Lesson video

Hi everybody.

Welcome to today's lesson.

We are looking at today planes and axes.

What I'm going to be teaching you though is how to apply those to sport and sporting actions.

This works within the basic biomechanics part of the specification and we're gonna use some really simple strategies to help us not only identify these planes and axes, but be able to link them to sport.

So by the end of the lesson you will be able to continue to identify the planes of movement and the axes of rotation and also apply them to a variety of sporting examples.

Our keywords for today are very much linked to our axes of rotation.

So we have our frontal axis, that is a line of rotation which goes from side to side through the hips.

I would ask if you've got a pencil or a pen close to you if you could have that.

We are going to use that to help us understand these three different axes.

If I now show you, if I hold the pen like this, that is me representing an imaginary line that would run through the body.

But notice how I'm holding it.

That is going from side to side and that is the frontal axis.

Now if I change my pencil and hopefully you can do the same, I've now put it so it's vertical and that would still represent that line, but that would be going from top to bottom.

So if it is going through the body, that would be going from head to toe.

And if I then just put our pencil pointing towards the screen or pointing forwards, what that shows is that sagittal axis.

So imagine that was going through the stomach, S for sagittal, S for stomach, going through the stomach from front through to back.

Okay, so our pencil can be really useful as to whether we hold it this way, frontal, this way, vertical, or this way, sagittal.

Our other key word is just that reminder that we've got our plane.

Our plane is also imaginary, but whereas an axis is a line, the plane is actually an imaginary flat surface and that would divide the body into half.

So it runs through the body and that shows where movement takes place, whether that movement is forward and backwards, whether it's side to side or whether it's rotation movement.

So our lesson today is gonna be divided into two parts.

The first part we will identify those planes and axes and use some whole body examples and then we'll develop that even more to looking at the planes and axes but with specific joint movements in sport.

Remember you've learned about joints in the two, how bones articulate at a joint and that those movements, whether that be flexion, extension and there are other examples, but they allowed sporting actions to take place.

So we're gonna develop our understanding of planes and axes and apply them to those movements.

So let's get started.

Now Jacob here is asking you, did you create a mnemonic that would help you learn the planes of movement and how they link with axes of rotation? You may have already remembered that and you've memorised it.

You could have had it written down somewhere.

Now if you haven't, don't worry 'cause Aisha is just about to share hers that she created and she created it in a way to try and remember how the planes and axes link.

So her one was Spain From France Send To Venice.

So what she's doing there, she's using those first letters of each of those words to link those planes and axes.

Now I like that one.

It makes me feel like I want to go and get some sunshine.

Do you like it and how does it link specifically? Okay, so Aisha's got that Spain From France Send To Venice.

So we're just gonna do the first two, Spain From.

So what she's doing there is she's linking sagittal plane with the frontal axis.

Those two pairs or that pair works in conjunction with each other.

So we can see there that illustration is showing that sagittal plane, that division of the body into left and right and how that links with that frontal axis.

We've got that line there that's going through the hips from side to side.

France Send is that frontal plane.

So we can see from that illustration we've got that division of that body into front and back and we're gonna add that sagittal axis, S for stomach.

And basically that is going through the stomach, through the belly button from front to back.

To Venice.

So you've then got that transverse plane dividing that body into top and bottom and how that has that line of rotation going from the head to toe, that vertical axis.

So what Aisha has done there is just to provide a memorable way of linking our pairs together.

Spain From France Send To Venice.

Now what Jun, Sophia and Andeep are doing here is they're talking about the planes of movement and they're linking to when they play football.

So Jun is talking about when he runs towards the ball to catch it or he might be running to try and stop someone else catching it.

But if he's running forward, he's using that forward movement.

So quite rightly, he's saying to us there, that's the sagittal plane.

In contrast, Sophia is talking about when she's trying to get away or evade a defender.

And we know that's a common way in netball of doing that is to dodge.

And that often involves transferring your weight from one side to move to the other side.

So that is that sideways movement and a really good example of that frontal plane.

And lastly Andeep is then thinking, okay, when might I use a transverse plane? And it's very common that you might rotate in the air, watching the ball, but then be able to turn and land and have caught it and be facing the way you then want to go on and pass it.

So what Andeep says there is actually, that's a really good example of the transverse plane.

So these are good examples from the sport of netball.

So actually let's see them in action.

So like Jun here, we can see this netball athlete, she's moving towards the ball, she's running forwards and then she catches it with footwork.

So we can see there that movement along the sagittal plane.

However, this athlete like Sophia is doing that dodge, you can see she's trying to get away from that defender.

So she does that transfer of weight and then moves out to the side to receive the ball.

So she's moving along the frontal plane.

And finally this athlete here is taking a catch where she's receiving the ball but notice she's keeping her eye on it and then she rotates to catch it and then she's landing ready to face the place in which he's gonna pass it on.

So some really nice examples there from the sport of netball.

This could be a good opportunity for you to pause the recording and maybe link those three planes of movement to your sport.

Quick check now though.

We've got that axis of rotation linked to each plane.

So which axis is paired with the frontal plane? Is it the frontal axis, the vertical axis or the sagittal axis? Five seconds for you to decide.

Well done.

This is a good one to check because it would be really easy at this point to just think well frontal, so it has to be frontal and that's not the case.

The frontal plane is linked to the sagittal axis.

Now what we're gonna start at is we're going to look at some different sports for each of our pairs of plane and axes.

So to begin with, we've got the sagittal plane and the frontal axis.

Okay, so Spain From on Aisha's rhyme.

You can see there we have our snowboarder, looks to me like there's some kind of trick going on in the air.

There's some rotation before landing on the snow.

Then we have our gymnast that's doing what appears like a back flip, a part of a tumbling routine.

And then the diver there, she's in that piked position, I imagine rotating looks backwards before she then opens her body out and enters the water.

Now if we were to grab our nice sharp pencil that we mentioned earlier, what I'd like you to do here is pierce and maybe a piece of paper or a card like I've done and you can see now I'm holding that frontal axis.

So that's that line of movement that's going through the paper from side to side.

Now if I just simply rotate that in that way, you can see that that rotation is very much represented in our sporting examples there in terms of either that forward rotation like a somersault or in this instance all of them are doing that backward somersault in each of their individual sports.

So that's our frontal axis.

And just like we can see here on the forward roll, a similar kind of rotation forwards, that's moving along the sagittal plane.

Now let's take a look at our transverse plane and our vertical axis.

We can see here we have a discus thrower, looks like that she's just about to rotate before releasing that discus, a figure skater that's doing a jump, and in that sport often they do a number of rotations before showing that they can land and land well on that one skate.

And finally we've got that dancer there.

Looks like she's doing a pirouette on that single leg.

So these are all examples of that transverse plane in that vertical axis.

So if we take our paper again this time and hold it up this way.

So we're showing that vertical axis just like our purple lines on all our three athletes are showing there.

And that axis, that line runs from top to bottom.

So from head to toe.

And again now like me, if you can just start to rotate your pencil, what you will see is that that piece of paper, just like our athletes there, are moving around that transverse plane.

So they're doing that whole body 360 degree rotation for their movement and it doesn't always have to be 360.

Remember our netballer, it was almost just a partial turn.

So we can just see there like our netballer that we've got all of these going round that vertical axis.

And here we have our dancer or a dancer also doing a pirouette linking that to that transverse plane.

Finally we have that frontal plane and that sagittal axis.

Look at that line there, how that's gone through the stomach of our gymnastics doing a cartwheel.

So whereas we were here, we're now going to just move the pencil into that position of that sagittal axis.

You can see now I'm almost pointing it at the screen.

So that is running from front to back through our bit of paper.

And again, if we start to rotate, what we will do then is we'll see that that bit of paper is rotating sideways in the exact same way that would happen in a cartwheel.

And that's moving along that frontal plane, that plane that divides the body into front and back.

So for our pairs now we've developed it even further and linked it to some examples where the body will move and rotate.

So which of the following examples is showing that transverse plane and rotating around that vertical axis? I'll give you five seconds to decide.

Well done.

That was in fact our discus thrower because that point of rotation would've gone through her body from head to toe to allow her to rotate and build up the momentum and speed to release the discus.

And hopefully it'll go as far as possible.

Nice link into our first task.

I'd like you to look around you.

You may have some pencil and paper like myself.

You may have some boxes, some sweets, some toilet rolls, anything that possibly could resemble that human body.

And once you've found those, I would like you to get creative and use those to show the axis of rotation and plane of movement for each of those sporting examples.

So we've got there, our snowboarder doing that trick in the air before landing on the snow, our dancer doing a single leg move and then our gymnast completing that cartwheel.

Have some fun.

Good luck and pause the recording and come back to me when you're ready.

I would love to see what you have created.

I'm gonna share with you my creation and I used some sweets.

So I used a cocktail stick instead of a pencil to show that line of rotation.

So for the snowboarder I could sense that because it was that backward rotation that was using that frontal axis and that's linked with the sagittal plane.

So you can see there the sweet has been divided into left and right.

For the dancer, she was rotating around that vertical axis.

So we can see that cocktail stick has gone through from head to toe and that transverse plane is dividing that body into top and bottom.

T for transverse, T for top and bottom.

And finally that cartwheel you can see there that in terms of the plane, that sweet has been divided into front and back.

And then the cocktail stick is actually going through the sweet from front to back.

So through the middle of it, almost like the same place where the belly button would be.

That just provides a really simple way of you going back and doing this and seeing if you can remember what those three axes are, those three planes are and how they link with some really good sporting examples.

So well done.

We've now linked that to whole body rotation and we're now gonna develop it that little bit further and just look at specific joint movements.

So we're gonna revisit netball and there are a number of passers that can happen in netball, but we're gonna look specifically at the chest pass.

So you can see this illustration is showing that technique of starting with the ball near the chest and then pushing that outwards.

And at the elbow joint we can see that we've got flexion.

So the angle at that joint has decreased and that will then move by that joint straightening or that angle increasing.

So we've got flexion to extension of the elbow joint.

Now that is forwards and backwards movement.

So it's actually by pushing that outwards, the the limbs are moving forward and we associate that with the sagittal plane.

And because of our pairing, that is linked to the frontal axis.

So we can see here that flexion and extension movements occur around the frontal axis and move in the sagittal plane.

Now we're linking our flexion and extension.

Which of these images clearly shows flexion? Okay, this could feel a little bit tricky but hopefully like me, you went with image A.

We can see that the knee joint has been circled and when you prepare to kick a football in the way that athlete is, you can see that that knee joint is actually the angle is decreasing.

So we've got that position of flexion.

In image B, it was inflexion but the bit that's been circled is where that elbow joint has now started to extend.

And then lastly, on that final picture, we can see that same footballer but it's actually executed kicking the ball so the leg has come through and has straightened or extended.

So that's actually extension of the knee joint.

What we do know about all these images is they are representing that sagittal plane and that frontal axis.

Okay, might be chance to pause the recording and do some star jumps just to get a little bit of activity in us.

But in doing so, we have purpose here because when we do that star jump, we're showing that abduction and that adduction of the shoulder and the hip.

So when the limbs move away, that's abduction and as they come towards the midline, that's adduction.

Now we've seen me do this already during this lesson because it's showing that sideways movement.

So this is actually moving along the frontal plane and we know the sagittal axis is linked with our frontal plane.

So abduction, adduction movements are associated with the frontal plane and the sagittal axis.

Which leaves us with one more movement.

I'd like to introduce to you to this slam ball exercise.

So we can see there that that image is showing the individual holding what is a quite a big ball.

It's quite a soft ball but it's weighted.

So what this individual is gonna do is almost just rotate that upper body and move that slam ball often against a wall or into an area that's safe.

And it's that upper body rotation that I want you to try and picture and we can see from that image that that's using that transverse plane and therefore that vertical axis.

So it's not whole body rotation but actually it's a very, very similar movement to our dancers, our discus thrower, our figure skater.

So we've got a rotation movement showing that plane and axis working together.

So out of these images or illustration, which shows abduction of the shoulder? Really well done, we can see there we've got that star jump exercise and those arms have been moved away from the midline.

So that's showing abduction of the shoulder.

And we can see on that image how that frontal plane is dividing that body into front and back.

So to finish with your second task, we have here a table format and often a table format for this content helps you to go back and revisit it.

So in the left column of the table we have three sporting actions.

We have preparing to kick a football, that star jump exercise and then that whole body rotation for a discus thrower.

You're gonna pause the recording and I'd like you to decide which joint that is, what movement is taking place and then link our plane of movement and our axis of rotation.

Once you've done that, we've looked at a real breadth of sporting examples, but I'd like you to pick one team that you would like to talk about and one individual sport.

And for each of those, describe the plane and axis used with two specific movements.

So if you were going to, for example with netball, it wouldn't just be talking about netball in general, it would be picking two movements within that sport that demonstrate the use of the plane and axes pairing.

Pause the recording and come back to me when you're ready.

Welcome back.

How did we do with our first part of the task, the table? Hopefully for our footballer preparing kick the ball, we recognise that that was the knee joint.

Some of you may have written hinge, which is the correct type of joint.

It was inflexion, so therefore the plane was the sagittal and that is paired with the frontal axis.

Our shoulder was showing abduction and we link that with the frontal plane and the sagittal axis.

And then finally we've got a discus thrower.

The joint was blanked out, we didn't need to look at it per joint 'cause we were looking this as a whole body movement, but that whole movement was shown rotation and therefore the plane was transverse and that was linked to the vertical axis.

And we can see there again our rhyme from Aisha, Spain From France Send To Venice.

So that might just allow us to remember those six key terms. Now for the second part, I know this will very much depend on which team and individual sport you went with.

But for example, I chose hockey 'cause we haven't looked at hockey yet and I've mentioned the fact that sometimes a player will be moving forward dribbling the ball.

That's often how we might attack into the opposition's half of the pitch.

And therefore that forward movement is showing that sagittal plane, therefore there's that rotation around that frontal axis.

And that makes sense because the knees will be flexing and extending as you are running with the ball.

In contrast, you could mention the goalkeeper.

We know it's really common for a goalkeeper in hockey to kind of reach out often as a reaction to stop the ball.

And that arm reaching out to the side is going along that frontal plane and therefore rotating around that sagittal axis.

It's that really similar movement to that abduction that we saw in the shoulder in the star jump.

Finally, for the individual sport, I've chosen athletics.

We had looked at a discus thrower, but maybe another throwing event like the shot putt in the same way, they don't use that whole body rotation, but they certainly, like our slam ball exercise, they do kind of use that upper body rotation to be able to throw or put the shot as far as possible.

So that's that transverse plane rotating around the vertical axis.

And a different event, it could be a sprint 400 metre hurdler, or 400 metre runner, sorry.

So going round the track as the sprint and staying in the lane, you're very much following that forward motion.

So therefore moving in that sagittal plane, but those arms and those legs will be flexing and extending to drive and sprint as fast as you can.

So it's rotating around the frontal axis.

So learned lots today about our planes and our axes, but more importantly linked them to some really good sporting examples.

So to summarise, when the body is rotating around the vertical axis, it is moving along the transverse plane.

Real example of that.

There were many that we looked at, but it was that kind of pirouette in dance.

When the body's rotating around the frontal axis, it's moving along the sagittal plane.

We looked at several somersault options.

One of those was that dive in.

And finally when the body's rotating around the sagittal axis, it's moving along the frontal plane.

And the really, really good example for that is that cartwheel in gymnastics.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

I really hope that's been useful and I look forward to seeing you on the next lesson.