the arm on the weapon side is one of the most important motion elements of this sport. The lunge is most often used to attack the opponent, hitting the opponent as quickly as possible, and ending by scoring a hit. The translational motion of the weapon during the fencing lunge is determined by muscular properties of the athlete in the force-time domain and by coordination of the actions of the lower and upper extremities. Neglecting the influences of reaction time and without considering special fighting situations this study focused on the description of the linear and angular velocities of different points and body angles, (e.g., weapon, arm, hip, elbow, knee) in order to estimate the reproducibility of the actions. A test situation was created in the same way as this is done in the fencer’s training. Investigations were carried out with a group of highly skilled female fencers. The kinematics of the relevant body points were obtained using an electro-optical system (SELSPOT II), which delivered the three-dimensional coordinates of all points needed in the research analysis. The quantitative results showed a high reproducibility of the different parameters for each test person - the shape of the curves varying from subject to subject. As a conclusion, it can be confirmed that even in fencing higher-level athletes perform their motions with a high degree of precision, using their own individual performance schemes.