Abstract des Autors

Landings on the feet from jumps, dismounts and the unexpected fall have been implicated as a source of lower extremity injuries in artistic gymnastics. The high impact forces seen in landings may have serious implications for young athletes especially during those years of early bone maturation. This may also be compounded in some athletes who may have acquired eating disorders in an attempt to emulate a stereotypical body type. It has been suggested that preprogrammed landing strategies can reduce the experienced impact of landings. This study investigated whether a program of landing instruction could effectively alter the movement technique (strategy) used by children in two-foot landings from a jump. Ten children, age 7 to 12, were filmed landing from a jump off of a 29-cm height prior to a period of formal landing instruction. A post-instruction filming session was also conducted. Children voluntarily jumped higher in the post-instruction landings resulting in highter post-instruction impact velocities. The chidren significantly increased landing duration in their post-instruction landings. Hip flexion at contact and at the end of the landing phase were significantly more pronounced in the post-instruction landings. The children changed their landing strategy from that of a knee-bias in the pre-instruction landings to that of a hip-bias in the post-instruction landings. The landing instruction based on increasing landing time appeared to be effective in modifying the technique used by the children during landings from a jump. Verf.-Referat