Effects of Handwear and Hand Posture on Four Performance Measures in Foil Fencing

Abstract

In foil fencing, an adequate amount of hand forces and dexterity is extremely important in manipulating the foil and thus affecting the performance of a fencer. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of handwear of fencing gloves and posture on four performance measures in foil fencing. Eight male fencers were tested in an experiment. Four measures of fencing performance were collected and analyzed. They were the grip and pinch forces under four hand postures and the hitting scores and motion time under a fundamental attacking scenario. Analysis of variance was conducted. Duncan's multiple range tests were conducted if a significance level of 0.05 was reached. The results showed that both the handwear condition and posture were significant on the grip force. The effects of posture on grip and pinch forces were both significant. Handwear affected hitting accuracy significantly. The effect of handwear on pinch force was not significant. The hitting scores for both the glove I and II conditions were significantly higher than the bare hand condition. The results in this study supported that selection of the thinnest glove resulted in relatively better performance for the fencers.