Body, sport, and olympic education
Parte de Olympism and Olympic Education . páginas 132 - 139
Resumo
The human body can be understood as an objective reality studied in anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry laboratories. Students of sport sciences and physical education courses study the human body as a living and complex organism, structured by bones, muscles, and organs. From the biological perspective, the human body is considered a living being, among other living beings. We recognize the necessity of studying the body as a mechanical system of metabolic alterations aimed at its autoregulation and reproduction. We agree that we need to understand the human body’s movements, according to biomechanical laws. The sport sciences and physical education courses in institutions of higher education must include studies about the body as a group of organs, tissues, cells, and genes. Such courses must also consider studies about the actions of muscles through the observation of movements or of bones as levers. However, the human body cannot be reduced to an experimental investigation object, according to the protocol records produced in laboratories. Besides being a body of matter subject to a series of external and mechanical relations, the human body can be understood as a vehicle of cultural expression. These university courses, seen in a radical sense, require articulation among diferent points of view.In this sense, we must study the body from an experimental epistemological perspective, defning its causal laws, but also from an interpretative epistemological perspective, searching for its cultural meanings.
