Mikrotron Cameras Measure Kicking Strength of Youth Soccer Players

Summary

March 11, 2024 - There are more than 240 million registered soccer players worldwide, representing 200 nations, making it the world's most popular sport, especially among children and teenagers. 
 
To gain insight into how younger athletes strengthen their kicking legs as they enter adolescence, scientists at the Faculty of Sports & Health Science at Fukuoka University (Fukuoka, Japan) and the Sport Science Faculty at Anadolu University (Eskişehir, Turkey) conducted a study of thirty male soccer players. Ten athletes were chosen for each of the three age divisions studied (Group I: 12–13; Group II: 14–15; Group III: 16–17). 
 
The three age groups differed significantly in terms of height, body mass, body mass index and isokinetic strength scores. Researchers aimed at determining how these differences showed up in the players' kicking skills as they matured. This was done by measuring:

• Ball velocity to estimate kicking leg strength when players used the conventional instep kick approach.
• Variations in each participant's kicking leg kinematic and muscle activation patterns to analyze bio-mechanicals.

Study method

The study was performed in an indoor sport arena on an artificial grass platform. Each of the thirty players performed five instep kicks with their three fastest kicks selected to be analyzed. All kicks were done using the dominant right leg towards a soccer net 11 meters away. Velocities of the soccer balls were measured by a radar gun.
 
Two electrically synchronized Mikrotron MotionBLITZ Cube GigE 1.3-megapixel cameras captured the instep kick motions at an operational speed of 1000 frames-per-second (fps) and 1280 x 512 resolution. Positioned on the kicking leg side (right) of each player, the Mikrotron cameras provided the imaging quality needed for six distinct body landmarks to be clearly observed: right shoulder, hip, knee, ankle, heel and toe. Once acquired by the cameras and downloaded to a PC, direct linear transformation (DLT) was used to obtain the 3-D coordinates of each landmark.
 

Findings

While soccer is a popular topic for kinetics research, the study conducted by Fukuoka University and Anadolu University was the first cross-sectional effort to simultaneously examine the differences in muscular strength, muscular activation pattern and kinematic parameters in younger age groups as their skills develop.
 
Researchers found a consistent pattern in the improvement of youth players' leg strength and ball velocities with age. Likewise, the oldest age group consistently exhibited faster hip, knee, ankle and toe linear speeds at ball impact during instep kicking, especially in the leg-cocking and forward swing phases, than the younger groups. Those increases were attributed to the older players' larger muscle mass, improved coordination and refined technique from their years of coaching and practice, although there were similar patterns for muscle activation and motion kinematics in all three age groups.

About Mikrotron, a brand of SVS-Vistek GmbH

SVS-Vistek GmbH acquired 100% of the shares of Mikrotron GmbH with retroactive effect from 01 January 2022. Through this integrative merger of the two companies under the umbrella of TKH Vision, the two companies combine their strengths and competencies and place their camera expertise on a strong entrepreneurial basis. Now a brand of SVS-Vistek, Mikrotron is internationally renowned for small and particularly robust high-speed cameras in the industrial image processing market. Digital high-speed cameras have outstanding technical performance characteristics and are widely used in industrial and scientific applications as well as in the field of sports, advertising and by nature filmmakers.