Vertical Jump Analysis

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Title: Force Plate Analysis of a Vertical Jump Introduction A vertical jump is a simple measure of lower limb power, it is defined as the highest point an athlete can reach from a standing jump. Performing a vertical jump requires balancing on the forefoot and at the same time pushing the body upward with high effort. It is a movement consisting of an interaction of the lower extremities by extension in mainly three joints and that is the hip, knees, ankles and involving the activity of large muscle groups like glutei, quadriceps, hamstrings and ankle plantar flexors. The vertical jump is one of the most physical jumps performed in a numbers of sports such as volleyball and basketball. The aim of this report is to analyse and interpret…show more content…
Force plates have been used in biomechanics for years for quantifying external forces. Force plates are measuring equipment that measures the ground reaction forces generated by a body standing on or moving across them, to quantify balance and other parameters of biomechanics. It first records the signal then the amplifier boosts the signal and converts the original analogue signal to digital signs and finally, the computer processes voltage into force data for interpretation. In this investigation, a male participant was asked to perform 2 jumps for maximum height, one of which was a counter movement jump and one of which was a non-counter movement jump; a squat jump. The participant was 19 years old, 175cm tall and weighed 81.5kg. A squat jump is defined as a jump that is performed from a squatting position. A counter movement jump is defined as a jump where the participant starts in a straddle position where one foot is slightly forward, squats down to a pre-determined height and immediately jumps up from that position. The counter movement jump is more of a short duration preloading of the musculotendinous junction followed by an immediate contraction. In other words, the counter movement jump is more of a proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation or plyometric type of movement versus the squat…show more content…
Starting from the same height as the low-point of the countermovement jump, the participant performed both jumps with their hands placed firmly on the hips. The flight times was calculated along with the peak landing impact using the GRF data and the flight times were also required to calculate the jump height using newton’s second law of constant acceleration. Physicist Isaac Newton formulated 3 physical ‘laws’ that became the basis for mechanics. Through these laws he described the relationship of forces, objects and motion. Every static and dynamic movement has a force. Muscles are the tissues that contract and create force on the body’s levers in the connective tissue and bones. With any human movement, F=ma can be used to create a simplified calculation of force. The net force applied to a body (mass) produces a proportional acceleration. This law describes the relationship between an object’s mass, acceleration and the applied force. Both acceleration and force must have the same vector

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