Anatomical Analysis
Tae Kwon Do is a Korean, unarmed martial art and is best known for its kicks (Park, 2001). The roundhouse kick is a turning kick and happens to be the most commonly used kick during competition (Lee, 1996). For this reason, the roundhouse kick will be analyzed in reference to sparring competition.
The roundhouse kick, a multiplanar skill, starts with the kicking leg traveling in an arc towards the front with the knee in a chambered position (Pearson, 1997). The knee is extended in a snapping movement, striking the opponent with the top of the foot. One’s goal would be to make front torso contact with the kick, while avoiding leaving one’s self open to a counter strike.
The movements that comprise the roundhouse kick begin with a fighting stance: both feet on the ground, toes pointing straight ahead, back foot turned outside up to 22 degrees, front foot approximately 1.5 the distance of one step from the back foot, both feet approximately one length of one foot apart, extension of both legs, slight rotation of the torso in the direction of the back leg, fists held in front of the chest, flexion at the shoulders by about 45 degrees, flexion at the elbow by about 60 degrees, and flexion of the fingers.
One initiates the preparatory phase of the roundhouse kick from the fighting stance: rotation of the torso in the direction of the front leg, flexion and abduction at the hip, flexion at the knee of the back leg which brings the knee to the torso and maintains a minimal relative angle at the knee to the thigh, plantar flexion of the foot, and lateral flexion of the spine toward the ground away from the kicking leg (Table 1).
The fighter is then ready to initiate the movement phase: extension at the knee with a relative angle to the thigh of about 180 degrees, lateral rotation of the grounded foot between 90 and 120 degrees, and additional lateral flexion of the spine.
After attempting to make contact with the opponent, the fighter immediately follows up with the recovery phase: flexion at the knee, lateral flexion of the spine opposite the aforementioned direction, during a slight rotation of the torso, extension of the hip, and dorsiflexion of the foot. This brings the fighter back into the fighting stance with the opposite leg in the front and is now ready to perform the next strike or counterstrike.
Hackey Sac, or Footbag as it is commonly called, has only recently become a sport. Versions of the activity have existed in Chinese, Native American, Thai, and other cultures for hundreds of years; however, a formal structure for the sport was not adopted until 1972 when John Stalberger and Mike Marshall created the format used today. Hackey Sac now falls into one of two categories: freestyle and net footbag. Freestyle, like that of other sports, consists of a routine of difficult tricks completed in succession with a maxiumum number of difficult tricks performed in a minimal time. Net footbag resembles volleyball in its use of a net (although only only raised to a height of 5 feet), except instead of manipulating the "ball" with hands, players use their feet. The topics discussed in these pages will focus on the freestyle elements of footbag rather than net due to the more complex motions involved in freestyle.
Anderson, D. I., & Sidaway, B. (2013) Kicking biomechanics: Importance of balance. Lower Extremity Review Magazine.
1. You will want to start off by keeping your feet about shoulder with apart.
The class begins with middle punches. This entails bringing the left foot out into a sitting stance where our legs reflect a person riding a horse. The hip is rotated backwards then propelled forwards as the fist on the belt twists towards our imaginary opponent in front of us. Then Master Copper pairs each student with a partner of equal height to practice kicks. When my partner extends his sidekick, the crusty dirt on the sole of his foot brushes past my eyes, and the speed of the kick creates a breeze of stale air. In the middle of class, we incorporate the punching bags into our workout. The low belts use the tall, thin sun colored bag, and the high belts utilize the thick, blood colored bag. However, the black belts utilize “Bob the Bully”, the tan, lifelike bag with dense padding and broad shoulders. After six hours of school and at least four hours of homework, punching and kicking the toned face and rippling abs of Bob brings a substantial amount of satisfaction. As my knuckles make contact with Bob’s rigid jaw, I grit my teeth and each blow connects with more power than the last. Beads of sweat roll down my face as Bob’s head shifts from side to side following each blast of force. The instep of my foot creates indents in the sides of Bob as my half turning kicks
This skill involves jumping in the sagittal plane about the transverse axis. It consists of hip, knee, ankle, and shoulder joints. In the preparation phase in propulsion, the subject has flexed knees and hips which will need to be straightened by the strength of their corresponding joints such as the hinge joint at the knee joint. The hip joint is a ball and socket joint that bears the body weight and allows for jumping motion. During th...
Pike, toe touch, eagle spread, left herkie, right herkie, these are all forms of jumps in cheerleading. When doing these jumps the cheerleader jumps high up into the air bringing both legs up and out simultaneously in a specific shape or form, while pointing the toes. The jumps that cheerleaders perform can easily be compared to the dunking of a basketball player. All of these jumps require adequate leg, thigh, and abdominal muscle just as any basket ball player. Not only must cheerleaders jump, they also must kick. By this I do not mean a simple karate kick, I’m talking about something much more difficult. In order to perform a cheerleading kick one must be very flexible. Cheerleaders have to be able to maintain their upright body form while raising their foot from the ground to the highest point possible above their heads with the toes pointed, sharp and precise, without looking sloppy or stumbling. This requires flexibility, skill, stamina, and strength. Not only must cheerleaders be able to jump high and kick higher, they must be able to hold another’s body weight. The base person must li...
Throughout literature countermovement jumps (CMJ) are seen to be higher in contrast to squat jumps (SJ) (Bobbert et al. 1996; Kubo et al. 1999; Bobbert et al. 2005). However present literature regarding the key potential mechanisms behind why greater muscle forces are seen accelerating the body upwards in CMJ in comparison to SJ is somewhat unclear. A CMJ can be defined as a positioning starting upright, beginning the descending motion in advance of the upward motion in contrast to a SJ where the start position is squatted with no preparatory countermovement (Akl 2013). The higher jump heights seen in CMJ in comparison to SJ are apparent even if at the start of propulsion phase the body configuration is identical (Bobbert et al. 1996). In past literature three main mechanisms have looked to provide an explanation for the greater muscle forces seen in CMJ than the SJ. The first plausible theory is that the muscle stretch in CMJ increases the production of force capability of the contractile machinery (Edman et al. 1978; Ettema et al. 1992; Herzog et al. 2003). Secondly the assumption that the muscle fibres are on the descending limb of their force–length relationship at the start of propulsion in the CMJ and SJ, however in CMJ the stretching of a chain of elastic components, they are not as far past optimum length therefore allowing a greater force over the initial phase of their shortening range, with the stretching of sequences of elastic components, this then causes the storage of elastic energy that is then reutilized in the propulsion phase (Ettema et al. 1992). The final explan...
Molecular studies indicate that humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos are very closely related in terms of their lineage, which split into hominid and Pan lines about 6-7 million years ago. Chimpanzees and bonobos share a more recent common ancestry, only about 2-2.5 million years ago. Although they are now considered an endangered species, chimpanzees are extremely successful creatures ecologically and can occupy a wide range of habitats across the African continent near the equator. By contrast, bonobos can be found in a substantially more ecologically restricted region of lowland rain forest in central Zaire (Stanford 399). For the purposes of our ...
The Squat is a natural movement humans have done since they existed. If you pay attention you’ll notice people all over the world Squat, often unconsciously. Quick examples… Babies routinely play while sitting in a Squat position, and will Squat to stand up. Asian people often
At the point of singularity the effects of Einstein's general theory of relativity become paramount. According to this theory, space becomes curved in the vicinity of matter; the greater the concentration of matter, the greater the curvature. When the star (or supernova remnant) shrinks below a certain size determined by its mass, the extreme curvature of space seals off contact with the outside world. The place beyond which no radiation can escape is called the event horizon, and its radius is called the Schwarzschild radius after the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who in 1916 postulated the existence of collapsed celestial objects that emit no radiation. For a star with a mass equal to that of the sun, this limit is a radius of only 0.9 mi (1.5 km). Even light cannot escape the black hole but is turned back by the enormous pull of gravitation.
There are various computer programs that can aid in sequencing these segments of DNA and generate phylogenetic trees. The programs are specifically looking for intron indels, retroposon, gene duplications and linked genes (Rokas and Holland 2000). Researchers can use several supermatrix formations that have already been created to pair up species (Gatesy et al. 2012). In our example, DNA was extracted, purified and then sequences. The computer program was looking for the presence or absence of transposon sites when compared to one of the supermatrix formations(Gatesy et al. 2012). Additionally, as the computer program runs the sequences gathered from the whale and hippopotamus the sequences will align allowing for additional differences and similarities in the genetic code to be found. After the genetic code has been sequenced, the computer programs can run programs to make phyogenetic
Very powerful and damaging kicks can be thrown with the shin and the calves and are almost certain for a knockout. When the calf (axe kick) is being used the weight of the blow will make the opponent feel as though the whole world was dropped upon him?
back leg (right) to the front leg (left) to get as much force on the
on the ground, but a forward somersault or salto is done in the air. Someone
Investigating further into paternal inheritance of mtDNA observed in other mammalian species besides humans, studies were conducted on interspecific backcrosses of two mouse species, Mus spretus and Mus musculus. Three elements were addressed which included if the leaked paternal mtDNA in the fertilized eggs were going to display a stable distribution in all tissues once developed into adults, if the leaked paternal mtDNA was going to be transmitted to succeeding generations, and...