Three-Dimensional Upper Body Kinematics and Inter-articular Kinematic Sequence During a Canoe Polo Throw.

Najoua Assila,Sonia Duprey,Yoann Blache,Philippe Collotte,Cyril Delavallade,Christian Berger-Vachon

doi:10.3389/fspor.2021.777410

Abstract

Canoe polo is an increasingly popular discipline requiring both kayaking and ball-handling skills. While the kinematics of the upper body during throw has been investigated for several overhead sports, the canoe polo throw has still to be studied. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the canoe polo throw kinematics in terms of angles and inter-articular sequencing to understand its specificity. A secondary aim was to investigate whether adding pelvis mobility has an impact. Nineteen male players of canoe polo were equipped with reflective body markers for the throw analysis. They performed 5 throws with the pelvis fixed and 5 throws with additional pelvic mobility in rotation around a vertical axis. Inverse kinematics was performed with OpenSim providing pelvis, trunk, and glenohumeral rotations. Angular velocities were calculated to build the inter-articular sequences relative to these throws. Statistical parametric mapping was used to assess the effect of pelvis mobility on the throwing kinematics. Similar kinematics patterns as in other overhead sports were observed, however, a different inter-articular sequence was found for the canoe polo throw with a maximal angular velocity occurring sooner for the thorax in axial rotation than for the pelvis in rotation. While the limitation of rotation of the pelvis around a vertical axis has an influence on the pelvis and trunk kinematics, it did not modify the kinematic sequence.

Highlights

Canoe polo is an increasingly popular kayaking discipline with World Championships held every 2 years since 1994
The kinematics obtained during the two different types of throws differ for the pelvis and trunk rotations but only slightly for the shoulder (Figure 5, the details of the t-statistic and p-values can be found in Supplementary Figure 2)
As for the trunk, in the “free pelvis” configuration, its flexion was larger as well as its lateral flexion. Despite these kinematics differences, the players reached statistically similar magnitudes of angular velocities at the shoulder (∼3,500◦/s of glenohumeral axial rotation, Figure 6; the details of the t-statistic and p-values can be found in Supplementary Figure 3)

Summary

Introduction

Canoe polo is an increasingly popular kayaking discipline with World Championships held every 2 years since 1994. On a 35 × 20 m stretch of water, two teams of five players compete to score a goal (1.2 × 1 m) 2 m above the water. The playing pitch can be in open water or swimming pools. Players can grab and throw the ball by hand or using their paddle (https://www.canoeicf.com/disciplines/ canoe-polo). Canoe polo requires kayaking skills, navigation and stabilization techniques, and ball-handling skills to successfully manage throws toward the goal.

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Conclusion