THE EFFECTS OF ARMS AND COUNTERMOVEMENT ON VERTICAL JUMPING OF FEMALES

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine jumping parameters of female subjects performing four different jump techniques. Twelve subjects performed maximum vertical jumps using 4 techniques: countermovement jumps with and without use of the arms and squat jumps with and without the use of the arms. Force lime data was collected using a Bertec force plate. Vertical ground reaction force, take off velocity, center of mass displacement after take off, impulse and power were calculated using the force time data. Analysis of the data indicated that use of the arms increased jump height more than the countermovement. Although most parameters measured in this study agreed with those previously reported for males there were some indication of gender specific differences with regard to jump height and use of arms and countermovement. KEY WORDS: counter movement, jump technique. INTRODUCTION: Jumping is an integral part of many sports. In most sports in which jumping is involved the jumps are preceded by a counter movement and arm swing to increase the vertical impulse and increase jump height. To date there has been much research done on var'ious aspects of jumping (Harman et al. 1990). Relatively few of these studies use female