Kinematics of the Handball Power Serve

Abstract

Handball is a court sport practiced by recreational and competitive athletes to develop speed, agility, power, muscular endurance, ambidexterity, and similar skills and components of fitness. Handball is a paragon of the principle of generality/cross transfer; it develops skills and fitness which directly transfer to many team, individual sports and physical activities. The elemental nature of handball (no external implements) emphasizes the importance of biomechanics; only the kinetic chain influences and contributes to interactions with the ball. Despite the elemental, minimalistic mechanics of handball, research regarding biomechanics of performance is scarce. PURPOSE: To determine transverse plane angular velocity of hip and shoulder rotation and resultant linear velocity of the ball associated with the power serve. METHODS: Eighteen handball players competing at the B-class level or above (4 professional, 2 qualifiers, 4 open, 5 A and 3 B) provided informed consent and were videotaped in the transverse and sagittal plane while performing 10 power serves. Vicon Motus 9.2 software was used to quantify peak hip (HAV) and shoulder (SAV) angular velocity in the transverse plane, and peak resultant linear velocity of the ball (RVB). RESULTS: HAV ranged from 3.2 to 12.3 rad[BULLET OPERATOR]s-1 in individual players; grand mean = 8.13 rad[BULLET OPERATOR]s-1. SAV ranged from 10.5 to 18.4 rad[BULLET OPERATOR]s-1 in individual players; grand mean = 13.98 rad[BULLET OPERATOR]s-1. RVB ranged from 25.5 to 36.7 m[BULLET OPERATOR]s-1 in individual players; grand mean = 29.4 m[BULLET OPERATOR]s-1. To evaluate sequentially accumulated angular velocity within the kinetic chain, the proportion of serves in which HAV preceded SAV were tallied, and ranged from 30% to 100%; grand mean = 72.2 %. SAV was more strongly related to peak ball velocity (r=.205; p<0.05) than was HAV (r=.139; p>0.05). Players in higher competitive divisions exhibited faster ball velocity and angular kinematics, and more effective timing within the kinetic chain. CONCLUSIONS: Angular kinematics, linear ball velocity and kinetic chain sequence and timing of the handball serve were comparable to those reported for throwing sports. The experience, practice and playing time necessary to achieve higher competitive status in handball were related to faster angular kinematics and linear ball velocity, and more effective timing within the kinetic chain.