A.I. Zav'yalov, professor, Dr.Hab.
A.A. Grishin, A.V. Kolyada, postgraduate students
National Research Irkutsk State Technical University, Irkutsk

Key words: kickboxing "K-1", hitting actions, quality of kick, video review.

Introduction. At present professional kickboxing «K-1» is incredibly rapidly developing both in Russia and around the world. This type of martial arts is characterized by a relatively large number of punches and kicks [3]. An athlete can win in two ways - by knockout and on points [6]. A victory on points should be understood as a victory awarded by decision of judges as a result of counting all punches and kicks that reached the target. In spite of the fact that there is such a simple criterion for determining the winner, there are situations where the judges’ decision is questionable. Meanwhile, modern methods of competitive activity analysis are being actively developed in sports science [1, 2, 4].

The relevance of the study is in the fact that it is necessary to consider each kick in a bout of athletes, as a certain amount of energy, which varies depending on strength, speed and accuracy of its delivery, is spent for the striking technique - complex technical actions. Establishing an average number of punches and kicks is a prerequisite for planning training load and in managing a training process. The ratio analysis of athlete's actions is required for better tactical training of an athlete for a fight.

The purpose of the study was to analyze fights of professional top-level athletes (the strongest fighters in the world) for 2012-2014 and identify the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of strikes and punches within a 6 min fight. Namely, to define the following: attempted punches within a sports fight; punches that reached the target; relative accuracy of punches; attempted kicks within a sports fight; kicks that reached the target; relative accuracy of kicks; the total number of all punches and kicks; the total number of all punches and kicks that reached the target; relative accuracy of all punches and kicks within a fight.

Materials and methods. Computer software for counting strikes – “Electronic judge K-1” - was developed for the study. Its prototype is a device for registering and counting punches during a boxing match.

This software allows a high degree of accuracy in registering every strike that reached the target, and hence in determining the winner of the fight. An obvious advantage of this system compared with “real-time” judging is a possibility to watch again a controversial moment of the fight.

Video recordings of Glory Worldseries and Glory Superfights Series Tokyo championships were selected for the study (over 100 fights, 214 participants). These tournaments are among most prestigious ones in professional kickboxing «K-1» in the world. Participating athletes are multiple world champions in boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, karate and Wushu. Assessment was done directly during fights, each round was watched several times (to identify and register all attacking moves of athletes). Five judges certified by the Russian Kickboxing Federation in such categories as sports judge, judge of the 1st category, judge of the national category alternately worked with the strikes registration software «Electronic judge K-1».

Study results and discussion. As shown in Table 1, in case of athletes of all weight categories the number of attempted punches exceeds the number of attempted kicks more than twice (р<0,001), and the number of punches that reached the target exceeds the number of kicks that reached the target by 1.3 times (р<0,01). However, the relative accuracy of kicks exceeds that of punches by 1.5 times (p<0,001).

Furthermore, the number of attempted punches correlates well with the number of punches that reached the target (r=0,71). The number of attempted kicks and the number of kicks that reached the target correlate even closer (r=0,84). Despite higher efficiency of kicks athletes prefer to use them as little as possible due to a higher energy input into a kick (with respect to a punch) [5]. This can lead to premature fatigue of an athlete during a fight.

Table 2 contains data on the number of punches, kicks and the total of all the strikes of fighters allocated by weight categories: number of punches that reached the target of athletes of medium/heavy weight categories; number of kicks that reached the target of athletes of heavy/medium weight categories; the total amount of strikes within a fight of athletes of heavy/medium weight categories; relative accuracy of punches of athletes of heavy/medium weight categories; relative accuracy of kicks of athletes of heavy/medium weight categories. The analysis found no significant differences in the number of strikes within a fight carried out by athletes of heavy and medium weight categories. Also no significant differences were found in the relative accuracy of the kickboxers’ strikes - either of heavy or medium weight categories.

Table 1. Comparison of some parameters of kickboxers’ hitting actions

Table 2. Comparison of specific parameters of kickboxers’ hitting actions with respect to weight

Table 3. Comparison of specific parameters of kickboxers’ hitting actions with respect to their success in the fight

Table 4. Comparison of the rest of parameters of kickboxers’ hitting actions with respect to their success in the fight

According to the data received most of the strikes that reached the target do not always lead to victory by judges’ decision (99 out of 107 fights). For example, in 6 fights athletes managed to turn the fight around on its head and win it by a knockout, and in the other 2 fights the decision of the judges seems incompetent (BONJASKY – SILVA, VAKHITOV - PAGONIS). However, after statistical processing of the received data the findings were as follows (Tables 3 and 4).

The winner of the fight attacks as many times as the loser. However, the accuracy rate of his strikes is significantly higher, which probably leads to victory. Given that accuracy, speed and power of any technical action is directly dependent on the degree of fatigue of an athlete, an advantage in the number of strikes that reached the target suggests the better functional and technical fitness level of winners. The total number of strikes that reached the target is on average 1.5 times larger with the winners than with the losers (p<0,01) and is about 90±7 strikes per fight. The relative accuracy rate of punches and kicks is higher with winners than with losers (p<0,05) and is about 50% of punches and about 65% of kicks. Both the winner and the loser carry out the average of 170 attempted attacks within a fight, that corresponding to about 57 strikes per round. Interestingly, no significant difference between the number of kicks that reached the target was found with the winners and the losers. This once again is an indirect evidence of the higher efficiency of kicks.

The competitions in question were attended by several fighters training in Russia, all of them lost on points. However, several other athletes from Russia that train abroad won their fights (for example, Dzhabar Askerov who trains in the United Arab Emirates and Thailand).

Conclusion. The studies resulted in the following conclusions:

1. In world level competitions in professional kickboxing "K-1" the boxing technique of conduct of combat is dominating. This suggests the need for serious boxing training of a "K-1" athlete. Thus, a high-level kickboxer must participate in joint with boxers training camps and training sessions.

2. Effectiveness of kicks in kickboxing is higher, but the athlete should have good functional capabilities to do these kicks.

3. Functional capabilities of an athlete are a limiting parameter of his attacking abilities (both kicks and punches) in a fight. Functional fitness of winning athletes is higher than that of losers, suggesting the need for more qualitative functional training of professional kickboxers, which is hardly possible without monitoring of their state of fatigue.

4. There have not been revealed any significant differences in hitting actions of kickboxers of medium and heavy weight categories, so there is no need to use different methods in their training.

5. The accuracy of kicks in winning athletes is higher than in losers, and it will be useful to apply different kinds of exercises to improve the precision of kicks, concentration and coordination of a combat athlete in the state of fatigue.

References

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2. Gas'kov, A.V. The structure and content of training and competitive activities in boxing: monograph // A.V. Gaskov, V.A. Kuzmin; KSU. - Krasnoyarsk. 2004. – 113 P. (In Russian)
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6. Grishin A.A. Biopedagogy in the preparation of athletes / Grishin A.A., Kolyada A.V., Zavyalov A.I. // International Journal of Applied and Fundamental Research. – 2013. – № 2 – p. 189–197

Corresponding author: evgeni_80@list.ru