The Biomechanical Analysis of the Upper Limb on the Different Batting Technique of Elite Snooker Athlete Stephen Maguire

Background：A common consensus for snooker is that players must have good command of the basic skills, namely the bridge arm, the cue arm, the grip and the stance. However, there isn’t a standard stance for quantifying the excellent snooker player as a learning reference.

Aims：Technical data of multiple trails for elite snooker athlete Stephen Maguire is analyzed in this thesis, for the main purpose of analyzing his technical characteristics, so as to provide the base of farther development in the future.

Method：The participant is Elite Snooker Athlete Stephen Maguire（age:37 years，training:20 years）with 200Hz by the motion analysis system with 13 high speed cameras (Qualisys-oqus700+,Sweden). Sixty-eight reflective markers totally,64 markers on the participant,4 markers on the cue were used.

Sixty data were analyzed (10 strokes x 1 participant x 2 techniques x 3 strength),and each predefined position of the balls has been previously marked on the table’s cloth. The cue ball is always in the position of the tee, the object ball is located at the tee point and the bottom bag line and two middle bag intersecting points. By controlling the position of the cue ball to control the stroke force, separately for small、medium、high force of fellow and draw shot.

The following parameters were analyzed : CMC(coefficient of multiple correlation), shoulder、elbow ROM (the range of joint motion) from T1(the last time to start the backwards) to T2(backwards to the farthest) and T2 to T3(shot time) . Two-factor repeated measures analysis were used to evaluate differences of shots. All statistical testing was performanced with SPSS software, version 12.0(SPSS Inc, Chicago, Illinois).

Results：There is no interaction between the type of power and the type of shot. But the fellow shot is more stable than the draw shot(draw shot＜fellow shot＜1,p=0.02). The difference between the batting force is mainly on the medium-intensity shoulder, elbow ROM(medium force＜small force＜high force, p=0.04).

Discussion and conclusions： CMC can be reacted to the stability of movement, the fellow shot is more stable than the draw shot, and the stability of upper joint is more balanced, it may be because the area to hit the ball is larger than the draw shot. Compared with the power, the medium strength has the highest stability. Probably the reason is that when the strength is bigger, it is easy to exert too much strength, while the other strength is not enough to stabilize the club. According to this research, the factors influencing the stability of shoulder joint is batting strength, probably due to the complexity of the shoulder movement, which is mainly composed of the elbow joint.