440 Gender differences in the kinetics and lower extremity kinematics of the fencing lunge Jonathan Sinclair 1 and Lindsay Bottoms 2 1 Division of Sport Exercise and Nutritional Sciences, University of Central Lancashire. 2 School of Health, Sport and Bioscience, University of East London. Abstract Whilst studies have used participants of both genders in fencing research, there is a paucity of research investigating differences in the kinematics of male and female fencers. The aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in the kinetics and kinematics measured during the epee fencing lunge. Lower extremity kinematic data were obtained from eight male and eight female club level epee fencers using a 3D motion capture system as they completed simulated lunges. Independent t-tests were performed on the data to determine whether differences existed. The results observed no differences in kinetics during the lunge between genders. In addition there were no differences in the kinematics of the back leg between genders. However, females produced greater knee abduction at the end of the lunge as well as greater hip adduction. The results indicate that females could be at a greater risk of knee injuries due to the greater knee abduction and hip adduction produced during the fencing lunge. Key words: male, female, motion capture. 1. Introduction Fencing is an Olympic sport in both its own right and within the modern pentathlon discipline. Male and females will often train together however most competitions are gender specific. To be successful in the various disciplines of fencing (epee, foil and sabre) the athlete needs to be able to make contact in a specific way with the opponent whilst avoiding being struck by their opponent. Considering the attack proportion of fencing, the lunge movement plays a major part in successfully landing a winning hit to the opponent and gaining a point (Paul et al., 2011). This has lead to much interest into trying to identify factors influencing the performance of a fencing lunge measured by the speed of the body and sword movement (Gresham-Fiegel et al., 2013, Cronin et al., 2003, Tsolakis et al., 2010, Margonato et al., 1994). The movement of the body is powered predominantly by the lower limbs during a fencing lunge, in particular the back leg (Gholipour et al., 2008) whereas the front leg extends and propels the body International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport 2013, 13, 440-451.