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Abstract
Basketball victory relies on an athlete's skill to make precise shots at different distances. While extensive research has explored the kinematics and dynamics of different shooting distances, the specific neuromuscular control strategies involved remain elusive. This study aimed to compare the differences in muscle synergies during basketball shooting at different distances, offering insights into neuromuscular control strategies and guiding athletes' training. Ten skilled shooting right-handed male basketball players participated as subjects in this experiment. Electromyographic (EMG) data for full-phase shooting were acquired at short (3.2 m), middle (5.0 m), and long (6.8 m) distances. Non-negative matrix decomposition extracted muscle synergies (motor modules and motor primitives) during shooting. The results of this study show that all three distance shooting can be broken down into three synergies and that there were differences in the synergies between short and long distances, with differences in motor primitive 1 and motor primitive 2 at the phase of 45% - 59% (p < 0.001, t* = 4.418), and 78% - 88% (p < 0.01, t* = 4.579), respectively, and differences in the motor module 3 found in the differences in muscle weights for rectus femoris (RF) (p = 0.001, d= -2.094), and gastrocnemius lateral (GL) (p = 0.001, d = -2.083). Shooting distance doesn't affect the number of muscle synergies in basketball shooting but alters synergy patterns. During long distance shooting training, basketball players should place more emphasis on the timing and synergistic activation of upper and lower limbs, as well as core muscles.
Key words: Scoring, Muscle Synergy, Coordination; Athletes.
Introduction
Basketball is one of the most popular sports worldwide, and shooting stands as the fundamental skill and primary scoring method (Okazaki et al., 2015). Proficiency in shooting from various distances improves a team's likelihood of winning a basketball game (Csataljay et al., 2009; Okazaki and Rodacki, 2012). Previous studies investigated external manifestations such as human kinematics (Cabarkapa et al., 2021), ball kinematics (Miller and Bart-lett, 1996), and more to understand the shooting mechanism at various distances and guide basketball player training. However, very few studies are available on the inner neuromuscular control strategy of shooting from different distances, and muscle synergy can reflect the neuromuscular control strategy of athletes to complete the movement technique after years of...