The effect of fatigue on kinematics and kinetics of basketball dribbling with changes of direction

Basketball dribbling is one of the key elements inbasketball game. Thereis a lack of studies investigating the effect of fatigue on kinematics andkinetics in basketball dribbling. There are two primary aims of this study: (1)to explore theeffect of fatigue on kinematics and kinetics in dribbling with the change ofdirections; (2) to determine the effect of fatigue on dribbling speed. FourteenCroatian senior male basketball players, not power forwards or centers (age:21.16±3.43 years; body height: 188.81±6.88 cm; body mass: 87.81±6.06 kg; bodyfat: 13.34±3.52%) participated in the study. Each player performed two types ofchange of direction (COD) while dribbling: front COD and spin move in the non-fatiguedand then in the fatigued state. Xsens suit and Novel insoles were used tomeasure the kinematic and kinetic parameters. In terms of the front COD, theresults of this study demonstrated that the maximum angular velocity in the knee(p=.028) and wrist joint (p=.007) as well as maximum force (p=.004)significantly decreased in the fatigued state. In terms of the spin move, theresults showed that there were significant differences in pelvis velocity(p=.000), the maximum angular velocity in the knee joint (p=.020), and the firststep velocity (p=0.010) between the fatigued and non-fatigued states. Nosignificant difference was found in the pelvis position, minimum angle in theknee joint and maximum force. Importantly, dribbling speed significantlydecreased in the fatigued state (p=.002). The findings of this study suggestthat coaching staff should design appropriate training programs to optimizeplayers’ ability to resist fatigue when dribbling under real game speedconditions.