A PRELIMINARY STUDY: EXPLORING THE MUSCULAR CHANGES BETWEEN PARTIAL AND FULL SHOTS DURING THE DOWNSWING IN GOLF UTILISING STATISTICAL PARAMETRIC MAPPING
The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) data analysis techniques on golf swing electromyographic (EMG) data and to explore any muscular changes that might occur between full and partial golf shots. Three male golfers completed the testing. The results of the ANOVA suggest that two muscles show a significant decrease in muscle activation between the shot conditions, Right Medial Gastrocnemius (RMG)(p\u3c0.001) and Right Rectus Abdominus (RRA) (p\u3c0.001). The post-hoc analysis suggests that RMG and RRA both decrease activation to perform partial shots. The results suggest that SPM analysis is a useful tool for golf swing research and that specific muscles might show activation changes associated with reducing shot distance