Technological tools and sports biomechanics: an experience with rugby coaches

Herramientas tecnológicas y biomecánica deportiva: una experiencia con entrenadores de rugby

Ferramentas tecnológicas e biomecânica esportiva: uma experiência com treinadores de rugby

 

Lic. Luis Octavio Escudero Arias*

luis_escudero_90@hotmail.com

Lic. Ana Gabriela Párraga Ruales**

parragaruales.ana@gmail.com

Lic. Javier Mauricio Carrillo Lozada***

javier_carrillo_20@yahoo.com

Lic. Rocío Marlene Llanos Jara****

conyllanos5592@hotmail.com

Lic. Silvano Hernán Rezabala Mera*****

h_rezabala23@hotmail.com

Lic. Darley Jhosue Burgos Angulo******

darleyburgos1996@gmail.com

 

*Unidad Educativa Sagrada Familia

**Centro de Estudios Espíritu Santo

***Unidad Educativa Cenest Harvard

****Unidad Educativa Fiscal Durán

*****Federación Deportiva Militar

******Unidad Educativa Fiscomisional Domingo Comín

(Ecuador)

 

Reception: 06/29/2018 - Acceptance: 09/10/2018

1st Review: 08/30/2018 - 2nd Review: 08/31/2018

 

Abstract

    The great challenges of the current management process of sports training require quick and accurate information, for which the use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) make possible to effectively complete the previous assumption, hence the importance that justifies the possibility to increase the theoretical and practical knowledge of the rugby coach so that he can perfect his process. In this sense, the purpose of the research is to analyze the technological tools applied to sports biomechanics, identifying the free access software that will allow potential digital competencies to be consolidated to the sports trainers of the Club Yaguares of the province of Guayaquil.

    Keywords: ICT. Sports Biomechanics. Software-free. Assessment. Rugby.

 

Resumen

    Los grandes desafíos del proceso de dirección actual del entrenamiento deportivo necesitan de información rápida y veraz, para lo cual el empleo de nuevas tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones (TICs) posibilitan cumplimentar eficazmente el anterior supuesto, de allí la importancia que justifica la posibilidad de incrementar los conocimientos teóricos y prácticos del entrenador de rugby para que pueda perfeccionar su proceso. En dicho sentido, el propósito de la investigación es analizar las herramientas tecnológicas aplicadas a la Biomecánica deportiva, identificando los Software de acceso libre, que permitan consolidar potenciales competencias digitales a los entrenadores deportivos del Club Yaguares de la provincia de Guayaquil.

    Palabras claves: TIC. Biomecánica Deportiva. Software libre. Valoración. Rugby.

 

Resumo

    Os grandes desafios do atual processo de gestão do treinamento esportivo requerem informações rápidas e precisas, para as quais o uso de novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TICs) possibilita efetivamente completar o pressuposto anterior, daí a importância que justifica a possibilidade aumentar o conhecimento teórico e prático do treinador de rúgbi para que ele possa aperfeiçoar seu processo. Neste sentido, o objetivo da pesquisa é analisar as ferramentas tecnológicas aplicadas à biomecânica esportiva, identificando o software de acesso livre que permitirá que potenciais competências digitais sejam consolidadas aos treinadores esportivos do Clube Yaguares da província de Guayaquil.

    Unitermos: TIC. Biomecânica do esporte. Software livre. Avaliação. Rugby.

 

Lecturas: Educación Física y Deportes, Vol. 23, Núm. 244, Sep. (2018)

 

Introduction

 

    Nowadays, due to the high demand of sports practice, new technological resources have been developed, increasing the professionalization of the managers of the general and particular process of sports training direction, to set a precedent in the inclusion of the Technology of the Information and Communications (ICT) in Physical Education and Sport, using free access tools (software). (Ambrós, Foguet, & Rodríguez, 2013, Maddison & Mhurchu, 2009, Fotheringham, Wonnacott, & Owen, 2000)

 

    These technological resources (software), have not been properly used by sports professionals or the academy, due to different causes. Analyzing the different free access software that could help sports coaches to maximize their work performance is an essential theoretical and practical need (O'Donoghue, 2009), given the effective application of new technologies in sports performance and health in general (Fernández, Vaca, & Sánchez, 2017; Pérez, Gibert, & Torres, 2017; Sagarra-Romero, Peña, Antón, & Morales, 2017), which include free technology (Von Hippel, 2001), that allows replacing and avoiding high costs and the use of sophisticated technological equipment that only the great world powers can have, where the sport has a greater evolution in the technological applicability because they have a better economic situation and provide adequate comprehensive training to their athletes.

 

    In its evolution, sports training acquires greater value in the training process of athletes in its different stages. One of the main results to achieve in high performance sport, is related to this development and sports performance from the technological approach. (Dellaserra, Gao, & Ransdell, 2014; Occhino, Mallett, & Rynne, 2013; Park, Fairweather, & Donaldson, 2015)

 

    In recent years, the global and national trend (Ecuador) regarding high performance sport, specifically speaking of rugby, has been aimed at the search for quality in all its components, including community and leisure time projects (Torres Miranda, 2016; Molina Contreras, 2017), as well as several useful indicators for the selection of talents and the process of direction of training in general. (Rodriguez, Rosas, & Manrique, 2017, Almeida Cabezas, 2016, Valencia Andrade, 2013) Understanding these from sports training, which implies inducing the practice of sport in periods of general, specific, pre-competitive and competitive preparation, (Matveev, 1985) to those who define the modern development of sport, where it is necessary to use various technological, physical and sports tools for its full integral development, which contributes to the improvement of the components concerning cognitive, biopsychosocial, sports, technological and analytical knowledge in order to detect the difficulties that arise during the sports stage.

 

    Through this research, we intend to use free access technological software as an important pedagogical and economic resource, applying it to Sports and Physical Education. Emphasis is placed on physical education to provide long-term solutions through the analysis of motor skills and other pertinent indicators that allow the comprehensive training of students from an early age, thus being prophylactic the application of Sports Biomechanics in Physical Education. (Villada & Muñoz, 2014; Spoerl, Terai, Scholz, Raiskup, & Pillunat, 2011; Delp et al., 2007). With this, the role of Physical Education Teachers is not only in developing physical abilities, (Ruiz, 2012, Morales & González, 2014) but also in secondary prevention in health to those possible pathologies that affect human motor skills such as scoliosis, kyphosis, lordosis, foot cavus, foot valgus, among other pathologies, (Díaz Cevallos, Ruiz Villacrés, & Monroy Antón, 2017) with a view to manage information as an essential tool in health decision making. (Torres et al, 2017)

 

    In the Sports field there is the urgent need for technological development. The high costs of resources in Sports Biomechanics has been one of the obstacles to the non-application of it by the majority of the sports professional community, but today there are free access technology tools (ICT), many of these are unknown to the trainers and applied in undergraduate, although they are not used by sports professionals in several countries of South America. ICTs provide the possibility of the epistemological development of sports biomechanics by sports coaches.

 

    Of course, consolidating and applying this knowledge in Sports Biomechanics will not completely solve the existing problems in sports, but it would reduce some of the obvious problems that are the integral preparation of the athlete from its essence "Teaching-learning of the movement" pedagogical techniques that offer motor control through feedback.

 

    Hence, the research is based on direct observation of the group of coaches of the Club Jaguares located in the Guayaquil canton of the province of Guayas, this monitoring was carried out during the training of rugby players where the following causes are evident and consequences are presented in table 1.

 

Table 1. Cause-Effect

Causes

Effect

Coaches with little knowledge about the use of technological tools in sport

 

Failures in sports development

Disinterest on the part of the coaches for applying the knowledge in sports biomechanics

Breach of the biomechanical analysis through free access software.

Lack of detection of difficulties in the health of athletes through the ICTs

High rates of increase in chronic diseases in players.

Difficulties in the training process of rugby players.

Deficit in physical and sports performance.

 

    Returning to the criteria of the previous authors, it is evident that the insufficient technological competences applied to Biomechanics in the sports training processes of the Rugby player affect the process of sports training, that is why the Yaguares Club coaches need to apply technological tools that allow him to analyze the sports components of rugby players from different perspectives, in order to achieve the integral development of athletes. However, none of these contributions is specific to the sports reality of the Jaguars Rugby Club.

 

    To complement the above, the purpose of this research will be to analyze the technological tools applied to sports biomechanics, identifying the free access software that will allow potential digital competences to be consolidated to the sports trainers of the Yaguares Club of the province of Guayaquil.

 

Material and methods

 

    The research developed is on the field, descriptive-exploratory, the authors analyzed a problem that coaches barely treated, theories, laws, regulations and methods of data collection were reviewed, which clarified the ideas related to the subject of study, for finally, propose a viable solution.

 

    The investigation was held at the Yaguares rugby sports club in the province of Guayaquil. A population (N) of 28 players per month will be used, of which 18 are male, 6 females and 4 youth. As sample (n) the 100% of the population will be used taking into consideration the diminished number of players that Yaguares Rugby Club contemplates. Table 2 specifies the population and sample values.

 

Table 2. Population Sample

Population

Total players of Yaguares Rugby Club 28 (100%)

28

100%

Sample

Sample non-probabilistic sampling - for convenience

Informant Population

Total population - 28 rugby players

Executive - 1

Physical trainers - 2

Trainers - 4

 

    Theoretical methods were used, such as historical logic, synthesis and systemic structural and functional analysis. From the empirical point of view, we worked with the main technical observation that consists of observing the phenomenon, fact or case, finely, taking information and exploring it for its later study. In addition to the use of the technique of the survey aimed at players and coaches of rugby, in the same way the interview was used to the manager of the sports club.

 

    To base this scientific article we present below three free access software that serve to perform biomechanical analysis in rugby.

 

Table 3. Biomechanics software - free access

Free Software of Sports Biomechanics

Formats

Analysis

Program

Operating System

Kinovea

Kinematics, Linear and Angular

Photos jpg, gif, MP4.

Videos in any format, MP4, AVI, FLV.

Microsoft Windows

(XP, Vista, 7, 8.8.1)

more platform

.NET 2.0 or higher.

CPU: 1 GHZ

Memory: 256 MB

Screen resolution: 1024 x600 pixels.

SkillSpector

2D

3D

Linear and Angular.

Only AVI video type 2

Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8)

CPU: 2 GHZ

Memory: 256 MB 32 bits and 64 bits

Mokka

2D

3D

Linear and Angular

E.M.G.

Plataform  of forces

Only C3D

Microsoft Windows

(XP, Vista, 7)

Resolution: 32 bits and 64bits.

MacOs 10.7 or superior, Linux in Ubuntu (10.04)

Source: Open source software for sports biomechanics.

 

Results and discussion

 

Survey of parents

 

Question 1. He agrees with the technological tools used by coaches to perfect technical gestures through sports biomechanics.

Item

Alternative

Frequency

%

1

Strongly agree

1

3.58%

2

Agree

0

%

3

Indifferent

0

0%

4

Disagree

3

10.71%

5

Strongly disagree

24

85.71%

 

Total

28

100%

Satisfaction with new technological tools

Source: Survey of rugby players of Club Yaguares.

 

    Of the rugby players surveyed 1 (3.58%) of them were in complete agreement, 0% agree, 0% indifferent, 3 disagreed (10.71%) reflecting that the coaches do not use technological tools oriented to biomechanical sports analysis of rugby and 14 were totally in disagreement (85.71%).

 

Question 2. Believe that if coaches use free biomechanical access software, technical gestures can be perfected and pathologies can be prevented in rugby players.

Item

Alternative

Frequency

%

1

Strongly agree

23

82.14%

2

Agree

4

14.29%

3

Indifferent

1

3.57%

4

Disagree

0

%

5

Strongly disagree

0

%

 

Total

28

100%

Implementation of biomechanics software

Source: Survey of rugby players of Club Yaguares.

 

    Twenty-three of the 28 players surveyed, that is, 82.14% were in complete agreement, 4 agree (14.29%) which is why they consider that using free access biomechanics software can improve the sports technique in rugby and prevent diseases, 1 of them (3.57%), indifferent, 0% disagree and 0% totally disagree.

 

Survey of coaches

 

Question 1. I have received training in the last two years about the use of new sports biomechanics technology tools.

Item

Alternative

Frequency

%

1

Strongly agree

0

0%

2

Agree

0

0%

3

Indifferent

0

0%

4

Disagree

0

0%

5

Strongly disagree

4

100%

 

Total

4

100%

Training on ICTs in sports biomechanics

Source: Rugby Coaches Survey of the Club Yaguares.

 

    Of the 4 coaches surveyed, the whole (100%) strongly disagreed, reflecting in the statistical results that they have not received training on the use of Tics in sports biomechanics.

 

Question 2. I am willing to use technological tools different from traditional methods more frequently.

Item

Alternative

Frequency

%

1

Strongly agree

4

100%

2

Agree

0

0%

3

Indifferent

0

0%

4

Disagree

0

0%

5

Strongly disagree

0

0%

 

Total

4

100%

Implementation of current technological tools

Source: Rugby Coaches Survey of the Club Yaguares.

 

    Of the 4 coaches surveyed, the whole (100%) expressed their total agreement, reflecting in the statistical results they are willing to use and apply free access software for the biomechanical analysis of rugby.

 

Interview directed to the manager of Yaguares Rugby Club

 

1.     Are coaches free to change their traditional methods and apply new technological tools?

 

    All Club coaches have the freedom to implement their own style of learning framed in the productive and technological aspect, towards new methods that achieve the best sporting achievements of our institution, in addition to preventing various diseases in our players.

 

2.     What is the level of technological competence of your coaches to perform biomechanical analysis on your Club's rugby players?

 

    The average level of technological competences on the biomechanical analysis is low, since the lack of coaches specialized in sports biomechanics and the theory and methodology of sports training, the knowledge that coaches have is not enough to reach the quality standards in the formative process of our sports club.

 

    The participants in both the survey and the interview reached the conclusion that it is very beneficial and appropriate to apply new technological tools, such as free access software that allows analyzing technical actions through biomechanical study. However, they recognize that it is worth emphasizing that this sport club does not use technological tools that allow the correct execution of technical gestures at this stage, which confirms the importance of our research and the need for its implementation. Therefore, guiding the technological competences to the coaches through the design of an integral plan of sports training towards the technical mastery in the practice of rugby, will make it possible to perfect the teaching-learning process, as well as the optimization of sports performance in its players.

 

    The aforementioned corroborates the need for the study, finding points of agreement and reference with what was proposed by the University of Alcalá, (2016), who mention that technology and digital culture have penetrated the field of Sport, as in many others, to transform the ways of communicating and the way to access and manage information, who confirm the advantages of sports training based on technological tools.

 

    Therefore, the authors of the present research agree with the above contributions and confirm that sports training has a direct connection with ICTs, for which rugby coaches must use and apply free access software to carry out biomechanical studies to their athletes

 

Examples of content activities in the proposed Technological Tools

Activity 1

Image 1. Kinovea Software technical sheet

Source: Official Kinovea software page

 

Activity 2

Image 2. Technical Data Sheet of the SkillSpector Software

Source: SkillSpector software official website

 

Activity 3

Image 3. Scale, hand-held pulsimeter, Computer, HD video camera.

 

Activity 4

Conclusions

 

    In correspondence with the obtained results, it is concluded that:

  1. The knowledge of topics supposedly far from the pedagogy of sports training, the mechanical properties of motor movements, the work of the instruments for sports evaluations, the file formats, the biomechanics software applied to rugby and many others has been achieved.

  2. It was confirmed through the investigative methods the feasibility to be implemented the proposal in practical terms, because the activities and orientations that make up the technological tools proposed favor the preparation and orientation of the coaches, in the same measure that taxes significantly the development formative of the Club Yaguares Rugby Club, and therefore to the physical, motor, sports biopsychosocial performance, the prevention, detection of pathologies in the rugby players.

    3.

References

 

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Lecturas: Educación Física y Deportes, Vol. 23, Núm. 244, Sep. (2018)