Whip effect (sport)

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The term whip effect , which is derived from the kinematics of whipping and is commonly used in sports science , describes the amplification of an input signal in the functional chain. The reaction of every follow-up link in this functional chain is stronger than the action on the preceding would apparently lead to.

overview

Kinematically, the whip effect, which is used in various sports to accelerate movement, is similar to the whip effect of the whip, although movement patterns and processes can differ greatly depending on the sport. The aim of accelerating movement is also not always the same. When throwing a javelin, for example, the whip effect is used to achieve a maximum speed of the functional chain trunk / upper body / upper arm / forearm / hand in order to achieve a high end speed. In other sports, such as swimming, golf or tennis, this effect is used to achieve high accelerations with harmonious movements with little effort. In tennis, for example, the ball speeds achieved by children and young people are quite comparable with those of less well trained adults, although the muscle mass of children is generally significantly lower than that of adults.

Kinematics of the motion sequences

In sport, unlike the whip, the acceleration of movement is not achieved by transferring constant kinetic energy to a steadily decreasing residual mass, but by transferring this energy to links in a functional chain with a fixed decreasing mass.

For example, the mass system of upper body / upper arm / forearm / wrist, with possibly sport-specific fixed couplings of the chain links, is characterized by the mass of the individual elements decreasing from the inside to the outside. With the whip effect, the kinetic energy is gradually transferred to the individual elements, supported by active acceleration (use of force) and active joint stiffening at the moment of maximum movement speed of the respective chain link. An effective "relaxed" sequence of movements can only be trained to a limited extent. A certain amount of talent and early childhood movement training is required, especially in sports with constantly adapting movement sequences such as tennis, golf or volleyball. The player then has the "touch", the feeling of how he has to adapt the sequence of movements in order to achieve optimal results in terms of acceleration and accuracy.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Whip effect swimming ( memento of the original dated December 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 804 kB): Sports Science Institute of Saarland University, Appendix IV, Optimal leg kick through the use of the whip effect 
2. ↑ [1]
3. ↑ International Computer Science of Sports : Whip Effect in Tennis