Effect of arm swing on effective energy during vertical jumping: Experimental and simulation study

Abstract

Arm swing helps to increase vertical jump height (VJH), in part by a greater hip joint muscle work. The force-velocity relationship has been put forward to explain the increase in hip joint work. Nevertheless, the efficacy ratio, muscle shortening length, and active state might be parameters that affect the effective energy and then VJH. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of arm swing on effective energy in vertical jumping. Eight subjects performed maximal squat jumps with (SJ arm ) and without arm swing (SJ). A simulation model of the musculo-skeletal system was applied. For subjects and simulation, VJH was about 20% higher during SJ arm. In subjects, this was explained by the shoulder joint work (34%) and an increase of L5-S1 joint work (66%). In simulated jump, effective energy increase during SJ arm (+80.74 J) was related to an improvement of the total muscle work and not to the efficacy ratio. The increase in total muscle work was due to anterior deltoid work and to greater erector spinae, biceps femoris, and gluteus work. The greater muscle works were explained by a slower shortening velocity for all the muscles and by a greater shortening length and active state for the biceps femoris.

Determinants of countermovement jump performance: a kinetic and kinematic analysis

“…Greater shoulder flexion at take-off was a strong predictor of CMJ height, likely indicating greater use of the arm swing, and thus a slowing of hip extension leading to greater work done at the hip as well as the shoulder (Blache & Monteil, 2013;Cheng et al, 2008;Domire & Challis, 2010). Both greater shoulder flexion and ankle plantar-flexion at take-off increase the 'stretch height' and thus pre-takeoff displacement and both were included in the CMJ kinematic regression.…”

“…Likely contributors to this effect include the increase in work done at the hip joint (Hara, Shibayama, Takeshita, & Fukashiro, 2006;Lees, Vanrenterghem, & De Clercq, 2004) and maximised pre-takeoff mass centre displacement (Cheng, Wang, Chen, Wu, & Chiu, 2008;Harman, Rosenstein, Frykman, & Rosenstein, 1990;Payne, Slater, & Telford, 1968) in jumps with an arm swing. Simulation studies of squat jumping show the augmented hip work to be due to a slowing of hip extension enabling the musculature to work on a more favourable region of the force-velocity curve (Blache & Monteil, 2013;Cheng et al, 2008;Domire & Challis, 2010). Approximately one third of the arm swing related performance improvement results from the work and energy induced at the shoulder joint (Domire & Challis, 2010).…”

Propulsion Phase of the Single Leg Triple Hop Test in Women with Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome: A Biomechanical Study

“…Moreover, the velocity at which the transition between knee flexion and extension occurs may facilitate the contraction of the quadriceps [47]. Upper limb swing may help to increase the jump performance [38], [39], [53]. Our intention was to avoid arm movements influencing the jump data.…”

Optimization-based dynamic prediction of kinematic and kinetic patterns for a human vertical jump from a squatting position

“…Thirdly, it involves the coordinated motion of many body segments and therefore challenges the versatility of the approach. Human vertical jumping has already been studied using two-dimensional models of the musculoskeletal system and forward dynamics simulations [12,[31][32][33]. The main contribution of this paper is using an anatomically realistic three-dimensional musculoskeletal model equipped with hundreds of Hill-type muscles, thus necessitating the use of optimization around an inverse dynamics analysis to predict the motion.…”