Biomechanical determinant factors in tennis forehand drive

• Autor(a) principal: Pedro, Bruno Miguel Machado
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/27806
• topic: Forehand tennis; Kinematic; Racket velocity; Kinetic; Contribution; Direita no ténis; Cinemática; Velocidade da cabeça da raquete; Cinética; Contribuição; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Outras Ciências Sociais

The forehand drive in tennis is considered essential in the performance of athletes. Despite several studies in biomechanics, there are unexplored issues and methodologies that may contribute to a better understanding of the key factors in performance and greater efficiency to capture kinematic data contributing to a positive impact for tennis players. Therefore, the first study aimed to compare the contribution of the upper limb to racket speed among intermediate and experienced tennis players. The results showed that what differentiate the two groups is the contribution of the shoulder to the racket head velocity. In order to use the same method with elite athletes in real situation with a simpler methodology, the second study aimed to validate an inertial measurement unit system. The results of this study demonstrated a high degree of confidence to collect kinematic data in the forehand drive. After this validation, in the third study we determined the contribution of the upper limbs to the racket head velocity in elite players, in the field. The results showed some differences when compared to previous studies using the same methodology, these differences may be related to the level of the players or the type of the stroke. Finally, the fourth study aimed to determine the moments of force of the dominant upper limb between a forehand in a quasi-static stance and a dynamic frontal weight transfer stance forehand. The results showed a higher load on the joints during the forehand in quasi-static stance. We can conclude that the results obtained during the various studies may contribute to a greater knowledge of coaches to help athletes to achieve a better performance in the forehand drive, as well as health professionals to understand which techniques may be associated with a higher load on the joints.