Acquisition and Analysis of Performance Parameters in Long Jump and Sprinting Techniques of Paralympic Athletes with Unilateral Lower Limb Amputation

The study of the biomechanics of running and long jumping in athletes with unilateral lower limb amputation is crucial for assessing how prostheses impact the movement and athlete’s safety. This thesis examines four athletes, two men and two women, with either transfemoral (above-knee) or transtibial (below-knee) amputation. Among them, two are specialised in sprinting and two in long jumping. Data collection has been carried out during in-vivo sessions at Palaindoor of Padua through Motion Capture systems and dynamometric platforms. In each session, a variable number of trials, either steady-state running or long jumping type, has been acquired for each athlete. The data gathered from the in-vivo session is, then, pre-processed with Vicon Nexus software. Subsequent data analysis is performed using OLYMPIA software, developed in MATLAB, to derive kinematic and kinetic insights for each trial of any session. Spatial-temporal parameters, center of mass analysis, lower limb joint kinematics and kinetics, as well as ground reaction forces and impulses are examined. This thesis contributes to the understanding of how prosthetic design influences athletic performance and safety, providing insights that could lead to future enhancements in prosthetic technology.