Postural tremor and control of the upper limb in air pistol shooters

Abstract

A postural tremor appears whenever someone attempts to maintain a steady position against gravity. We examined the postural tremor that occurred while air pistol shooters were taking aim so as to compare the coordinative control of the shooters and to identify the features critical to successful shooting. Ten elite and ten pre-elite athletes participated in pistol shooting at 10 m, and the postural tremors in the pistol and upper limb were recorded with lightweight accelerometers. Exploratory analysis showed that the elite shooters had smaller tremor amplitudes than the pre-elite shooters in the pistol and distal arm segments. Compared with the pre-elite shooters, the elite shooters had a smaller tremor amplitude in the lateral direction relative to that in the vertical direction, together with weaker tremor coupling in the lateral direction and stronger vertical coupling of the pistol-hand complex. The resulting shot performance was inversely related to the amplitude of the tremor and to the 8-12 Hz spectral peak of the lateral tremor in the pistol-hand complex. We conclude that the postural tremors of air pistol shooters are associated with the skill of the shooters, and that the elite shooters could optimize the control of the pistol-hand complex, which strongly determined success in shooting.

Prevalidación de un test de equilibrio en tiro olímpico sin armas / Prevalidation of Body Sway Shooting Test Without the Use of Weapons

“…Debido a que el tiro olímpico es un deporte en el que el uso de armas es imprescindible, la mayoría de estudios realizaron pruebas en las que se utilizó un arma para evaluar esta capacidad (Pellegrini & Schena, 2005;Tang et al, 2008). Sin embargo esta necesidad supone una importante limitación a la hora de realizar pruebas de selección de talentos en escuelas o polideportivos donde el uso de cualquier tipo de arma puede no estar permitido.…”

“…En la misma línea, (Tang, Zhang, Huang, Young, & Hwang, 2008) observaron que la estabilización del complejo arma-brazo está íntimamente relacionado con el rendimiento deportivo, evidenciando los sujetos de mayor nivel deportivo una mayor capacidad para estabilizar el arma.…”

Modeling discrete and rhythmic movements through motor primitives: a review

“…Goodman and Kelso (1983) showed that this phase window corresponds to the peak of momentum of the oscillations in the direction of the discrete movement. Interestingly, it has been shown that professional pistol shooters press the trigger in phase with their involuntary tremor, while beginners try to immobilize themselves before shooting (Tang et al (2008)). …”

Estudio de las variables de equilibrio, fuerza y antropometría determinantes del rendimiento en tiro olímpico en la modalidad de pistola aire

“… Factores técnicos: la estabilidad del arma (Hawkins y Sefton, 2011;Tang, Zhang, Huang, Young y Hwang, 2008), el momento de disparo (Konttinen, Landers y Lyytinen, 2000;Viitasalo et al, 1999;Zatsiorsky y Aktov, 1990), la limpieza en el disparo (Mononen, Viitasalo, Era y Konttinen, 2003) o el tiempo de ejecución de disparo (Walmsley y Williams, 1994).…”

“…Parece ser que los tiradores de élite tienen menores movimientos de la pistola en los tres ejes, teniendo más movimiento vertical que lateral algo que no sucede en los tiradores de menor nivel (Pellegrini y Schena, 2005;Tang et al, 2008) .…”