No association between dynamic trunk flexion strength and throwing velocity in elite women handball players

1. Introduction

In handball, throwing velocity is an important factor for scoring goals, as a higher ball velocity places a greater dependency on the goalkeeper’s ability to react or anticipate, and may compensate for a lack of accuracy or an inability to trick the goalkeeper with regard to ball placement. Further, throwing velocity typically increases with playing level [1, 2, 3], supporting its importance for performance. From a physical point of view, throwing velocity is primarily dependent on strength and technical execution. The relationship between strength and throwing velocity in particular has been the subject of much investigation in handball. In general, throwing velocity has been associated moderately to largely with both upper and lower extremity strength and power across throwing techniques in both sexes [1, 2, 4, 5]. In line with this, resistance training specific to overhead throwing with both moderate and heavy loads appears to improve throwing velocity [6, 7]. However, core strength is largely absent in the literature on handball throwing.

Across sports, the core is generally considered important for movement performance [8, 9], although, as repeatedly noted [10, 11], the scientific rationale behind this is often lacking. Indeed, no clear link between core strength and athletic performance has yet been established [12]. Rather, the notion appears to derive primarily from the assumption that a certain level of core strength is necessary for general movement stability and injury prevention [8, 10]. The most widely proposed explanation for the performance contribution of the core is essentially that greater core strength can benefit performance indirectly through improved working conditions for movement execution [8, 10, 11], enhancing the transfer of force between the lower and upper extremities and/or allowing the athlete to execute increasingly forceful movements while maintaining control.

Only four studies have investigated the effect of core training on throwing velocity in handball, reporting conflicting results. In senior amateur women [13] and junior men [14], six weeks of dynamic and static strength training did not increase throwing velocity in the standing throw with and without run-up and the jump throw compared to a control group. Contrastingly, in junior women, six weeks of sling-based training significantly increased velocity in the standing throw without run-up by 4.9% compared to a control group [15]. Further, in junior and amateur senior men, ten weeks of dynamic and static strength training significantly increased velocity in the standing throw with and without run-up and in the jump throw by an average of 4.3% (range 3.1–5.2%) compared to a control group [16]. However, as argued by the authors themselves [15, 16], it is unclear whether the mechanism by which these performance improvements were caused is direct (e.g., increased force generation) or indirect (e.g., better conditions for transferring force through the body) in nature.

From a purely anatomical point of view, force must necessarily be transferred through the core to move from the lower to the upper extremities. Although there are variations depending on the method of description, the handball throw – as most throwing motions [17] – is generally characterized by approximately proximal-to-distal sequential motions of the segments involved [18, 19, 20, 21]. It has been shown that most of the work on the ball is done in the last 50 ms before release [18]. Within this period, trunk flexion still occurs, reaching maximum velocity ∼ 5–40 ms before release [19, 21, 22], whereas trunk rotation has already reached maximum velocity [19, 21]. Further, elite players have shown greater trunk flexion velocity, both maximal and at release, than low-level players [3]. However, in a standing throw with both feet on the ground, forward trunk tilt, together with torso rotation and pelvis rotation, has also been found to contribute only ∼ 6% to total ball velocity in men [23]. Considering the entirety of the existing evidence as well as the kinematics of the overhead throw, the possibility of trunk flexion strength contributing directly to throwing velocity warrants investigation.

In addition, the way in which ball velocity is produced might differ between throwing techniques. The presence or absence of ground contact during the throw (i.e., standing throw or jump throw) has been shown to affect the throwing motion in elite men [20], presumably due to different conditions for transferring force from the lower to the upper extremities. Further, throwing velocity in the jump throw has been suggested to depend on torque production capabilities in the upper extremities to a greater degree than in the standing throw, the latter of which allows for the possibility of continuously using the lower extremities to increase ball velocity [24]. What role the core plays in the execution of the respective throwing techniques is uncertain. With regard to kinematics, trunk flexion exhibits a slightly larger range and starts a little earlier in the jump throw than in the standing throw with run-up, but statistically the two throwing techniques are similar in this respect [20]. Interestingly, although men and women do not throw with a fundamentally different technique [25], they have been proposed to differ in the transfer of force; in the standing throw with run-up, men have shown more activity in the transverse plane (pelvis and trunk rotation, horizontal shoulder abduction) whereas women have shown more activity in the sagittal plane (trunk flexion), also reaching a higher trunk flexion velocity [26].

To date, the relationship between core strength and throwing velocity has not been investigated in elite players, which is necessary to eliminate the potential effect of the technical execution of throwing. A population of elite players is also the appropriate model for discriminating between what capacities require a sufficient level for a given performance outcome (e.g., throwing velocity) and what capacities indicate a more linear association. Further, since women show more activity than men in trunk flexion [26], the major trunk movement occurring simultaneously with the most work done on the ball [18, 19, 21], they represent a reasonable design for investigating the relationship between core strength and throwing velocity. Therefore, to better inform strength training practice, the aim of this study was to examine the direct association between standardized dynamic trunk flexion strength and overhead throwing velocity in elite women handball players in both the standing throw with run-up and the jump throw. Based on the totality of previous findings and the kinematics of the overhead throw, trunk flexion strength was hypothesized to be positively associated with throwing velocity. However, due to the uncertainty in the literature, no directional hypotheses were formulated with regard to potential different effects of trunk flexion strength between the two throwing techniques.

2. Methods

3. Results

Descriptive values are shown in Table 1. Throwing velocity was significantly higher in ST than in JT (mean ± SD difference 1.11 ± 0.45 m ⋅ s - 1 , 95% CI [0.86, 1.35], 0.001, d = 0.96), while run-up velocity was significantly higher in JT than in ST (mean ± SD difference 1.07 ± 0.29 m ⋅ s - 1 , 95% CI [0.91, 1.22], 0.001, d = 2.87). There was no significant association between run-up velocity and throwing velocity for either throwing technique (ST: r 14 = - 0.10, 95% CI [ - 0.43, 0.21], p = 0.73; JT: r 14 = - 0.20, 95% CI [ - 0.75, 0.35], p = 0.46).

With arm strength and body mass accounted for, the association between trunk flexion strength and throwing velocity was non-significant for peak moment for both ST ( r 12 = - 0.37, 95% CI [ - 0.71, 0.35], p = 0.20; Fig. 2a) and JT ( r 12 = - 0.27, 95% CI [ - 0.65, 0.48], p = 0.34; Fig. 2b), for total work for both ST ( r 12 = - 0.30, 95% CI [ - 0.76, 0.43], p = 0.30; Fig. 2c) and JT ( r 12 = - 0.22, 95% CI [ - 0.71, 0.56], p = 0.44; Fig. 2d), and for angular impulse for both ST ( r 12 = - 0.26, 95% CI [ - 0.76, 0.46], p = 0.38; Fig. 2e) and JT ( r 12 = - 0.19, 95% CI [ - 0.65, 0.49], p = 0.51; Fig. 2f). The associations between trunk flexion strength and throwing velocity for ST and JT were not significantly different from each other for peak moment ( t 13 = - 0.90, p = 0.38), total work ( t 13 = - 0.73, p = 0.48), or angular impulse ( t 13 = - 0.59, p = 0.57).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Similarly, the associations between trunk flexion strength and throwing velocity for peak moment, total work, and angular impulse were not significantly different from each other for ST (peak moment vs. total work: t 13 = - 0.45, p = 0.66; peak moment vs. angular impulse: t 13 = - 0.72, p = 0.48; total work vs. angular impulse: t 13 = - 0.70, p = 0.50) or JT (peak moment vs. total work: t 13 = - 0.32, p = 0.75; peak moment vs. angular impulse: t 13 = - 0.53, p = 0.61; total work vs. angular impulse: t 13 = - 0.55, p = 0.60).

The aim of this study was to examine the direct association between trunk flexion strength and overhead throwing velocity in elite women handball players in both the standing throw with run-up and the jump throw. Contrary to what was hypothesized, no significant association was found for either throwing technique for any of the measures of trunk flexion strength, and the explained variance was only ⩽ 13.7% in the standing throw and ⩽ 9.0% in the jump throw. Further, the associations between trunk flexion strength and throwing velocity were not significantly different between the two throwing techniques for any of the measures of trunk flexion strength, or between the measures of trunk flexion strength for any of the throwing techniques.

The main results do not support the idea that the effect of trunk flexion strength on handball throwing velocity could be direct in nature, with the mechanism simply being increased force generation, nor do they indicate that the role trunk flexion strength plays for throwing velocity differs between the throwing techniques tested. Interestingly, these results were consistent across different measures of trunk flexion strength targeting different strength capacities (peak moment representing the momentary absolute peak, total work representing the cumulative work over the entire performance-relevant ROM, and angular impulse representing the practical notion of “explosiveness”) in both throwing techniques, further bolstering the argument against a direct relationship between trunk flexion strength and throwing velocity.

The expertise of the participants should eliminate the possibility that a true effect of greater trunk flexion strength could have been obscured by poor technical execution of throwing. Rather, it can be speculated that they had all reached a sufficient level of strength, after which further increases no longer affect throwing velocity and hence other factors are determining. Whether a linear relationship between trunk flexion strength and handball throwing velocity exists below a certain level of strength is not known. Although the technical proficiency of players is invariably difficult to control, the apparent existence of a threshold for sufficient strength has been found previously [35], with weaker amateur women players displaying a significant linear relationship between one-repetition maximum bench press and throwing velocity, while the associations were lower and non-significant in stronger national and international elite women players. However, this might also simply indicate that at a lower level, the better players are typically better at everything. Overall, the results indicate that, at the elite level, dynamic trunk flexion strength should not be incorporated in training programs with the purpose of improving throwing velocity in women players.

It is worth noting that only concentric trunk flexion strength was measured in this study, as opposed to a more comprehensive test of core strength. Eccentric trunk extension strength is necessary to decelerate the trunk, which could facilitate the acceleration of the more distally located arm, per the principle of proximal-to-distal sequencing [17]. Therefore, it might influence throwing velocity. However, considering that trunk flexion reaches maximum velocity as late as ∼ 5–40 ms before ball release [19, 21, 22], the degree to which the deceleration of trunk flexion is able to contribute to throwing velocity is uncertain. Further, considering the handball throwing motion, concentric trunk rotation strength in the appropriate direction (i.e., left rotation for a right-handed throw and vice versa) and the corresponding eccentric trunk rotation strength for deceleration (i.e., right rotation for a right-handed throw and vice versa) could hold similar importance as concentric trunk flexion strength and eccentric trunk extension strength, respectively. Existing research concerning the effect of rotational strength on handball throwing is scarce, but generally it does not suggest that trunk rotation is a directly determining factor for throwing velocity. As previously mentioned, torso rotation and pelvis rotation, together with forward trunk tilt, have been found to contribute only ∼ 6% to total ball velocity [23]. In addition, trunk rotation reaches peak angular velocity $>$ 50 ms before ball release [19, 21], before most of the work on the ball is done [18], further indicating that it does not play a major role in the direct generation of throwing velocity. However, considering its timing relative to ball release, trunk rotation might contribute indirectly to throwing velocity through its deceleration, facilitating the acceleration of more distal segments in the period when most of the work on the ball is done.

It has been stated that the challenge for researchers in identifying objective core strength measures that are relevant for dynamic athletic performance (i.e., sufficiently specific to the chosen performance test) is the complexity of the core anatomy [36]. Although there is much debate about what anatomical structures constitute the core and the definitions of both core strength and core stability (for detailed discussions on these topics, see e.g., [8, 10]), core strength and core stability are inextricably linked, as the stability must necessarily derive primarily from muscular strength. In the current study, no attempt was made to define the core, but rather a movement (trunk flexion) was chosen that both isolates musculature in the abdomen and the lumbo-pelvic region (which fall under most, if not all, definitions of the core) and is an identifiable part of the handball throwing movement [19, 21, 22, 26]. Further, isokinetic dynamometer measurements were chosen as the method to assess core strength in an effort to obtain an objective, standardized measure, with different measures of strength (peak moment, total work, angular impulse) to encompass a range of strength capacities. Considering the duration of movement (across all three measures of trunk flexion strength, the time from movement initiation to the end of the analyzed acceleration-phase ROM was 0.36 ± 0.03 s for trunk flexion, 0.28 ± 0.04 s for shoulder extension, 0.42 ± 0.07 s for internal shoulder rotation, and 0.69 ± 0.07 s for forearm pronation), the muscles likely did not reach peak tension in these tests (see e.g., [37]). However, this is also true for the overhead throw, even when assuming a greater initial torque due to achieving active state prior to the movement [37], since it is executed at even higher velocities than what is feasible in the isokinetic tests.

Insufficient specificity in testing might be a contributing factor to why core strength, despite its widely presumed importance in sports [8, 9], is notoriously difficult to relate to performance outcome [12]. In the existing literature, this issue is exemplified by common tests such as variations of the medicine ball throw regularly functioning both as a test of athletic performance (e.g., [36, 38]) and as a test of core strength (e.g., [39, 40]). This is problematic not only because of the potential issues related to the validity of the tests themselves but also because it makes it difficult to relate core strength to athletic performance across studies. The standardized test battery for core strength established by McGill [41] has also been employed when attempting to demonstrate a connection to athletic performance (e.g., [38, 42]), but this focuses on static endurance, and as such is not specific to the typically dynamic nature of sport-specific movements. However, in the current study, with an objective, standardized, isolated strength test of core musculature (isokinetic trunk flexion) that has shared kinematics with the chosen sport-specific performance test (the overhead throw), still no direct connection with throwing velocity was evident across a range of strength capacities. From a practical point of view, insufficient specificity can cloud the picture when performing regular testing of players to track performance-relevant progress and is something practitioners must be conscious of when gathering information on core strength from the scientific literature.

Based on the present results, if core strength does contribute to throwing velocity, as suggested by the outcome of some previous intervention studies in handball [15, 16], it appears more likely to do so indirectly (e.g., through facilitating the transfer of force from the lower to the upper body). An interesting supplemental theory, which has been postulated for the baseball throw, is that the rectus abdominis, which is important for trunk flexion, contributes to the centripetal force required for the circular motion of the arm [43]. This would connect the level of core strength to the angular velocity of the arm that can be achieved while maintaining the desired path of the handball throwing motion (i.e., proper technique), and is an avenue that deserves further exploration.

5. Limitations

It is important to note that a seated test configuration for measuring trunk flexion strength does not simulate the functional execution of the handball throw with regard to biomechanics. Rather, it is a measure of isolated segment strength, in which the measurement condition naturally represents a limitation with regard to the functional execution of a more complex movement. As such, the results must be interpreted with caution, i.e., as representing the direct association of throwing velocity with a strength capacity, not with a replication of the strength performance during throwing.

Further, based on the presumably different conditions for transferring force between throwing techniques [20], it could be argued that standing trunk flexion corresponds better to the functional execution of the standing throw, in which the lower body can contribute continuously, whereas seated trunk flexion corresponds better to the functional execution of the jump throw, in which a greater reliance on the upper body has been suggested [24]. In this, the test configuration used in the current experiment represents a potential limitation with regard to the standing throw. Given the similarity and consistency in results between the two throwing techniques, it is difficult to evaluate the level of influence this might have had on the outcome.

Notably, as discussed previously, only concentric trunk flexion was tested. Thus, there is likely an eccentric-concentric coupling occurring in the trunk flexors during the throwing movement that is not reflected in the test configuration. However, with self-regulated rest between repetitions, the participants performed the three repetitions in immediate succession (the time from the end of a repetition and from regaining the starting position after a repetition, respectively, to the start of the next repetition was 2.75 ± 1.40 s and 0.26 ± 0.40 s), essentially performing the second and third repetition following eccentric muscle action (albeit against low resistance). Considering that for each strength measure, the repetition with the highest value was used for further analysis, and that across participants and strength measures, this was the second or third repetition 83.3% of the time, the potential disproportionate effect of potentiation should be reduced.

Lastly, this study did not include men, with suitable tests of trunk strength corresponding to their throwing kinematics. Therefore, the findings can only be considered representative for women.

6. Conclusion

No significant association was found between trunk flexion strength and overhead throwing velocity for either peak moment, total work, or angular impulse in either the standing throw with run-up or the jump throw. Of note, the strength of association did not differ between these two commonly used throwing techniques for any of the measures of trunk flexion strength or between measures of trunk flexion strength for the two throwing techniques. This indicates that isolated, dynamic trunk flexion strength is not a differentiating factor for handball throwing velocity in women players at the elite level. Accepting the widely held experience-based, practice-driven belief that core strength is in fact important for athletic performance, the absence of a direct relationship with throwing velocity necessarily strengthens the support for an indirect relationship. Overall, the results of the current study contribute to growing the body of knowledge on the under-researched relationship between core strength and athletic performance. Future studies should strive to use objective, standardized tests for measuring strength in core musculature and explore the potential mechanisms behind an indirect relationship between core strength and throwing velocity.

Author contributions

CONCEPTION: David McGhie, Sindre Østerås and Tommy Tomasa.

PERFORMANCE OF WORK: Tommy Tomasa, David McGhie and Sindre Østerås.

INTERPRETATION OR ANALYSIS OF DATA: David McGhie, Tommy Tomasa and Sindre Østerås.

PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT: David McGhie, Tommy Tomasa and Sindre Østerås.

REVISION FOR IMPORTANT INTELLECTUAL CONTENT: David McGhie.

SUPERVISION: David McGhie.

Ethical considerations

The study was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (project number 50503, November 15, 2016). Written informed consent was obtained for all participants. For participants 18 years, parental consent was also obtained.

Funding

The authors report no funding.