One leg lateral jumps - a new test for team players evaluation.

AIM: We assessed the subject's capacity to accelerate himself laterally in monopodalic support, a crucial ability in several team sports, on 22 athletes, during series of 10 subsequent jumps, between two force platforms at predetermined distance. METHODS: Vertical and horizontal accelerations of the Centre of Mass (CM), contact and flight times were measured by means of force platforms and the Optojump-System®. Individual mean horizontal and vertical powers and their sum (total power) ranged between 7 and 14.5 W/kg. "Push angle", i.e., the angle with the horizontal along which the vectorial sum of all forces is aligned, was calculated from the ratio between vertical and horizontal accelerations: it varied between 38.7 and 49.4 deg and was taken to express the subject technical ability. RESULTS: The horizontal acceleration of CM, indirectly estimated as a function of subject's mass, contact and flight times, was essentially equal to that obtained from force platforms data. Since the vertical displacement can be easily obtained from flight and contact times, this allowed us to assess the Push angle from Optojump data only. CONCLUSIONS: The power developed during a standard vertical jump was rather highly correlated with that developed during the lateral jumps for right (R=0.80, N.=12) and left limb (R=0.72, N.=12), but not with the push angle for right (R=0.31, N.=12) and left limb (R=-0.43, N.=12). Hence standard tests cannot be utilised to assess technical ability. Lateral jumps test allows the coach to evaluate separately maximal muscular power and technical ability of the athlete, thus appropriately directing the training program: the optimum, for a team-sport player being high power and low push-angle, that is: being "powerful" and "efficient".

[Definition and validation of a comfort index calculation method for office seats]. / Definizione e validazione del metodo di calcolo di un indice di comfort delle sedie da ufficio.

BACKGROUND: Among its other required features, a highly comfortable chair should adapt its contact surfaces, namely the seat and the back rest, to the shape of the body of the person sitting on it. However, "comfort" is not usually perceived as an absolute value, but is derived from a subjective comparison between two or more chairs. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this research was the definition of an objective comfort index (IC), i.e., derived from instrumental measurements, and which would also represent an absolute comfort value. METHODS: Analytical evaluation of the distribution of body weight, by means of a barometric matrix, shows that a comfortable chair tends to minimize peak and average values of pressure at the level of the contact areas located between the body and the seat and the back of the chair. To define a comparison parameter for determining an absolute comfort value, a reference chair (SDR) was developed. The seat and the back of this chair are rigid, with poor compliance. A comfort value of zero was, by definition, assigned to this chair. Therefore, the Comfort index (IC) was obtained by the mathematical calculation of the ratios of averages, peaks and gradients of pressure, appropriately weighted, and the corresponding values measured on the tested chair and on the SDR. RESULTS: It is shown that the anthropometric characteristics of each subject are irrelevant to the assessment of the IC, which depends only on the compliance characteristics of the seat and back surfaces of the tested chair CONCLUSIONS: IC can be improved through analysis of a larger number of seats, which would thus constitute the basis for the use of an objective evaluation of seating comfort.