Saturday, 21 November 2009

some of the 10%


Power is force times velocity.

A man Hill, in 1938, developed an equation which illustrates how humans exert maximal amounts of power during concentric contraction of muscles ( i.e. when they get shorter ).

Without going into much detail, maximum power is generated at about 1/3 of maximum velocity and 1/2 of maximum force. It might help to think of it as an impulse, in terms of generating power. For reference, maximum velocity is achieved with no load, and maximum force is exerted when one can't resist a weight ( hold it up ).

Maximum strength is exerted at an angle of about 130 degrees in the leg, modelled quite well here by Sisyphus. The rock is for illustration purposes only.

The good news is we can exert up to twice that force when we land ( eccentric muscle action ). As one might intuitively expect, it's easy to take off, but it's not so when we land...

Sunday, 15 November 2009

90% mental

According to some big fat handbook on sport psychology, there are two main orientations that people can have in relation to physical activity:
Task orientation and ego orientation.
See if they are familiar..
In ego orientation, the aim is to outperform others.
In task orientation, the aim is to develop mastery.
Here are some rough notes on the two:
There is a positive correlation between flow and task orientation. You've probably heard about flow already. There is also a link between continued enjoyment, length of participation in sport and task orientation. This contrasts with ego-orientation.
During activities, people can move from task to ego orientation, which is a little confusing maybe.
Players experience higher affectation levels if they are task oriented, generally.
There is a positive correlation between anxiety and ego-orientation.

Ok, that's 30 of 900 pages done..
What I'd like to know is, is there a positive correlation between academic level and size of hand?