ИСТИНА

Nowadays the increasing amount of body posture disorders is observed in the populations of Russian Federation. A lot of methods for body posture investigation have been developed, but they are mainly visual. To solve this important problem we need to find a quick and precise technique for body posture evaluation. The aim of our research was to compare the classical antropomethric method – goniometry and modern digital technique – plantography, which were both used for the body posture estimation. Goniometry describes the state of body posture by analysis of 5 inclination angles of a backbone from the vertical axis. The angles are measured in the sagittal plane. The method of digital plantography consists of making four pictures of the whole body (front, back, left-side and right-side views) and processing the images with special software by marking about 120 points on it. As a result more than 50 indicators (angles, asymmetries) are calculated, which describe the body posture in four projections. 77 students (mean age – 19.5 years) of Russian State University of Physical Culture and Moscow State University were investigated by both methods in 2010 (53 males; 24 females). It was found that the same characteristics, evaluated independently by goniometry and plantography differ considerably in more than half of the sample. Probably it can be explained by the methods errors and by some drawbacks of the computer program, but we think that the plantography technique is more advanced and promising for future research. Keywords: body posture, goniometry, plantography, inclination angles of backbone *The study was supported by RFFI grant # 10-06-00582a