AFL Drop Punt

AFL Drop Punt

Video of the skill performed by cognitive and autonomous athlete

Biomechanics- Video Software Analysis

How these results may be useful for coaches

Cognitive Learner

Cognitive Stage Learner

Fitts and Posner Model

Autonomous Stage Learner

Cognitive Learner

Sub-routines of the skill

Autonomous Stage Learner

Coaching Feedback for Cognitive and Autonomous Stage Learners

Run up

Ball Drop

Autonomous Stage Learner

Planting of the Support leg

Bio mechanical Analysis

The athletes ability to guide the ball onto their foot and accurately onto the impact zone, using their guiding hand to guide the ball down and the non-guiding hand swings up horizontally from their shoulder to create stability and balance.

The run up helps the athlete to be stable and to increase the force transfer into the ball. The more stability the athlete has, the more control he will have over the ball.

The support leg shifts weight to one side of the body to allow for an appropriate leg swing. it also helps with balance and and correct positioning of the hips.

Factors That Can Effect Projectile Motion

Kinetics

Conclusion

References

Impact

Leg Swing

Skill Classification

When the athletes foot makes contact with the ball, it's refered to as "Impact". The impact is what allowes the ball to be exerted forward.

The athletes ability to take a long stride with their kicking foot back behind them, the athlete would then swing their foot forward in an explosive motion.

What is the skill?

Follow Through

Kinematics

To execute the drop punt correctly a follow through motion is required. It allows for more power to be developed and also creates more accuracy. The follow through also gives the player momentum to move foward and continue running.

M., Barraclough, M. and profile, V. (2008). Stages Of Skill Acquisition. [online] Stagesofskillacquisition.blogspot.com.au. Available at: http://stagesofskillacquisition.blogspot.com.au [Accessed 12 Oct. 2016].

To execute the skill correctly the follow through motion is also required. The cognitive learner didn't use the follow through motion and this resulted in not having much power exerted onto the ball.

• The cognitive stage learner used both hands to guide the ball down and doesn't have the non-guiding hand swing up for stability and balance.

• En.wikipedia.org. (2016). Punt (Australian football). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punt_(Australian_football) [Accessed 12 Oct. 2016].

This image from the investigation shows that the autonomous athlete had more plantarflexion at the angle of 121 degrees. This resulted in a more fluent execution of the skill because the ball made better contact with the foot and it allowed for more exertion.

This image from the investigation shows that the cognitive learner has dorsiflexion at the ankle, with an acute angle of 84 degrees. In this study it was found that athletes with plantarflexion at the ankle allowed for a more fluent execution of the skill.

• The AFL drop punt is a closed skill when being performed individually as the athlete is performing the skill in predictable environments and has control of timing of the movements. However, in a game situation it becomes an open skill because it would be performed in an unpredictable environment due to being surrounded by opponents, meaning that the athlete would have limited time to kick the football.
• Kicking a football is classed as a discrete skill, because it has a start point (the approach) and an end point (contact and follow through).
• The skill would be described as a gross motor skill because to execute the skill, larger muscle groups such as the quadriceps and hamstrings will need to be activated.

• In conclusion, this analysis proves that autonomous athletes are a lot more fluent with motor skills than cognitive athletes.
• The autonomous athlete displayed in the video executed a better ball drop and follow through which had a better effect on the motion of the football, whereas the cognitive athlete had an awkward style which resulted in a shorter distance of kick and incorrect motion of the football.

The follow through motion was correctly displayed by the autonomous learner, this resulted in more power exerted onto the ball. The reason why this happened is because the follow through helps give the athlete more momentum through the leg and allows them to continue to run forward. Failing to perform the follow through may result in a less accuracy, shorter distance and a more stab style kick.

The results found in the analysis may be useful for coaches to teach the drop punt skill more effectively to either a cognitive stage learner who is just beginning or an autonomous athlete who is working on perfecting the skill.

The skill level of the athletes will also determine how much depth the coach would go into when teaching the skill. Where the me elite athlete would need more depth taught to perfect the skill and the beginner would start with the broad basics and work their way up the learning stages.

• Kinetics is the area in biomechanics thatstudies influences on the movement of a body (McGinnis, 1999).
• This includes the mass of the body and force applied to the body, which can be done from a push or pulling affect which results in chance.
• Newton's first law states that an object continues in its state of rest unless acted upon by a force. This can relate to the AFL drop punt because the athlete must provide force by dropping the ball onto the foot and swinging the leg to kick the ball for it to have movement in mid-air.
• Without applying force, the ball would not cover any distance, therefore it would stay in a state of rest.

The Fitts and Posner Model consists of three stages:

• Cognitive Stage- which involves understanding the components of the skill being learnt.
• Associative Stage- which involves the practicing of the skill so that the learner becomes familiar with the sequence and timing.
• Autonomous Stage- is when the skill is developed to become automatic

The ball drop was performed correctly by the autonomous athlete, this was done by guiding the ball down with one hand onto the foot to assure better contact when the ball is kicked. While the ball was dropped the athlete swung the non guiding hand up to provide stability and balance when the ball was kicked.

The autonomous learner also had a narrower base of support. This is because after continuous practice of the skill, the athlete knows where their centre of gravity is and doesn't have to worry about losing balance.

Aflcommunityclub.com.au. (2016). AFL Community: Basic Mechanics of Kicking. [online] Available at: http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/index.php?id=424 [Accessed 12 Oct. 2016].

The projectile in this investigation was the AFL football, the motion of the projectile can be effected by internal and external factors.

This experiment was completed in an inside area, therefore in this situation it was a closed skill and could only be affected by interanal factors, this includes the height of release, the angle of release and the velocity of release.

However if this experiment was done in an open area, it could have been affected by external factors such as spin, air resistance, and the shape of the object being used.

• A coach needs to keep in mind that for a cognitive learner they will need to make sure they provide accurate demonstration and give clear instructions. Failing to do this can result in incorrect learning which means it will take longer for the athlete to develop the correct way of performing the skill.
• A coach also must not overload the athlete with too much information. Providing a cognitive learner with too much information can lead to frustration which could results in a higher number of errors.
• For an autonomous learner, the coach needs to make sure they don’t focus on an individual component, because not regularly performing the skill can cause it to deteriorate.

Kinematics is the area of biomechanics that studies the description of motion (McGinnis, 1999). This can be how fast, how far and how consistently a body moves. When analysing the AFL drop punt, the motion would, the motion would be describes as a linear motion as the kick needs to go in a straight line to hit a target which could be a teammate of the goals.

• The drop punt is the most common kick used in AFL.
• This style of kicking is mainly used due to it's accuracy. The ball is guided down by the players preferred hand onto the foot, to be be kicked so that the ball rotates in a reverse end over end motion (Wikipedia, 2016).

In a game of AFL, the follow through when performing the drop punt also helps to give the player momentum to move forward and allow the player to continue to run forward (AFL Development, 2013)

• The cognitive stage learner also has a wider base of support. This is due to being a beginner to the skill and not knowing where their centre of gravity is.