The Influence of the Board Bending and Recoil Effect on Circus Performance in Korean Teeterboard

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the recoil effect in jumping on a Korean teeterboard, a circus equipment resembling a seesaw. To our knowledge, our study is the first to include detailed measurements of bending movement of the teeterboard per section. Two elite acrobats performed 120 jumps while a motion capture system collected kinematic data from both acrobats and the teeterboard. Board bending angles and timing were analyzed with a Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) model to identify the most important teeterboard variables associated to jump height. The BRT model showed that both the board recoil effect and the landing of the opposite acrobat influenced 46% and 37% of the jump height, respectively. The recoil timing was found to be synchronized with the last contact at take-off. Coaches should encourage acrobats to take advantage of the recoil effect to increase jump height in Korean teeterboard.