Introduction. The aim of this work was to provide a characteristics of the judo combat and present factors that may influence the result of a sports combat. On the basis of the tournament's result analysis, the combat specifics of the world's top athletes were determined and may be used to orient and streamline a training process. Material and methods. The study materials were the combat lists from the men's judo tournament in Beijing as published on the official website of the Olympic Games. The indirect observation method was applied, using computerised and available information concerning each combat. Basic statistical methods were used to process the data: arithmetic means and percentage compilation. Results. During the men's tournament, there was a total of 303 combats in all 7 weight categories. Altogether, there were 228 competitors participating. No country gained a clear advantage in the medal classification. A significant part of combats (66.67%) ended by nage-waza (throwing), of which the te-waza (hand) (27.06%) and ashi-waza (foot and leg) (23.43%) techniques most often decided about the victory. The katame-waza (grappling) techniques ended 15.51% of all combats. Out of all 47 combats that ended in a horizontal position, 37 ended by osaekomi-waza (holding). Conclusions. 1. Most combats of the men's tournament ended before time and the score awarded most often by referees was ippon. 2. The victories were most often awarded in consequence of the nage-waza (throwing) techniques rather than the katame-waza (grappling) techniques. 3. The te-waza (hand) throwing group techniques proved to be dominating.

BackgroundThe health aspect of physical activity is not often referred to "effort safety" and "motor safety" of those engaged in this type of activity. The benefits of systematic training to humans are stressed instead. Yet even people for whom sport is a leisure activity often put in extreme physical effort. The aim of the paper is to expand the knowledge of the causes and locations of injuries in young female judokas.Material/Methods: We studied 30 females (14 juniors and 16 seniors) who were leading Polish judokas of various weight categories with medals from Polish Judo Championships and were aged 17-26 (average age was 20.9 years). On average, they had been training for 11 years. The study was based on our own questionnaire with 60 semi-open and closed questions. The questions concerned the personal characteristics of each athlete, including age, gender, weight, training experience, sports class as well as detailed information concerning factors that were the causes of each injury, according to the respondents. Detailed questions also dealt with the type and location of injuries as well as various aspects of judo training. In our statistical analysis we used a proportional ratio (in %), while the calculation of some empirical data (considered as variables and hypothetically interacting with each other) were based on the c 2 test. Results:Most injuries in young female judokas occur during periods of the most intense training activity. These are usually heavy injuries that exclude the injured person from training for more than 4 weeks. Light injuries in judo occur less often than moderate injuries. Injuries in judo are caused by aggressive fighting which, however, does not determine their seriousness. Aggressive behaviour was observed in all groups of judokas with light, moderate and heavy injuries. Conclusions:An injury during a judo fight is a complex, multi-factor phenomenon. Coaches should carefully analyse training and competition fights of all judokas in order to individually influence the events that may lead to even light injuries.

Background & Aim: In sports, three groups of sports disciplines can be distinguished depending on the way of performing movement actions: a group with a significant degree of kinematic stabilization in the structure of sports technique; a group with a significant degree of stabilization of the dynamic structure of sports technique; a group with a significant degree of variation in sports technique. This study was intended to determine whether sport technique, depending on the degree of stabilisation and variability of movement actions, is a differentiator of athletes' personality. Method: 90 Polish athletes (men, N=90) from clubs operating in the Polish region of Lower Silesia were purposefully selected for the study as part of three samples: breakdancers (n=30), swimmers (n=30) and shotokan style karatekas (n=30). All the subjects had been considerably successful at international sport competitions. The age of the subjects ranged between 20 and 29 years. The research method chosen was the NEO-FFI Personality Inventory. The basic statistical methods used were a one-way analysis of variance and post-hoc tests. The level of significance was set as the probability of p<0.05. The statistical analysis was performed using the Statistica 13.1 program. Results: Statistically significant differences were revealed in neuroticism among all of the groups studied, in extraversion-between dancers and karatekas, in openness to experience-between dancers and karatekas and between swimmers and karatekas, and in agreeableness-between dancers and karatekas. No statistically significant differences were revealed with regard to conscientiousness. Conclusions: Sport technique is a determinant of athletes' personality. In addition, sport technique, depending on the degree of stabilisation and variability, is a differentiator of athletes' personality. Therefore, athletes practising different sport disciplines are characterised by different personalities.

In judo great significance is attached to the development of strength, which is crucial for performing offensive and defensive actions during fights. Another aspect of strength training is improvement of body build and general physical health of female athletes. The present study aims to estimate the changes of strength and body composition in non-elite female judoists from academic sports clubs after a combined judo and strength training program. The study examined changes in body build and muscle strength in 20 female judoists participating in judo training and additional adaptive strength training. The anthropometric, physical and motoric measurements were performed twice at four months interval, before and after a combined training program. grzbietu i siły ścisku ręki, a także składu tkankowego ciała. Zmiany takie są pożądane zarówno pod względem efektów sportowych jak też ogólnego zdrowia zawodniczek.

Our objective was to examine how exercises with the second generation of the Microsoft Kinect sensor may aid in the process of motor learning in young judo practitioners. We addressed improvements in spatio-temporal accuracy during execution of three standing techniques in judo, in a simple paradigm designed to study short-term practice effects. Two groups of judokas, 12 athletes each—one aided with Kinect and our dedicated software vs a group of controls—were asked to mimic previously recorded master-level performances of the three techniques, established as benchmarks by a two times world champion in judo. In five training sessions, athletes of the aided group used a virtual-reality setup in which they trained with a virtual representation of the master displayed on a large screen with a simultaneous real-time visualisation of their own movements in the form of an avatar based on body joint localisation, as determined by Kinect, which also measured their performance. The control group used Kinect in the 1st and 5th session, which was necessary for the measurements that constituted the basis for subsequent statistical comparisons, whereas the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th session in this group was guided by a coach, without the use of the Kinect setup. In addition, athletes of the two groups had unrestricted access to a video recording of the master performing the three throws. We found statistically significant improvements (p < 0.05) in the accuracy of executing the three techniques between the 1st and the 5th training session for the aided group but not for the control group. We conclude that incorporating Kinect based exercises into a judo training programme may be a useful means to supporting motor learning, therefore enhancing training efficiency, and thus improving performance.