Andrew Ward Smith

The purpose of this study was to quantify biomechanical and cardiovascular exposure while making beds with and without interventions (mattress lift tool and fitted sheet). Sixteen female hotel room cleaners participated in this multifactorial (tool and sheet) laboratory study of crossover design. Exertion in the upper extremity (<2) and back (<3) w...

The study purposes were to record the lower extremity sagittal and frontal joint moments and powers during gait initiation (GI); evaluate GI support moments in both planes; and analyze planar energy patterns in a group of 15 healthy, young adults. 3D motion and ground reaction force data were used to calculate support moments (SM) and joint moments...

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of rested and physical exhaustion conditions on accuracy and speed of tennis serve performance among college-level players. Design: A repeated measures design with control and experimental groups was used to determine the effects of physical exhaustion on tennis serve performance. Me...

INTRODUCTION Gait initiation (GI), involving the transferring of body weight from both limbs to the stance limb and the control of forward, propelling forces, is completed once steady-state gait is achieved, reported to occur after the first step [1], the second step [2], or the third step [3-6]. To date, there have been no three-dimensional (3D) s...

Physical education in Hong Kong has gone through considerable changes over the past 50 years. Still, the pace and the status were relatively slower and lower compared with other subjects. The 1990s saw a gradual shift from sport-oriented to health-focused sports culture. This shift was chiefly highlighted when physical education became one of the e...

This study investigated whether loads for assistance exercises of the upper body can be predicted from the loads of the bench press exercise. Twenty-nine physically active collegiate students (age: 22.6 ± 2.5; weight training experience: 2.9 ± 2.1 years; estimated 1RM bench press: 54.31 ± 14.60 kg; 1RM: body weight ratio: 0.80 ± 0.22; BMI: 22.7 ± 2...

The relationship between repeated-sprint ability (RSA) and repeated change-of-direction (RCOD) matched on intervals and distances was investigated in this study. The discrimination abilities of the tests were also examined. Using a within-subject repeated measures design, 25 physically active individuals (ACTs), 16 college soccer players (COL), and...

One of the key components in sports injury prevention is the identification of imbalances in leg muscle strength. However, different leg muscle characteristics may occur in large playing area (field) sports and small playing area (court) sports, which should be considered in regular injury prevention assessment. This study examined the isokinetic...

Unlabelled: This study aimed to examine the gender differences in postural stability among 8-12 year-old children. Twenty-six children participated in this repeated measures study to measure the centre of pressure (COP) under one normal condition ( Control: hard surface, eyes open, and looking straight ahead) and two challenging sensory conditio...

There are no studies which have examined the differences in kinetics between lateral plyometric exercises and the selection of these exercises is largely based on the experience and observation of coaches. This study aimed to compare ground reaction forces (GRF) and contact times (GCT) between 2 lateral plyometric exercises: lateral alternative leg...

THE AIM OF THIS STUDY WAS TO EXAMINE THE EFFECT OF MANIPULATING DEFENSIVE RULES: with and without man-marking (MM and NMM) on exercise intensity in 3 vs. 3 small- sided games (SSGs). Twelve adolescent soccer players (age: 16.2 ± 0.7 years; body mass: 55.7 ± 6.4 kg; body height: 1.70 ± 0.07 m) participated in this repeated measures study. Each parti...

There are no studies examining the differences in kinetics between lateral plyometric exercises and the selection of these exercises is largely based on the experience and observation of coaches. This study aimed to compare ground reaction forces (GRF) and contact times (GCT) between two lateral plyometric exercises: (lateral alternative leg hoppin...

This study aimed to determine which factors influence the energy cost and speed of the Senegalese swimmers in the 400-m front crawl. Thirteen black elite swimmers (19.9±4.1 years old) of the Senegal national team took part in this study. Anthropometric, physiological, and technical parameters were measured. The maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and en...

A randomized controlled trial, prestest-posttest design, with a 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up. To investigate the efficacy of a therapeutic exercise approach in a population with chronic low back pain (LBP). Therapeutic approaches developed from the Pilates method are becoming increasingly popular; however, there have been no reports on their effi...

In this contribution we present a silhouette based human motion capture system. The system components contain silhouette extraction based on level sets, a correspondence module, which relates image data to model data and a pose estimation module. Experiments are done in different camera setups and we estimate the model components with 21 degrees of...

In this contribution we present a silhouette based human motion estimation system. The system components contain silhouette extraction based on level sets, a correspondence module, which relates image data to model data and a pose estimation module. Experiments are done in a four camera setup and we estimate the model components with 21 degrees of...

Conservative treatment for osteoarthritis often involves educating the patient in methods of decreasing the load transmitted through the diseased joint. The use of a cane is one such method and the correct placement of the cane with respect to an abnormal knee joint is crucial. The purpose of this study was to compare effects on knee moments of for...

This paper proposes a system for model based human motion estimation. We start with a human model generation system, which uses a set of input images to automatically generate a free-form surface model of a human upper torso. We subsequently determine joint locations automatically and generate a texture for the surface mesh. Following this, we pres...

Impairments in balance performance are a commonly accepted risk factor for falling in older people. Since there is a higher reported incidence of falling in women, it is of interest to test whether this correlates with poorer balance performance in women than men at the time of retirement in order to plan health promotional strategies. The purpose...

Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) applied to the triceps surae muscle is claimed to be effective in improving gait in children with cerebral palsy. The main aim of this study was to determine the effect of NMES on the triceps surae muscle in improving the gait and function of children with cerebral palsy. Twelve children with spastic dipl...

To develop a new form of the modified Ashworth scale (MAS) for muscle-tone assessment that combines the MAS score with the passive muscle-stretching velocity during the assessment of muscle tone, resulting in a measure that has higher intertester reliability than the MAS. Twenty-two volunteer subjects with spinal cord injuries at a tertiary care ou...

To quantify the relationship between therapist-applied velocity of passive movement during a manual muscle test of muscle tone and the level of muscle tone represented by the relaxation index of the pendulum test. Comparison of therapist-applied passive limb movement velocity during a manual muscle test with the same subject's level of muscle tone...

To test the long-term benefits of several noninvasive systems for functional electrical stimulation (FES) during walking. Forty subjects (average years since injury, 5.4) were studied in four centers for an average time of 1 year. Gait parameters were tested for all subjects with and without FES. Thus, subjects served as their own controls, since t...

To compare pendulum test data obtained using an electrogoniometer with data obtained by videotape. The issue of video digitization error was also addressed. The study compared pendulum test relaxation indices determined from data simultaneously collected using (1) a video (VID) camera and (2) an electrogonimeter (EG). A spinal cord injury rehabilit...

This study proposed to determine the extent to which multiple gait trials provide further information than that obtained from a single trial of walking. Gait data were collected using a video camera and force platform system on 10 subjects including a below knee amputee. The data supported several conclusions. If the purpose of gait research is to...

The aims of the present study were to quantify lower limb kinetics and kinematics during walking and slow jogging of below-knee amputee athletes and to demonstrate the usefulness of the additional information provided by kinetic analyses as compared to that of kinematic assessments alone. Kinematic and force platform data from three amputee subject...

The effect of a hockey helmet and face shield on the head and neck during inertial loading was studied. A Hybrid III Anthropometric Test Dummy (ATD) was struck from both the front and rear by a spring-loaded, instrumented striker moving at 2.9 ms-1. Data were collected from a triaxial force transducer mounted at the atlanto-occipital (a-o) junction...