technique, fundamental skills, upper limbs, injury prevention, coaching

The aim of this study was to investigate if changes in elbow and wrist joints loading occurred as a function of (a) different hand placement and (b) fundamental skills difficulty level in female gymnastics. Ten female gymnasts performed 54 successful trials of round-off skills (cartwheel [18], round-off [18], round-off to back handspring [18]), with three different hand positions (parallel, T-shape and reverse). Kinematic and kinetic data were collected for each trial. A two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyse the injury risk factors. Results suggested that the T- shape technique during different levels of round-off skills decreases mechanical load (peak vertical ground reaction forces and joint kinetics at the elbow and wrist) and may represent safer technique for young female gymnasts.