• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.53-63
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• 2006

The general objective of this study was to investigate biomechanical characteristics of bowling swing using three-dimensional cinematography. This study focused specifically on movements of the upper body segments during a bowling swing. Eight elite female bowling players participated in this study. Subjects performed bowling swing and their performance was sampled at 60 frame/sec using two high-speed video cameras with a synchronizer. After digitizing images from two cameras, the two-dimensional coordinates were used to produce three-dimensional coordinates of the 12 body segments (20 joint reference makers). The obtained three-dimensional coordinates were fed to a custom-written kinematic and kinetic analyses program (LabView 6.1, National Instrument, Austin, TX, USA). The analyses determined the linear and angular kinematic variables of the body segments with which joint force and torque of the lower and upper trunks and the shoulder were estimated based on the Newton-Euler equations. It was found that during the bowling swing the peak linear velocities of the body segments were reached in sequence the trunk, the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist, and the bowl. This result indicates that linear momentum of the lower body and the trunk transmits to the arm segment during the bowling swing. The joint torques of the torso and the arm occurred almost simultaneously, indicating that bowling swing seem to be a push-like motion, rather than a proximal-distal sequence motion in which many of throwing motions are categorized. The ultimate objective of the bowling swing is to release a heavy-weight bowl with power and consistency. Therefore, the bowling swing observed in this study well agrees with that bowlers use the stepping to increase the linear velocity of the bowl, the simple pendulum system and the push-like segmental motion in the torso and the arm segment to enhance the power at the release of the bowl.