BIOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF ELEMENTARY BALLET JUMPS: INTEGRATION OF FORCE PLATE DATA AND EMG RECORDS

Filipa Sousa¹, Filipe Conceição¹, Pedro Gonçalves¹, João M. Carvalho², Denise Soares³, Fabiana Scarrone³, Jefferson Loss³, J. Paulo Vilas-Boas¹.

¹Faculty of Sport Sciences and Physical Education. ²Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal. 3School of Physical Education, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

The purpose of this research was to analyze the electromyographic (EMG) activity, ground reaction force and muscular behavior (concentric, isometric or eccentric) of the lower limb during elementary ballet jumps: "sauté" in first position; "sauté" in fifth position; "sauté en cou de pié". Three trials of each jump were performed by a experienced female Ballet dancer. Results pointed out the existence of a pre-activation effect before landing in almost all cases. They also showed the negative correlation of EMG on the agonist-antagonist pair tibialis anterior and medial gastrocnemius and a positive correlation of the EMG activity of adductors and rectus femoris, between medial gastrocnemius and soleus, and between rectus femoris and the vertical ground reaction force. However, most of the parameters measured show great sensitivity to the technical execution making it impossible to generalize these findings.