The basic purpose of the research was to verify the specificity of the proximal-distal principle of the jump throw in team-handball. The phenomenon was observed from three different perspectives. It is (1) the connection of the maximum linear velocity of the joints and the balls, (2) the connection of the initiation of the movements in the individual joints, and (3) the connection of the maximum angular velocities in the individual joints. The latter method is also most often used in current literature in the verification of the proximal-distal principle. The participants were the elite left backcourt players of the Slovenian handball team (199 cm, 194 cm, 204 cm). A systematic review of the literature was carried out through the following databases: SPORTDISCUS and MEDLINE. After the preliminary warm-ups, all subjects had to perform several jump throws from 9 m and we chose one for each. We collected data with two high-frequency cameras (100 Hz). We set 18 reference points and manually processed them for each captured image separately. At linear velocities, we processed the right hip, the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist and the ball. With angles and angular velocities, we processed the rotation of the pelvis, the rotation of the trunk, the horizontal abduction of the shoulder, the internal rotation of the shoulder and the elbow extension.
While interpreting the results we discovered that the subjects did not carry out a jump throw according to the classical proximal-distal principle. In most cases, it ended at the shoulder-elbow level. The maximum linear velocity of the elbow extension appeared before the maximum linear velocity of the shoulder, or at least at the same time, which means that we cannot confirm the proximal-distal principle. Similarly, in the sense of connecting the initiation of the movements in the individual joints, the proximal-distal principle collapsed at the transition from the internal rotation of the shoulder into the elbow extension. The same applies to the connection of the maximum angular velocities. According to the results of other studies, we concluded that the proximal-distal principle in the team-handball jump throw exists, but it is very specific at the shoulder and the elbow level. We also confirmed the exceptional importance of the maximum angular velocity of the internal rotation of the shoulder (the values of our subjects: 6419.2°/s, 4263.7°/s and 4146.1°/s) to achieve high throwing velocities. All of our subjects achieved this at the time of the throw, which is the characteristic of the elite players. We discovered the same feature for the angle of the elbow extension at the time of the throw. The bigger the angle of the elbow extension at the time of the throw the higher the throw velocity of the ball.
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