Evaluation of the Performance of Martial Art Wushu Sportsmen by Measuring the System Complexity

Aims: Multiplicity of the degrees of freedom in biological systems is the source of system variability and an indicator of the system health, its flexibility and its ability to adapt with different individual, environmental and functional limitations. Qualitative methods considered by researchers to evaluate the dynamics of nonlinear systems in the last two decades, estimate the level of system variability by quantifying the complexity of movement patterns. The present study investigates the ability of this criterion to evaluate the skill level of sportsmen in performing different maneuvers and to highlight the differences between groups.
Methodology: Sixteen martial art wushu performers, who were invited to Iranian national team, participated in this study. They were divided into two eight-member groups of elite and skilled athletes according to their previous accomplishments in sport. Their postural oscillations, while performing four balancing maneuvers of taolu form of wushu, were captured by a force plate and the complexity of the oscillations in anterior-posterior and mediolateral directions were calculated using the approximate entropy.
Results: The results showed a noticeable difference between the groups in anterior-posterior direction while there was no significant difference in complexity of mediolateral oscillations between the two groups. The results also indicated a considerable difference between the maneuvers.
Conclusion: The findings indicated that the athletes in the elite group are more skilled and have more flexibility in performing the maneuvers than the athletes in the other group and this capability results from their ability to better control the effective degrees of freedom in controlling the movements and to coordinate the subsystems to reach a stable and rich balanced position.