KINEMATIC COMPARISON OF TWO DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES OF FRONT FLIP TUCK (FORWARD SOMERSAULT TUCK) ON FLOOR EXERCISE IN MEN’S ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS

Front flip (forward tuck somersault) is one of the fundamental skills taught in the early stage in the competitive Gymnastics career of a Gymnast. The purpose of this study was to investigate kinematic comparison of two different techniques (Russian technique V/s Japanese techniques) of front flip tuck on floor in men’s artistic gymnastics. A total of five (n = 5) best male gymnasts of 18 to 23 years old from L.N.I.P.E., Gwalior (M.P.); who had mastery on both the techniques were selected for the present study as subjects. To acquire kinematical data, a digital Nikon D-3100 video recording camera with a frame rate of 30 frames per second, were used during the execution by placing it left side of the subjects(gymnasts) and perpendicular to the sagittal plane. From the video, the photograph of selected three phases (i.e. take off phase, flight phase and landing phase) were obtained by using snipping tool software. The digitization of the photographic sequence of selected phases was done with the help of kinovea software and the selected angular kinematic variables were obtained at take off phase, flight phase and landing phase. The centre of gravity of required phases was located by using segmentation method (Hey, 1993). The paired t-test was used for the kinematic comparison of both the techniques of front flip tuck at each phase. The level of significance was set at 0.05. The results showed the significant difference in both the techniques in selected linear and angular kinematic variables (p< .025) (two tail hypothesis). On the basic discussion it is concluded that kinematically over arm technique (Japanese style) was quite better than the under arm technique (Russian style).