Article

The complexity of wheelchair sports provides the scientist with a unique
challenge. There are two major components that contribute towards 'wheeled
sports' performance: the athlete and the chair. It is the interaction of these
two components that enable wheelchair propulsion and the sporting movements
required within a given sport.
This article will describe three discrete case
studies on how sport scientists have worked with Great Britain coaches and
practitioners to help optimise training leading to a major competition through
evidence base practise. A fourth area will describe on-going work designed to
address the optimisation of wheelchair configurations for wheelchair court
sports. It will focus on four sports: wheelchair racing, wheelchair tennis,
wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby. The first topic will discuss the
concept of pushing economy and mechanical efficiency of wheelchair propulsion.
The second topic will show how technology assists the coaching process. The third
topic will illustrate the concept of sports classification, and show how training
volume 'in terms of basketball shooting' may need to be individually assigned and
finally future research within wheelchair team sports and chair configurations will be examined.

Langue : ANGLAIS