Antropomotoryka nr 55.indb - Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego w ...

The sport dance athlete: aerobic-anaerobic capacities and kinematics to improve the performance
Fig. 2. Angles between dancers’ hips in each standard dance (Q = Quickstep ; SW = Slow Waltz ; T = Tango; SF = Slow Foxtrot ;
VW = Viennese Waltz)
To our knowledge, only one previous study exist in
literature on ballroom dancers kinematics [3]. In this
study, kinematics was presented as a method to study
and to extract relevant parameters for training from the
motion of the subjects. In this study, done at an early
stage of motion analysis technology, graphs of pelvis
trajectories of the dancing couple and step length
were considered only in a qualitative way. The study
also analyzed the pelvis oscillations in the vertical and
horizontal planes in a top couple with a Fast Fourier
Transform algorithm. They concluded that the pelvis
oscillation was in synchronicity with the tempo and was
not influenced by athlete’s body height. This conclusion
gives information about the ability of the dancer
to follow the tempo, regardless of their body height,
but does not give information about the segment kinematics.
In our study, we concentrated on knee flexion
angles which we found different degrees of correlation
with body height in all styles where deep knee flexions
are required by the movement (r = 0.53 in right knee in
the Slow Foxtrot, 0. 48 in left knee in Tango and 0.39 in
right knee in Tango; 0.25 in right knee in Slow Foxtrot;
0.20 in right knee in Viennese Waltz and 0.32 in left
knee in Viennese Waltz p < 0.05). As the fluidity of the
movement is important for the aesthetics of the dance,
our results suggest that the dancers must not be too
high, in order to limit the vertical oscillations of the body
which can affect speed and fluidity in the horizontal
plane (hip alignment). To confirm this hypothesis, we
didn’t found any correlation between hip alignment and
Fig. 3. Dancers’ minimum knee angles in each standard dance (Q = Quickstep ; SW = Slow Waltz ; T = Tango; SF = Slow Foxtrot;
VW = Viennese Waltz)
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