Video Analysis of a Bench Press

This week University of Southern California football running back, Stafon Johnson, was bench pressing during training when the bar slipped out of his hands and landed on his throat causing severe laryngeal as well as neck injuries.

The bench press is a great exercise to build your pectoral (chest), triceps, biceps and deltoids (main shoulder) muscles. The exercise is used in training for many athletes in numerous sports, but especially in football. Johnson therefore would have bench pressed numerous times before and also had a coach or fellow athlete spotting him at the time of the accident. I am sure Johnson was using good technique and the accident was very unfortunate rather than a mistake on the athlete or trainers part. In most cases when a the bar slips during bench press it lands on the chest and causes much less damage. According to his doctor, Johnson should make a full recovery.

However it is important to understand that the use proper technique can help athletes avoid injuries such as tendon or muscle tears as well as build the muscles more effectively.

Below is a video of strongman Derek Poundstone from the USA bench pressing 500lb. Lets take a look at his technique.



Before we begin to analyze this video remember that when doing the bench press, always have a spotter, someone to help steady the bar or pull it up if you need it. We can see Derek's spotter watching carefully as he bench presses. It is also important to start with a low weight and test your ability before increasing the weight. very few athletes can bench press anywhere near 500 lbs. So start low, even if the bar is too low weight, you can always add more.

So here are some key points to note in the video above:

• Derek lays down under the bar and bends his knees drawing his feet up and pressing them into the floor. In doing this he creates a support base for his bench press and he is able to use his quadriceps (leg muscles on the front of his legs) to control his body and balance the bar. If he did not anchor his feet his body would be like a fulcrum with too much weight near the head and he would strain to balance the bar.
• Derek's spotter helps him to lift the bar off the supports and align the bar directly over his shoulders. He therefore can lower and push the bar straight down and up, with little angle. This will ensure that he works the appropriate muscles to their full extent and avoids injuries that may be caused by using muscle force to push at an angle that would put excess and inappropriate strain on the muscles or joints.
• He lowers the bar straight down to his chest, just below the nipples (the bottom of the yellow image on his shirt). Once again this ensures that his arms lower the bar straight down and push it straight back up.
• Finally Derek's spotter assists him in replacing the bar correctly. This is possibly where Stafon Johnson slipped and how the bar could have landed on his neck. You will see that Derek looks to make sure that the bar is properly supported on the hooks on both side of the support before relaxing and letting the bar go.

Before you start bench pressing, determine whether your goal is muscle mass or explosive power. You can build muscle mass with high weight and low repetitions or build explosive power by pressing a lower weight but increasing the number of repetitions. Whatever your goal is for doing the bench press, remember to use proper technique and spotter at all times.

Video Analysis of Baseball Hitting

The only way to win in Baseball is to get some hits. Looking at the statistics of Major League Baseball, where most of the best players and hitters in the world play, we can see that hitting is more difficult than it looks. Babe Ruth for example had a career hitting average of .342, while this 2009 season Albert Pujols leads the MLB on hitting average of .333.

This means that Babe Ruth only hit a base hit or home run 34.2% of the times he was up for bat, while the best hitter in the MLB this season, Pujols has only hit 33.3% of the times he has been at bat. These hitting averages for the best players seem low, but we should also consider the challenges of hitting a baseball pitch and understand that hitting averages over 30% are in truth very good.

Here are some of the challenges:

1. The pitcher can throw a fast ball, slider, curve ball and many other variation. The hitter needs to read the pitch correctly to get a good hit.
2. As a strike will only be called if the ball is pitched in the strike zone, this is the best zone to swing the bat through. However the pitcher can try to fool the batter by pitching a ball that looks like it will go through the strike zone but then fades away or drops out of the zone.
3. Once the batter is able to make contact with the ball, he still needs to find a gap in the outfield so that he can run to first base and score his hit. This requires timing and control to get the ball into the gap.
4. Of course the ultimate is to hit a home run. This requires timing and power to hit the ball far enough and high enough to clear the outfielders and the fence.

Improving hitting mechanics can help a player improve his hitting average. Here we will take a look at some video of a young hitter at practice and discuss some of the important aspects of hitting.

Our hitter here is practising by hitting balls that are tossed up to him and therefore may not be falling in the strike zone but we can still examine his hitting technique.

The video camera in this instance has been set up so that we get a side on view of the hitter, this allows us to examine his stance, hips and shoulder rotation as well as take a look at his bat swing plane. Another aspect of this video that we like is that it is high definition. Unfortunately because the capture rate was around 30 frames per second it can be difficult to see the bat swinging through to track the swing plane but we have made our best effort to track this.

Taking a look at the swing itself, we can break it down as follows.

1. Our hitter loads up on energy for his swing by rocking back onto his back foot. This allows him to get ready to swing his bat at the ball.
2. He steps forward a little with his front foot. He does this to get good position on the pitch (or in this case toss) and to open up his stance and allow his hips to rotate through.
3. He rotates his hips and shoulders through to make contact with the ball.

Steps 1 and 2 in this case look good. Our hitter has setup well to hit, and he has moved his front leg toward the ball to open up his stance to get a good hit.

In order to create power though, we want to remind you about the kinematic sequence. We discussed the kinematic sequence when we talked about Tiger Woods' golf swing. The kinematic sequence is the sequence of events that creates the bat speed. To create good bat speed the hitter needs to rotate his hips, shoulders, hands and bat in that order, with each following segment moving faster than the previous segment.

Here is how it works. The hitter loads up to hit as can be seen in step 1. He then steps forward to open his stance. His hips now need to rotate through toward the ball, but his shoulders should remain behind. By rotating his hips and leaving his shoulders behind he creates potential energy. The shoulders then follow the hips, as the hands and bat are now left slightly behind and with potential energy. Finally with perfect timing the hands follow and then the bat, to hit the ball in the strike zone and with power and control.

In golf, the ball is not moving and so it is easier to practice the kinematic sequence. In baseball hitting the ball can be pitched with much variation and it can be much harder to get this timing correct. However in baseball we once again have a smallish strike zone as well as a a hitting angle of only 90 degrees (between 1st and 4th base), therefore the kinematic sequence must be employed in the same way.

We took some snap shots of our hitter at key moments to examine his hip and shoulder rotation more closely.In the first image we can see our player setup correctly. His weight has been moved to the back foot and his bat is nicely positioned


His pelvis alignment can be seen with the blue line, while his shoulder alignment is represented by the red line. At this point, prior to loading and before the actual swing starts, his pelvis and shoulders are aligned.



In this second image, we can see that our player has now rotated through and is ready to make contact with the ball. In this case we can see that his hips (blue line), shoulders (red line) and bat (white dot on yellow trajectory) are all already lined up. The timing of his kinematic sequence is a little too fast, his shoulders, hands and bat have caught up with his hips too early. To create optimal power, his shoulder rotation should be following his hips, his hands should be following his shoulders and his bat following his hands. The result of this mistiming is that our hitter will strike the ball early and with less power.

Our player though does swing through a nice arc with his bat (yellow trajectory). We can see that he keeps his arms extended through the swing. This allows him to increase his bat speed and follow through with the hit.

In a final thought, our player has a good swing. He loads up nicely, steps toward the pitch and swings his bat through well. His sequence timing may be a little too quick, but this may also be because the ball is being tossed up to him rather than pitched and he has to reach for it outside the strike zone.

Baseball hitting and pitching lends itself well to video analysis, because the athlete is standing in one spot and hitting or throwing. So get your cameras out and make sure to follow the rules for setting up to capture good video for analysis and you will be able to analyze your hitting or pitching in much the same way as we have done here.

We would like to thank Mike and Aaron Kocourek for this video.

Improving your Cycling Efficiency with Video Analysis

The Tour de France is the ultimate in road cycling competition. Covering 3500 kilometers (2187 Miles) over 22 days, the event tests the cyclists mental and physical strength. To complete in this grueling endurance test, the athletes need to be in peak fitness, but they also need to ensure their technique is as efficient as possible. Energy can be preserved, injuries prevented and more power created with good technique.

The best way to evaluate your cycling form is with a few appropriately positioned video cameras. Although you may encounter flats, up hills and down hills on your bike ride, the general position for cycling is the same and therefore you can benefit greatly by improving the efficiency of your cycling power stroke. Although there may be various inclines and flat sections, your position during the ride is generally constant, and therefore you can benefit greatly by improving the efficiency of the cycling power stroke. The power stroke is the cycling pedal stroke including the push down and pull up of the pedal.

Assume you are sitting on the saddle of your bike with your upper body still (as it should be). The power required to turn the pedals over comes from the muscles in your hips, thighs and calves. This power is transmitted to the pedals, and from there drives the cogs and so on, turning the rear wheel.

Now for some basic physics. In order to push down on the pedal or pull the pedal up with the greatest force and the most efficiency, you will want your muscles to generate a force that pushes or pulls directly down or up on the pedal (depending on whether you are in the down stroke or up stroke of the pedal motion). Your hips, knees, and feet all need to be aligned correctly to produce a purely vertical force on the pedal.




In the image above we have the side view of a cyclist. The cyclist cannot use his thigh muscles to push directly down on the pedal but we can see that his knee is directly above the middle of the pedal which will allow him to push down efficiently as he straightens his knee. The force (red line) from his thigh muscles will be transmitted along with the force from the calves to the pedal. If his knee was in front of the pedal he would be wasting energy pushing backward, and if his knee was behind the pedal he would not be able to produce as much downward force because his knee would straighten too early.

A camera looking from the front would give us another important perspective. With this angle we will be able to see whether the hips, knees and feet all line up with the center of the pedal. Once again we want all the joints to align with the center of the pedal, so that all the force is generated directly through the pedal. If the cyclist's knees pointed outward rather than forward, he would be losing efficiency by generating a force that is not directly in line with the pedal. If he did this, he may also suffer from injuries as he attempts to maintain the same speed. He will need to recruit different muscles or strain ligaments and tendons to make up for his lack of efficiency

Video analysis of your cycling technique is easy to do with a couple cameras and a stationary bike. Below are 2 great examples. A side on view allows the cyclist to evaluate his position on the saddle as well as his knee and foot position.



A front on view allows the cyclist to check the forward alignment of his hips, knees and feet.



This cyclist looks to have good biomechanics and an efficient pedal stroke. For a more detailed analysis you can also use video analysis software to calculate the angles and accurately measure the positions.

Lance Armstrong will be in action again this year at the Tour De France and we look forward to seeing what he can do. Lance has spent many hours in testing wind tunnels measuring his bike performance, but we are sure he also uses this data to fine tune his biomechanics for maximum efficiency. So get out your video cameras and film yourself in action.

Video Analysis of a Soccer Penalty Kick

This weekend was full of sporting action, Boston Marathon, NBA playoffs and much more. We also enjoyed watching some major upsets in the FA cup soccer semifinal games played at Wembley stadium in England. For those of you not aware the FA cup is the premier soccer cup competition in England and is watched throughout most of the world.
In this years semifinals, we saw Chelsea defeat Arsenal on an unforgivable goalkeeping error, but in The Video Analysis of Sports this week we want to look at the other game where Everton upset the favorites Manchester United on penalty kicks.

Penalty kicks sound easy. The striker takes a shot at the goal with only the goalkeeper to save it and all the measurements are in the strikers favor. The international goal is 24 feet wide by 8 feet high, the penalty spot is 36 feet from the goal and the goalkeeper cannot move forward off his line before the penalty kick is taken. This means that he cannot close the angle.

Penalty kicks however are not as simple as they sound, especially at the end of a game in order to break a tie. There is a lot of pressure on the striker, he or she is expected to score the penalty and if he misses his team may be eliminated from the competition. In international and pro level soccer we see strikers often trying to fool the goalkeeper into diving in one direction and then try to shoot to the other side of the goal. When they score this way we all admire their skill and deception, but if you want to make sure of scoring then there are some specific techniques to use and we will discuss them here.

Below is some video of the penalty shootout between Manchester United and Everton on April 19, 2009. You can see evidence of much of what we will discuss today.


Berbatov (the 2nd penalty taker) and Ferdinand (the 4th penalty taker) both of Manchester United try to deceive the goalkeeper but do not use good technique to shoot and see their penalties saved.

We see some examples of good penalty kicks in this game too. Vaughan of Everton takes the best penalty of this particular shootout as you will see in the video. So what makes this a good penalty. Vaughan does everything right here. He wants to place the ball in the top corner of the goal net with as much power as possible. By aiming for the top corner with power he reduces the chances of the goalkeeper making a save even if he does pick to dive in the correct direction (which he does in this case).

What about technique? Well Vaughan does that correctly too. Here are some of the points to look out for as you watch the video above. Pause the video if you can and look closer at some of these points.

1. He picks the direction he is going to kick the ball and does not change his mind. Changing his mind might cause a miss kick and as he is going for the top right corner with power he is not concerned about the goalkeepers decision.
2. He runs up and plants his support leg (left leg) on the side of the ball with the toes of his left foot pointing in the direction he is going to shoot. This gives him the support base he needs so that..
3. He keeps his head down looking at the ball as he strikes it. This will keep the ball from flying to high. If he lifts his head, he is likely to get his foot under the ball and may lift it over the top of the goals.
4. He kicks the ball with the inside toe part of his boot (see time 4:28 in the video). He does this in order to create spin on the ball. He actually aims at the goal post but uses the spin to turn the ball back into the goal net. If he kicks the ball with his laces he may be able to create more power, but he will not be able to create spin and therefore he would need to aim more directly into the goal, giving the goalkeeper a chance to save or running the risk of missing wide.
5. He follows through with his kicking leg, bringing it up to waist height while keeping his head down. This allows him to produce the power he needs to ensure the goalkeeper has no chance of saving this penalty.

So thank James Vaughan of Everton for that real situation clinic in taking a penalty kick in soccer. We are looking forward to a fantastic FA cup Final on May 30, 2009 between Chelsea and Everton. Hopefully there will be no penalty kicks to decide the champions, but if there are you know what to look for.

Let us know what you think of this particular penalty shootout or if you have any tips or tricks of your own for penalty taking. Comment on this blog or send an email to dudley@sadakallc.com or dennis@sadakallc.com .