Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
PeerJ
Volume
12
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
Centre for Human Performance / School of Medical and Health Sciences
Funders
University of Brasilia (DPI/DPG/BCE 01/2024)
Abstract
During vertical jump evaluations in which jump height is estimated from flight time (FT), the jumper must maintain the same body posture between vertical takeoff and landing. As maintaining identical posture is rare during takeoff and landing between different jump attempts and in different individuals, we simulated the effect of changes in ankle position from takeoff to landing in vertical jumping to determine the range of errors that might occur in real-life scenarios. Our simulations account for changes in center of mass position during takeoff and landing, changes in ankle position, different subject statures (1.44–1.98 m), and poor to above-average jump heights. Our results show that using FT to estimate jump height without controlling for ankle position (allowing dorsiflexion) during the landing phase of the vertical jump can overestimate jump height by 18% in individuals of average stature and performing an average 30 cm jump or may overestimate by ≤60% for tall individuals performing a poor 10 cm jump, which is common for individuals jumping with added load. Nevertheless, as assessing jump heights based on FT is common practice, we offer a correction equation that can be used to reduce error, improving jump height measurement validity using the FT method allowing between-subject fair comparisons.
DOI
10.7717/peerj.17704
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Gonçalves, C., Baptista, R., Tufano, J., Blazevich, A. J., & Vieira, A. (2024). Error in jump height estimation using the flight time method: Simulation of the effect of ankle position between takeoff and landing. PeerJ, 12. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.17704