DIFFERENCES AMONGST BONE, SKIN, AND SKATE MARKER-BASED ROTATIONS OF THE FOOT DURING PUSH-OFF IN SKATING

Abstract

The present study aims at exploring differences amongst bone, skin, and skate marker based rotations of the foot during skating. A vector that passes through two markers on the bone, a vector that passes through two markers on the skin, and a vector that passes through two markers on the skate were used to represent foot rotations from dorsiflexion to neutral position and from neutral position to plantar flexion based on bone, skin, and skate markers. Paired samples t-tests were used to compare the rotations of different vectors to each other. The results showed that a significant difference amongst bone, skin, and skate rotations existed during plantar flexion but not during dorsiflexion. This significant difference extended to the total motion from dorsiflexion to plantar flexion where skate rotations were 26% smaller than bone rotations and 49% smaller than skin rotations. Bone rotations were 31 % smaller than skin rotations. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that, unlike shoe motion, the rigidity of the skate structure causes the skate motion to underestimate the motion of the underlying bony and skin structures.