Relationships between movements of the lower limb joints and the pelvis in open and closed kinematic chains during a gait cycle.

Lots of athletic skills performed during practice or competition are initiated by the legs, where athletes either walk or run prior to executing specific skills. Kinematic chains are used to describe the relationships between body segments and joints during movement. The aim of this study was to determine the relationships between movements of lower limb segments and the pelvis in open and closed kinematic chains while walking.

Kinematic Chains in Ski Jumping In-run Posture.

The concept of kinematic chains has been systematically applied to biological systems since the 1950s. The course of a ski jump can be characterized as a change between closed and open kinematic chains. The purpose of this study was to determine a relationship between adjacent segments within the ski jumper's body's kinematic chain during the in-run phase of the ski jump.

Kinematic analysis of the flight phase of the Nordic combined and ski jump on a large hill (HS-134 m) during the 2009 Nordic World Ski Championships.

The purpose of this study was to assess the execution of the flight phase in the Nordic combined (NC) among three groups of competitors, representing different skill levels, and to compare them with three groups of ski jumpers (SJs). Thirty NC and thirty SJ competitors, who performed ski jumps on an HS-134 m jumping hill, were divided into three subgroups based on jump length execution. Two-dimensional (2-D) kinematic data were collected from the lower extremities, trunks, and skis of the competitors.