Biomechanics of Soccer Punt - Essay Example

 Introduction Football attracts and entertains millions of people in the world, which makes it the most popular sport in the world. The popularity of the sport has, in recent years, transcended gender lines with women’s soccer enjoying a wider fan base than before. The fans of this sport are often fascinated by the techniques, in scoring goals, used in football matches. Scientific researches into these techniques are not as successful as the popularity of the sport. Unlike, other sports, researchers have had little success even with simple techniques such as kicking and passing of the ball. This essay will analyze the soccer punt, a technique widely used in football by goalkeepers. It will further analyze the biomechanics that revolve around this kick and the kinematics revolving around the kick. Body Soccer, being a team-sport, presents challenges to researchers while analyzing its techniques. In addition, there are 11 players per team, and a match involves 22 players and this increases the various scenarios and intensities in which a player uses a technique. The soccer punt is one of the techniques used by footballers and will be the focus of this essay. The soccer punt, also referred to as the instep kick, is a technique used by goalkeepers to distribute the ball throughout the field (Shan & Zhang, 2011). The goalkeeper is the only player in a soccer team who can use the technique during a match. With the punt, the goalkeeper spearheads the attack of his team. The goalkeepers are able to kick the ball to the opposition’s defensive half for their strikers to attack. The vital nature of the goalkeeper’s role of spearheading attack during normal play emphasizes the importance of this kick. According to the 2D analysis of the instep kick, the placing foot should be placed slightly behind the ball. The kicking leg, on the other hand, first swings backwards which flexes the knees (Shan & Zhang, 2011). Secondly, the leg swings forward in a whip-like manner, accelerating motion followed by decelerating motion. This movement begins from the hip then knee and ankle rotations follow suit. The thigh muscles during this movement move slowly while the kicking leg swings forward. This deceleration of the thigh muscles require less force and subsequently increase the speed the leg requires to attain maximum kicking velocity (Shan & Zhang, 2011). This precise movement of the leg determines the accuracy and success of the instep kick. Professional players in the Bundesliga, Germany, have confirmed the movement of the leg in whip-like motion during this kick. This 2D analysis of the kick further looked at the speed of the kicking foot and the ball release speed (Shan & Zhang, 2011). Amateur and semi-professional players clocked speeds that ranged between 25km/h while professional athletes ranged from 30km/h to 100km/h. The soccer punt, according to many experts, is divided into two. First is the rotation of the segments and joints in multiple planes (Isokawa, 1998). Secondly is the proximal-to-distal pattern in segmental angular velocities (Kawamoto et. al., 2007). During the backswing, the player invokes segmental rotation across several multiple planes. The backswing is characterized by the preferred foot moving backwards extending the hip by 29 degrees (Nunome, Lake & Stergioulas, 2006). The velocity for the kick ranges from 171.9 to 286.5 degrees per second (Kawamoto et. al., 2007). The backswing adducts and rotates the hips together with the knee which flexes and rotates. During this backswing, the ankle is plantarflexed to reach velocities of 860 degrees (Isokawa, 1998). This swing motion is completed when the leg slightly touches the ground, where the hip is extended and the knee is flexed. During the forward motion of the kicking leg, the pelvis is rotated around the supporting leg (Lees & Nolan, 1998). This brings the leg’s thigh forward and flexes the knee. This motion triggers the flexing of the hip increasing the speed to up to 745 degrees per second (Isokawa, 1998). According to Kawamoto et al (2007), the plantarflexing of the ankle during the instep kick continues in this phase while its supination – pronation movement is reduced. The performance of the punt is highly dependent on the proximal-to-distal of segmental angular velocities (Kellis, Katis & Gissis, 2004). In the backswing phase, the velocity of the shank is negative while the thigh’s angular velocity is at its lowest. The latter positively increases during the forward swing while the former achieves negative angular velocity (Lees & Nolan, 1998). This change in values is because of thigh’s forward movement while the shank moves in the opposite direction. As forward motion progresses, the thigh and the shank move forward (Kellis Katis & Gissis, 2004). The thigh’s angular velocity reaches maximum during this phase as the knee begins extending. The extending of the knee is the tipping point for the velocities during this movement. Before the knee starts extending, the angular velocity of the knee is at its peak (Nunome Lake & Stergioulas, 2006). After the knee extends, the angular velocity of the thigh starts declining while the shank’s velocity linearly increases until the impact with the ball (Nunome et. al., 2002). The impact of the ball is characterized by the peaking of the shank’s velocity and the thigh’s angular velocity is zero (Kawamoto et. al., 2007). The punt kicks, together with other forms of kicks, are characterized with joint and motion-dependent moments (Nunome et. al., 2002). Joint kinetics during the kick is analyzed through the moment’s magnitude applied by the joints of the lower limbs and the moment generation while the goalkeeper kicks the ball (Kellis Katis & Gissis, 2004). Research discovered that the flexion moments of the hips are twice to those of the knee extension moments. The velocity of the ball is entirely dependent on the foot’s distal segment impact on the ball. The quality of this impact alters the take off the ball from the foot (Godik & Blashak 1993). Higher speeds of backswing and the forward swing together with a shorter contact of the ball and foot, produces the highest velocity of the ball. For this reason, the ball-to-foot speed ratio determines the quality and success of a punt (Hay, 1993). Other factors that determine the success of the kick are gravity excursion, run-up angle, motion of the trunk flexion and trunk rotation during the kick. For a successful instep kick, a higher anthropometric center of gravity was observed (Shan, 2009). The run-angle of professional athletes were greater than those of amateurs. The other factors such as motion of the trunk flexion and trunk rotation follow the same differing trend when skilled players are compared to their unskilled counterparts. Another significant factor that determines the success of the instep kick is the tension-arc, which is formed by the hips and trunk of the kicking leg. A tension-arc is formed by several muscle movements in the leg (Shan, 2009). The first is the over-extending of the hip, second the knee flexes and finally the twisting of the trunk towards the supporting leg. The whip-like movement of the kicking leg towards the ball releases the arc (Shan 2009). Consequently, the upper-body flexes and the trunk twists towards the kicking side of the body. Conclusion In conclusion, the soccer punt performed by goalkeepers seems quite easy on the eye. People are oblivious of the time required to perfect the kick for a soccer match (Nash, 2009). For the perfect punt, the goalkeeper has to master a powerful kicking motion. This motion is the combination of muscle and motion-dependent moments. The goalkeeper has to monitor the ball-foot impact and his foot movement (Hay, 1993). The latter and the former determine the path, spin and the final speed of the ball. For accurate kicks, the player has to reduce the speed of the forward and back swings of his foot while the opposite is true for powerful kicks (Godik & Blashak, 1993). References Asai T., Carre M., Akatsuka T., Haake S. (2002) The curve kick of a football: impact with the foot.Sports Engineering 5, 183-192. Barfield, B (1998), The biomechanics of kicking in soccer. Clinics in Sports Medicine. 17(4): 711-728. Dorge H., Bull-Andersen T., Sorensen H., Simonsen E. 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