Motor competence in chosen sport disciplines

Introduction

Motor competence is understood to be an aspect of human action competence and represents a relational construct of requirements, tasks, environmental situations on one hand and personal abilities, skills, capacities or resources on the other hand [1]. During many years of intensive high-performance training the process of development of motor competence may cause creating an expert. Although the type and amount of practice (formal or otherwise) is necessary to build up the experiences, the well understood theoretical basis of the particular movement seems to be also a condition. The conviction that experts in different sport disciplines should vary from novice performers sounds like a dogma. An extensive database on the characteristics of motor expertise is now available yet some fundamental questions are still actual. The objective of this research project was also to establish the effect of expertise in acrobatics and cycling on postural control and rhythmic abilities.

Methods

The research experiment was conducted on 12 high-level acrobats aged 22,1±1,9, 15 elite Polish cyclists aged 24,3±2,3 and 25 students aged 21,4±1,1 (control group). The subjects were examined using stabilometer for diagnosis of balance control and "TAP" test for measuring the rhythmic abilities. First, the subjects were maintaining balance while standing on a movable platform of a stabilometer. The task was to keep balance standing on the stabilometer for 30 s while movements of platform were effected by person’s behavior. Two parameters were calculated to characterize the dynamic balancing performance: instability (integral of average module of inclination) (degree/s) and balancing control (number of corrections). Balancing tasks were performed in sagittal and frontal plane with and without visual control. Then, the level of sense of rhythm was diagnosed in upper and lower limbs in different movement types (uni- and bilateral) and the frequency of signals using „TAP" test from the Vienna Test System. The subject has first to adapt his tap-rhythm to given rhythm of sounds and to maintain it. From many parameters average difference tap-sound (ms) and its deviation were chosen for further analysis.

Results

The achieved empirical data and its analysis allowed establishing that acrobats have significantly better balance control then other groups. Examined experts were better then cyclists and students performing more complex tasks and tasks with lack of vision (p<0,05). More significant differences were noticed while analyzing the parameters, which characterized the quality of the performance, then the global results. It was surprising that there were no significant differences in analyzed aspects of rhythm abilities among investigated subjects.

Discussion/Conclusions

1. Effect of expertise is very specific to the performed task. 2. The high-developed motor competence could be easier noticed in quality of the performance, then in its result.

References:

[1]. Hirtz P. (2001). Jour. Hum. Kinetics, 6, 23-28.
[2]. Abernethy et al. (1999). Dimensionen und Visionen des Sports. Hamburg, Czwalina Verlag.