Strategies of Parkour practitioners for executing soft precision landings

International audienceParkour landing techniques differ from performances of other sports as they are practiced in urban spaces with uncontrolled surfaces and drop heights. Due to the relatively young age of the sport, few studies have tried to understand how practitioners-called traceurs-succeed at performing these dynamic performances. In this paper, we focus on the precision landing technique, which has a fundamental role in most of the Parkour motions. We analyzed the lower limbs motion of traceurs executing the precision landings from two different heights and compared their performance with untrained participants. We found that traceurs perform a soft landing extending its duration twice than untrained participants do (í µí± < .001), increasing the range of motion (í µí± < .001) and generating more mechanical energy (í µí± < .01) to dissipate the impact. In the Parkour technique, the knee accounted for half of the energy dissipated. The peak joint torques (í µí± < .001) and power (í µí± < .0001) were reduced in the Parkour technique. The increase of the landing height did not modify the proportion of individual joint mechanical energy contribution for dissipation. Our results could be used to enhance Parkour performance, and to understand new ways in which sport practitioners can land in order to prevent injuries