Basic study on swing performance for footwear design

Abstract

In ball game sports, swing velocity is one of crucial importance to improve performance. There are several study reported on the relationship between swing velocity and upper/lower limbs. However, influence of shoes on swing motion has not been clarified yet. The purpose of this study was to investigate mechanical factors to achieve the swing velocity. One male subject having tennis experience participated and was performed swing motion with different stance width and hitting position. Upper limb was fixed to keep the repeatability of the swing motion. The motion was measured using a motion capture system and two force plates. As a result, it was confirmed that pelvic rotation angular velocity has positive correlation to swing velocity. Furthermore, the maximum value of the pelvic maximum rotational angular velocity was increased with shifting resultant center of pressure (CoP) to the pivot foot side at the end of the preparatory motion. In the acceleration phase, increase of the maximum value of the resultant free moment obtained from both feet was effective to achieve the swing velocity.