Biomechanical P ... Slalom Water Skiing R1.pdf - Atrium - University ...

The data, in combination with a statistical analysis, revealed a significant differencebetween the performance of the skis for only two of the parameters, rope load and peakroll. It was expected that there would be a significant difference for all of theperformance parameters and the unexpected result could be due to: skier skillcompensating for design differences or low statistical power within the data set. It ispossible that the skill level of the skiers was high enough that they were able to achievehigh performance from a wide range of ski designs. In the future it would be interestingto demand higher performance from the skiers and see if the results remained consistent.With respect to skier velocity, it is suggested that a higher update rate GPS unit be used.It is possible that the 5Hz unit was not picking up the actual peaks during each turn. Inthe future only comparing two of the skis and increasing the number of humanparticipants would increase the statistical power of our data.The data was able to detect when skiers were achieving different performance resultsthan another skier. Therefore, the analysis techniques developed in this study could beused to asses skier performance in more detail than methods that are currently practiced.An improved method for analyzing skier performance could be used as an additional toolfor coaches to evaluate skiers. This would increase their effectiveness when trying todetermine if a problem exists and what the cause of the problem is. Similarly, animproved method for analyzing skier performance could be used by ski manufacturers toevaluate performance on different ski designs. This would increase their ability assesswhat characteristics of the ski design are effecting performance and therefore lead toadvancements in product design.115