Effects of Olympic style taekwondo kicks on an instrumented head-form

and resultant head injury risk: a pilot study

Accepted for oral presentation at the 2nd World Congress on Combat Sports
and Martial Arts in Rzeszow Poland

Fife GPa, Kaminski TWb, O’Sullivan Dc, Pieter Wd, Shin ISe, Lim THf
Context: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refer to concussion
as a “silent epidemic” (300,000/year). In Taekwondo, concussion incidence is
three times greater than in American football. To this date a biomechanical
analysis of head kicks and head injury outcomes does not exist. Objectives: To
assess the effect of various kicks on resultant head linear acceleration (RLA)
and head injury criterion (HIC). Participants: Two males (22.00+0.0 years,
184+0.0cm, 81.30+1.8 kg) and two females 20.00+2.8 years, 171.0+1.4 cm,
63.00+5.2 kg) elite TKD athletes. Methods: RLA data were collected from five
different head kicks [round kick (RK), front leg axe kick (FA), clench axe kick
(CA), jump spin back kick (JB), jump spin hook kick (JH)] randomly performed
five times. A Hybrid II Crash Dummy head (H2D) and neck were instrumented
with a tri-axial piezoelectric accelerometer, PCB Piezotronics 356A66 (Depew,
New York) mounted inside the H2D head. The H2D was fixed to a height
adjustable frame and fitted with a protective TKD helmet (LeCAF - Seoul, South
Korea). Acceleration data were captured at 10,000 Hz using Qualisys Track
Manager (Gothenburg, Sweden) and processed in accordance with SAE J211-
1. The L-statistic was used to determine differences in RLA and HIC scores
between kicks within gender. Results: Significant differences were found
between kicks in RLA (p<0.001, eta2=0.652) and HIC (p<0.001, eta2=0.796) and
between genders: RLA (p<0.001, eta2=0.785) and HIC (p<0.001, eta2=0.788).
Post-hoc analyses showed differences in RLA between the JB (61.6±31.0g)
and FA (20.6±7.0g) in males (p<0.001) as well as between the RK
(72.7±25.3g) and CA (33.3±11.1g) (p < 0.006). In the females, post-hoc tests
revealed differences in RLA between the RK (69.5±6.2g) and JH (21.9±5.7g)
(p<0.001) as well as between the JB (48.3±9.8g) and FA (18.5±7.2g) (p<
0.001). HIC analysis revealed differences between the JB (556.8±679.2) and
CA (62.2±39.9) (p<0.001) and the JH (191.0±4.2) and FA (23.5±11.5) (p<0.001)
in the males. While in the females, there was a difference between the JH
(34.3±19.7) and RK (526.4±113.9) (p<0.001) as well as the JB (236.8±104.3)
and FA (24.6±17.9) (p<0.001). Conclusions: The results indicate elite TKD
athletes can produce high RLA with kicks previously reported to cause
concussion. Previous research reported RLA values of 67.0g (HIC=167) in
boxing compared to 111g (HIC=420) in TKD. Earlier estimations report an HIC
greater than 200 may cause significant brain injury. Future studies should
include more subjects to validate our results and consider rotational
accelerations reported to cause concussion.

Word Count: 400

Key Words: taekwondo, concussion, head-form, acceleration, head injury risk

a Gabriel P. Fife, BS, ATC: Department of Applied Kinesiology and Physiology,

University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware USA
b Thomas W. Kaminski, PhD, ATC, FACSM: Department of Applied
Kinesiology and Physiology, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware USA
c David O’Sullivan, MS: Department of Physical Education, Seoul National
University, Seoul, South Korea
d Willy Pieter, PhD: Department of Physical Education, University of Asia and
the Pacific, Pasig, Philippines
e Isshin Shin, PhD: Department of Physical Education, Seoul National
University, Seoul, South Korea
f Tae Hee Lim, PhD: Department of Taekwondo Competition, Yongin
University, Yongin, South Korea

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Mike Gratopp of Denton ATD

Inc. (Rochester Hills, MI USA) for their contribution in donating the H2D device.