The muscle, joints, movement components involved in the soccer "bicycle kick", including physcial test suggestions and biomechanial principles involved

INTRODUCTION

Soccer is the most popular sport worldwide. The Federation Internationale de Football Association represents 203 countries including more than 200 million licensed participants. (9) The Union des Associations Europeennes de Football represents 49 European nations with approximately 20 million participants, and the German Soccer Association listed 6.25 million participants in 2000. (6,28) These statistics do not include players who play soccer on an unorganized basis.

No other discrete movement in football is as spectacular as the gesture known as the bicycle kick: when a player kicks the ball in mid-air backwards and over his own head. Many players have tried it; some of them have succeeded but few have performed a perfect one. A perfect bicycle kick is a rare event, even in the World Cup it is not guaranteed that one will witness a bicycle kick for it encompasses movement of the entire body, requiring the perfect synchronization of major muscles and joints requiring strength, agility and flexibility.

1.         Identify and describe the major muscles, joints and actions of the joints used to perform this movement skill and how they influence the way the body moves.

In order to achieve a thorough analysis of all the major muscles, joints and actions of the joints used to perform the bicycle kick, the movement is divided into its three phases and the individual movements performed in order to bring about each phase of the skill.

THE JUMP- In which the kicking leg is left on the ground while the non-kicking leg is used to propel body upwards.

I.         The Jump off the ground achieved through the Dorsiflexion of the ankle and tarsal joints originated by the Tibia and powered by Tibalis Anterior as the agonist and Soleus as the antagonist.

II.         Straightening of the knee of the non- kicking leg...