Dynamic balance ability during single-leg drop landing across different age groups of junior gymnasts.
Shinya Kishi, Yasuhiro Nakane, Takao Minami
High school gymnasts landed with lower impact force, shorter balance sway, and better shock absorption than younger gymnasts.
These gaps held after adjusting for training years, so maturation matters beyond practice.
Key findings
1High school gymnasts showed lower peak vertical ground reaction force (374.31% body weight), shorter COP trajectories in the early phase (64.34% foot length), and lower buffering coefficients (6.39 N/ms) than elementary (634.97% BW, 92.91% foot length, 15.75 N/ms) and junior high (546.50% BW, 88.44% foot length, 12.12 N/ms) gymnasts.
2After adjusting for years of gymnastics experience, the group differences in landing mechanics remained, indicating that maturation contributes beyond accumulated training.
3Differences between the elementary and junior high school groups were limited across all measured parameters.
Still to come
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What it does not show
Training content, intensity, and coaching style were not accounted for, only total years of experience. No direct maturity indicators (Tanner stage, predicted age at peak height velocity) were measured, so the groups are defined by school year rather than biological development. Only vertical kinetics and center of pressure trajectories were analyzed; no three-dimensional kinematics or muscle activation data. Variables were not normalized to body height, which changes substantially during adolescence and may partly account for the group differences. Cross-sectional design with small per-group samples (12, 12, 16) limits causal interpretation.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the age differences as evidence that a specific training programme will close the gap. This is a cross-sectional comparison of three school-level groups, not an intervention trial. The groups were defined by school year, not by biological maturity, and no maturity markers were measured. The study shows where the differences are, not that a particular intervention fixes them.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →