Measurement of Hand Palm Pressures in “La Pelota Vasca” Game

Abstract

“Pelota Vasca” is a traditional sport coming from the País Vasco with a long history and different modalities. In one of them the ball is hit with the hand against a wall placed in front of the players. A high incidence of hand injuries is found in this sport which has been related to high impact loads and to not adequate protection. Nevertheless, there is not knowledge about biomechanical parameters as impact forces in the hand, hand pressure distribution and others that would be required for an adequate protection design. The purpose of this study was to measure the hand impacts magnitude and distribution when playing “Pelota Vasca”. Nine high level players took part in the study. A pneumatic canon was used to throw the ball at 80 km/h speed, that was controlled by two photocell gates. The ball rebounded first against the wall and then on the floor before to be hit by the player. The players hand was equipped with an instrumented glove especially developed for this study. It included 8 piezoelectric sensors distributed according to hand functional anatomy and considering the hitting areas of the hand. Specific software was developed to compute peak pressure at each sensor which was stored for further statistical analysis. The maximum recorded pressure ranged between 4020 kPa and 4378 kPa, at the 2nd and 3rd metacarpal heads respectively. Those values are very high, similar to plantar pressures recorder for speed athletes during maximal speed running, what suggest that the current protection should be improved to reduce pressures.