Development of a recording system to empirically analyse the shooting characteristics of olympic trap clay target shooters.

The sport of clay target shooting is a complex sequence of minute movements completed within a very short time frame, less than 1 second. Following the shooters call for release, a target is thrown from a trap positioned at ground level, ten metres in front of the shooter. The clay target is released within a known volume but with an unknown initial trajectory. Following sighting of the target, the shooter accelerates the barrel of the gun and once aligned, pulls the trigger. The coach would significantly benefit from empirical data of the shot fired as it would supplement their analysis of the shot. The aim of this thesis is to research, design and develop a recording system which can categorise kinematic variables within the movement of the gun. Subsequent to this the relationship between performance related kinematic data measured using a real time acceleration measurement device (RTAMD) and outcome data, calculated from a commercially available shooting simulator, Dryfire, was examined. A detailed literature review informed the selection of the most suitable equipment needed to decipher applicable kinematic data. Following this, a bespoke kinematic feedback system (KFS) was developed using a RTAMD to empirically analyse the shooting characteristics of an Olympic trap clay target shooter. The accuracy of the KFS was tested against the gold standard kinematic measurement system, a 3D motion analysis system (Motion Analysis Corporation, Santa Rosa, CA, USA). The Bland Altman limit of agreement yields mean constant error figures of 0.05 m.s-2, -0.28 m.s-2 and 0.51 m.s-2 for the X, Y and Z acceleration components respectfully. When these figures are compared against the maximum measured acceleration within each directional component, the results compare quite favourably with values of 0.44%, 4.28% and 5.84% in the X, Y and Z accelerations respectively. This confirms that acceleration data is comparable between both measurement methods. Internationally experienced shooters were used to test the KFS. Subsequent to this an exemplar analysis was conducted using gun shudder, a measure of gun movement immediately prior to call for release (performance variable) and missed distance (outcome variable) which was calculated from a commercially available shooting simulator, Dryfire (Derby, UK). Statistical analysis identified that shudder values are significantly different across all time intervals. However, shudder, or specifically movement of the gun immediately prior to call for release has no influence on the outcome of the shot. This finding is of interest since it challenges anecdotal evidence from the coach, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge this finding has never been identified in elite shotgun shooters before.