Much of our work as movement analysts involves the study and evaluation of how
sports skills are performed. To analyse the observed movement
‘
technique
’
, we need
to identify
‘
critical features
’
of the movement. These features should be crucial to
improving performance of a certain skill or reducing the injury risk in performing that
skill
–
sometimes both. For a qualitative biomechanical analyst, this means being able to
observe those features of the movement; for the quantitative analyst, this requires
measuring those features and often, further mathematical analysis (Chapters 4 to 6).
Identi
fi
cation of these critical features is probably the most important task facing a
qualitative or quantitative analyst, and we will look at several approaches to this task in
this section. None is foolproof but all are in
fi
nitely better at identifying these crucial
elements of a skill than an unstructured approach. Sometimes it can be helpful to de
fi
ne
a
‘
scale of correctness
’
for critical features, for example poor
=
1 to perfect
=
5, or a
‘
range of correctness
’
, such as
‘
wrist above elbow but below shoulder
’