Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Physical Education

First Advisor

Finch, Alfred

Abstract

This study analyzed the landing phase of hurdle clearance to investigate how the vertical displacement in the hurdler's center of mass and foot pressures at ground contact lead to a change in the hurdler's overall horizontal velocity of the center of mass. This study examined four male collegiate high hurdlers as they performed three trials of clearing one 42 inch high hurdle. The subjects were filmed during the three trials using three Panasonic cameras (60 Hz) and one JVC video camera (60 Hz), which was later used to provide video images in order to digitize each frame using the APAS software. The subjects' foot pressure mapping data was also recorded at a sampling rate of 400 Hz during the three trials using the Tekscan high resolution (HR) Fscan hardware and software. The Tekscan HR Fscan hardware and software allowed for pressure measurements of the subjects' forefoot, heel, and total foot pressure measured in pounds per square inch. The data collected from the APAS software and the Tekscan software was then calculated using the statistical software package SPSS. Multiple Pearson product correlations were analyzed between the kinematic and kinetic variables with one of these correlations resulting in a moderate relationship. The correlation between the change in the center of mass horizontal velocity and the heel pressure psi during the landing phase resulted in a moderate relationship with a correlation coefficient of r = .612, p= .034. The relationship between these two variables indicates that when a hurdler heel taps during the transitioning from flight phase to landing phase there is a decrease in their horizontal velocity.

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