Analysis of Whole-Body Coordination Patterning in Successful and Faulty Spikes Using Self-Organising-Map-Based Cluster Analyses: A Secondary Analysis

<p>This study was designated to investigate the whole-body coordination patterning in successful and faulty spikes using Self-Organising-Map-Based Cluster Analyses. Ten young elite volleyball players (aged 15.5 ± 0.7 years) performed 60 volleyball spikes in real-game circumstances with two blocks. Adopting the cluster analysis based on a Self-Organising-Map, the whole body coordination patterning was explored between the successful and faulty spikes of individual players. The cluster analysis portrayed that the whole-body, upper-limbs and lower-limbs coordination patterning of each individual’s successful spikes were similar to his faulty spikes. The same condition was authenticated for the ROMs patterning. Nevertheless, the upper-limbs angular velocity patterning of the players’ successful/faulty spikes was similar. The SPM analysis also portrayed significant differences between the normalized upper-limbs angular velocities from 35% to 45% and from 76% to the end of the spike movement. Alt-hough the lower-limbs angular velocities are vital for achieving higher jumps in volleyball spike, the results of this study por-trayed that the upper-limbs angular velocities distinguish the differences between successful and faulty spikes among the attack-ers. This confirms the fact that volleyball coaches could shift their focus toward the upper-limbs’ strength and coordination training for higher success rates among the volleyball attackers.</p>