Martial arts striking hand peak acceleration, accuracy and consistency.

The goal of this paper was to investigate the possible trade-off between peak hand acceleration and accuracy and consistency of hand strikes performed by martial artists of different training experiences. Ten male martial artists with training experience ranging from one to nine years volunteered to participate in the experiment. Each participant performed 12 maximum effort goal-directed strikes.

Age-associated impairement in endpoint accuracy of goal-directed contractions performed with two fingers is due to altered activation of the synergistic muscles.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether older adults compared with young adults exhibit impaired end-point accuracy during a two-finger task due to altered activation of the contributing synergistic muscles. Nine young (21.3 years ± 1.

Long-term adaptations differ for shortening and lengthening contractions.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether practice of a sinusoidal task induces different neural adaptations for shortening and lengthening contractions performed within a task. Fourteen young adults were instructed to accurately match a sinusoidal target by lifting and lowering a light load (15% of 1 repetition maximum; 1-RM) with their index finger for 35 s. Each subject performed a total of 50 practice trials during the practice session.

The effect of hand dominance on martial arts strikes.

The main goal of this study was to compare dominant and non-dominant martial arts palm strikes under different circumstances that usually happen during martial arts and combative sports applications. Seven highly experienced (10±5 years) right hand dominant Kung Fu practitioners performed strikes with both hands, stances with left or right lead legs, and with the possibility or not of stepping towards the target (moving stance). Peak force was greater for the dominant hand strikes (1593.

Neural control of the lips differs for young and older adults following a perturbation.

Aging impairs the control of many skilled movements including speech. The purpose of this paper was to investigate whether young and older adults adapt to lower lip perturbations during speech differently. Twenty men (10 young, 26 ± 3 years of age; 10 older, 60 ± 9 years of age) were requested to repeat the word ("papa") 300 times.

Wavelet transform analysis of electromyography kung fu strikes data.

In martial arts and contact sports strikes are performed at near maximum speeds. For that reason, electromyography (EMG) analysis of such movements is non-trivial. This paper has three main goals: firstly, to investigate the differences in the EMG activity of muscles during strikes performed with and without impacts; secondly, to assess the advantages of using Sum of Significant Power (SSP) values instead of root mean square (rms) values when analyzing EMG data; and lastly to introduce a new method of calculating median frequency values using wavelet transforms (WMDF).

FT-raman spectra of the border of infiltrating ductal carcinoma lesions.

Objective: The characterization of the FT-Raman spectra of the borders of lesions is of great importance in guiding the surgeon during surgical intervention.

Background Data: The main goals of this study were to investigate spectra of the borders of lesions of samples of infiltrating ductal carcinoma (IDC) and to determine the characteristics of these spectra.

Methods: A total of 93 spectra were collected from five samples of healthy tissues and from 13 samples of IDC breast tissues using FT-Raman spectroscopy.