An assessment of swinger techniques for the playground swing oscillatory motion
However, very little attention has been given to the requirements that such swinger techniques place on the swinger himself. The purpose of this study was to find out whether different swinger techniques yield significantly different maximum torques, endurance and coordinative skills, and also to identify preferable techniques. We modelled the seated swinger as a rigid dumbbell and compared three different techniques. A series of computer simulations were run with each technique, testing the performance with different body rotational speeds, delayed onset of body rotation and different body mass distributions, as swing amplitudes were brought up towards 90 degrees. One technique was found to be extremely sensitive to the timing of body actions, limiting swing amplitudes to 50 degrees and 8 degrees when body action was delayed by 0.03 and 0.3 s, respectively. Two other more robust techniques reached 90 degrees even with the largest of these delays, although more time (and endurance) was needed. However, these two methods also differed with respect to maximum torque and endurance, and none was preferable in both these aspects, being dependent on the swinger goals and abilities.
technique coordination simulation control