‘Activity choice’ and physical education in England and Wales

Though agencies, such as the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and the Australian Sports Drug Agency, argue that much effort is being directed toward educating athletes about the virtues of fair play, the risks of drug use, and the ethics of cheating, the primary focus of government led initiatives is catching cheaters through testing. As a result, a decade following the inaugural Canadian Inquiry random drug testing is an accepted part of the culture of elite sport and is recognised as the most powerful deterrent for prospective abusers. As public confidence rests implicitly upon testing as the best and only direct means to establish a fair level of competition, it is perhaps not surprising that little attention is given to the ethical implications of testing as an invasion of privacy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ethical implications of testing athletes for the use of banned substances and determine if the current course of action is a morally justified suspension of privacy.     

‘Race’ talk! Tensions and contradictions in sport and PE

Background: The universal sport discourses of meritocracy and equality are so engrained that few challenge them. The most cursory interest in sport, Physical Education (PE), and society will reveal that the lived reality is quite different. Racial disparities in the leadership and administration of sport are commonplace worldwide; yet, from research into ‘race’ in sport and PE, awareness of these issues is widespread, where many know that racism takes place it is generally claimed to be somewhere else or someone else. For many, this racism is part of the game and something to manipulate to steal an advantage; for others, it is trivial. This paper explores the contradictions and tensions of the author’s experience of how sport and PE students talk about ‘race’ and racism. ‘Race’ talk is considered here in the context of passive everyday ‘race’ talk, dominant discourses in sporting cultures, and colour blindness.

Theoretical framework: Drawing on Guinier and Torres’ [2003. The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. London: Harvard University Press] ideas of resistance through political race consciousness and Bonilla-Silva’s [2010. Racism Without Racists: Colour-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Plymouth: Rowan and Littlefield] notion of colour blindness, the semantics of ‘race’ and racialisation in sport and PE are interrogated through the prism of critical race theory (CRT). CRT is used here to centre ‘race’ and racialised relations where disciplines have consciously or otherwise excluded them. Importantly, the centring of ‘race’ by critical race scholars has advanced a strategic and pragmatic engagement with this slippery concept that recognises its paradoxical but symbolic location in society.

Discussion: Before exploring ‘race’ talk in the classroom, using images from the sport media as a pedagogical tool, the paper considers how ‘race’ is recreated and renewed. The paper then turns to explore how the effortless turn to everyday ‘race’ talk in the classroom can be viewed as an opportunity to disrupt racialised assumptions with the potential to implicate those that passively do so. Further, the diagnostic, aspirational, and activist goals of political race consciousness are established as vehicles for a positive sociological experience in the classroom.

Conclusion: The work concludes with a consideration of the uses and dangers of passive ‘race’ talk and the value of a political race consciousness in sport and PE. Part of the explanation for the perpetuation of ‘race’ talk and the relative lack of concern with its impact on education and wider society is focused on how the sovereignty of sport and PE trumps wider social concerns of ‘race’ and racism because of at least four factors: (1) the liberal left discourses of sporting utopianism, (2) the ‘race’ logic that pervades sport, based upon the perceived equal access and fairness of sport as it coalesces with the (3) ‘incontrovertible facts’ of black and white superiority (and inferiority) in certain sports, ergo the racial justifications for patterns of activity in sport and PE, and (4) the racist logic of the Right perpetuated through a biological reductionism in sport and PE discourses.     

Norms and materialities in physical education and health- ‘I feel that i cannot contribute enough in sport’

Many understandings about norms and norm criticism are based on imaginations of inclusion and exclusion as if values about right and wrong, and acceptable and non-acceptable behaviors belong to a world of relations that can be separated from embodied and physical things and practices. This preparatory study is based on interviews conducted with children with and without varied forms of disabilities. The aim of the study was to investigate how children describe their ability in relation to collaboration, identity, materialities, disability and norms within Physical Education and Health (PEH). The results from this study show that embodied and collaborative goal-oriented practices generate imaginations of community and belonging through a notion of contributing. The results indicate that informing, teaching, and learning about inclusion and exclusion do not naturally produce physical and embodied practices.     

Sporting clubs and scandals – Lessons in governance

This case study is based on actual events surrounding the 2011–2012 scandals relating to the use of performance enhancing drugs in two high profile sporting clubs in Australia: the Cronulla Sharks Rugby League Club and the Essendon Football Club. Both clubs were handed down sanctions that included fines and suspension of their respective senior coaches and players. The case explores events leading up to the scandal and its aftermath. The case includes a series of questions that can be used to stimulate class discussion in areas of governance, ownership structure, drugs in sport and stakeholders. It also includes ideas for more in-depth discussion of issues relating to the commercialisation of sport and shortcomings in governance with supporting references from academic and practitioner related articles. The case is ideal for any later year undergraduate or postgraduate courses with a business, strategy, sports management, or accounting focus.     

Ritual and free‐throw shooting in basketball

The purpose of this study was to determine the nature and effect of certain highly patterned behaviours utilized prior to free‐throw shooting in basketball. Ten female basketball players comprising the varsity squad of Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, USA served as subjects for this study. Subjects were filmed with a high‐speed camera and monitored for heart rate during the performance of 10 free throws in each of two conditions: ritual and non‐ritual. For the ritual condition, subjects were given unlimited time and freedom of movement prior to each free‐throw attempt. For the non‐ritual condition, subjects were not restricted by time, but were instructed to shoot the ball without utilizing any movements other than those required to project the ball to the goal. Dependent measures were characteristics of behaviours, physiological changes measured by heart rates, mechanical data (speed, height and angle of release), and number of successful attempts. Condition x trials analyses of variance and low standard deviation concerning characteristics of behaviours indicated that the idiosyncratic behaviours prior to free‐throw shooting were rituals of the auto‐communicative type. Results indicated no significant difference between conditions for free‐throw success. However, partial correlation between dependent measures and successful free‐throw attempts indicated that duration of behaviours was most crucial to free‐throw shooting success.     

An Ironic Imbalance: Coaching Opportunities and Gender in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) is a sport designed specifically for women. With roots in ballet, calisthenics and eugenics, it was meant to showcase femininity, beauty, and encourage healthy bodies for motherhood, therefore offering socially acceptable sporting opportunities for females. This paper considers whether such sporting opportunities extended to female coaches. We examine the recruitment patterns in relation to gender of some of the top coaches in Australia and New Zealand since the 1980s, who are predominantly migrants. Using archival sources, interviews and personal experience, this paper argues that while so-called feminine or artistic sports can offer greater opportunities for female coaches, WAG in Australia and New Zealand remains dominated by male coaches, who have held the majority of the head coach positions and in many cases, been actively recruited from overseas. The few females who have been employed in top positions have been appointments of ‘convenience’ rather than reflective of a shift away from these gendered employment patterns. Thus, while its creation as a specifically feminine sport may lead WAG to be viewed as a site of increased opportunities for women coaches, deeper exploration reveals an unresolved tension between the use of male and female coaches.     

The role of task and ego-oriented climate in explaining students’ bright and dark motivational experiences in Physical Education

Background: A distinction is made in Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) between task-oriented (i.e. effort, intra-individual progress, and self-comparison) and ego-oriented (i.e. inter-individual progress and normative comparison) climates. Combining insights from AGT and Self-Determination Theory (SDT), studies in the PE context have shown that a task-oriented climate positively relates to need satisfaction, although the findings regarding the motivating role of an ego-oriented climate are inconsistent. Moreover, little is known about the role of task- or ego-oriented climates in explaining experiences of basic psychological need frustration.

Purpose: Grounded in AGT and SDT, the aim of the present study was to examine if experiences of basic psychological need satisfaction and need frustration can explain why task- and ego-oriented climates elicit positive and negative motivational outcomes in PE, respectively.

Research design: Cross-sectional study.

Method: A sample of 524 secondary school students (51.1% boys, M_age?=?14.51; SD?=?1.81) from five different secondary schools participated in this study. Students reported on their perceptions of task- and ego-oriented climates, motivational regulations, basic psychological need satisfaction, and need frustration, as well as positive and negative outcomes in PE. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate our objective.

Results: We found that a task-oriented climate had a strong and positive relationship with basic psychological need satisfaction, eliciting a bright pathway to autonomous motivation and affective attitude. An ego-oriented climate was positively related to basic psychological need frustration, eliciting a dark pathway to amotivation and boredom. A negative cross-path from task-oriented climate to basic psychological need frustration was also found, while no significant cross-paths were found from ego-oriented climate to basic psychological need satisfaction.

Conclusions: This study provides a better understanding of the mechanisms that explain why task- and ego-oriented climates shape students’ motivational experiences in PE lessons. It is suggested that a task-oriented climate elicits a bright pathway towards more optimal functioning, because it fosters experiences of need satisfaction and buffers against experiences of need frustration. In contrast, an ego-oriented climate is primarily positively related to feelings of need frustration and negative motivational outcomes. Practical implications for PE teacher training are discussed.     

Motor performance and bodyweight of children and adolescents in Saarland – Status quo

Abstract

The motor performance of children and adolescents has been a subject of controversial discussion. As part of a pilot project, 839 schoolchildren from 14 different schools in Saarland were studied and their height, weight and sport motor performance were measured using the German motor performance test DMT 6-18. The results show a slight increase in the number of overweight children compared to reference samples. However, these discrepancies are minor and cannot be judged to be practically relevant because of the weakness of the effects. The average motor test performances of the Saarland schoolchildren were above the average performance of the reference samples in almost all individual performances. There are also hardly any weaker performances in comparison to older studies. The current results for motor performance of Saarland children and adolescents do not, therefore, give any great reason for concern. Further evaluation steps will be needed to clarify the influences that might be associated with adverse characteristics for motor performance (socio-economic status, living situation, leisure behaviour, school performance, etc.).     

Eccentric torque–velocity and power–velocity relationships in men and women

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the eccentric torque–velocity and power–velocity relationships of the elbow flexors. Forty recreationally trained individuals (20 men, 20 women) performed maximal eccentric actions at each of five different velocities (1.04 rad · s^?1, 2.09 rad · s^?1, 3.14 rad · s^?1, 4.18 rad · s^?1, and 5.23 rad · s^?1, in random order) and maximal isometric actions on a Biodex isokinetic dynamometer. A 2×6 (sex×velocity) mixed-factor repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to assess peak elbow flexor torque during the eccentric and isometric actions. There was no interaction, but there were significant main effects for sex and velocity. Pairwise comparisons demonstrated that values for men were significantly (P<0.05) higher than those for women at all speeds. Furthermore, torques for both sexes were significantly less at 3.14 rad · s^?1 (men: 103.94±28.28 N · m; women: 49.24±11.69 N · m) than at 4.18 rad · s^?1 (men: 106.39±30.23 N · m; women: 52.77±11.31 N · m) and 5.23 rad · s^?1 (men: 108.75±28.59 N · m; women: 53.3±11.67 N · m), while isometric torque was significantly less than at all other speeds (men: 98.66±28.0 N · m; women: 45.25±11.15 N · m). A 2×5 (sex×velocity) mixed-factor repeated-measures ANOVA was used to assess peak eccentric elbow flexor power. There were significant main effects for sex and velocity. Pairwise comparisons demonstrated that values for men were significantly higher than those for women at all speeds. Pairwise comparisons for velocity indicated that peak eccentric power increased across all speeds from 1.04 rad · s^?1 (men: 110.44±32.56 W; women 54.36±13.05 W) to 5.23 rad · s^?1 (men: 569.46±149.73 W; women: 279.10±61.10 W). These results demonstrate that an increase in velocity had little or no effect on eccentric elbow flexor torque, while eccentric elbow flexor power increased significantly with increases in velocity.     

‘Being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’: the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence

Sports studies is currently dominated by the intellectualist approach to understanding skill and expertise, meaning that questions about the phenomenological nature of skilled performance in sport have generally been overshadowed by the emphasis on the cognitive. By contrast, this article responds to calls for a phenomenology of sporting embodiment by opening up a philosophical exploration of the nature of athletic being-in-the-world. In particular, the paper explores the conceptualisation of immanence and transcendence in relation to the embodied practice of dance, engaging with Merleau-Ponty’s important insight that the body can be a source of transcendence. I also draw on data from in-depth qualitative interviews with professional contemporary dancers to explore dancers’ concepts of ‘being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’, and to suggest that during the actual embodied practice of dance, dancers do not experience transcendence and immanence as they are conceptualised in philosophy. Rather, I argue, dancers experience a third mode of being that is somehow in-between these two binary terms. I have called this ‘inhabited transcendence’.     

The key to success in elite athletes? Explicit and implicit motor learning in youth elite and non-elite soccer players

In sports, fast and accurate execution of movements is required. It has been shown that implicitly learned movements might be less vulnerable than explicitly learned movements to stressful and fast changing circumstances that exist at the elite sports level. The present study provides insight in explicit and implicit motor learning in youth soccer players with different expertise levels. Twenty-seven youth elite soccer players and 25 non-elite soccer players (aged 10–12) performed a serial reaction time task (SRTT). In the SRTT, one of the sequences must be learned explicitly, the other was implicitly learned. No main effect of group was found for implicit and explicit learning on mean reaction time (MRT) and accuracy. However, for MRT, an interaction was found between learning condition, learning phase and group. Analyses showed no group effects for the explicit learning condition, but youth elite soccer players showed better learning in the implicit learning condition. In particular, during implicit motor learning youth elite soccer showed faster MRTs in the early learning phase and earlier reached asymptote performance in terms of MRT. Present findings may be important for sports because children with superior implicit learning abilities in early learning phases may be able to learn more (durable) motor skills in a shorter time period as compared to other children.     

Rattle Running,Dry Wrestling,and Boxing in … Opera,or Regional Sports and Games in the Historical and Cultural Tradition of Eastern Europe

Abstract

The article is a heartfelt plea to both Western and Eastern European sports historians to take full account of the rich sporting history of the eastern part of the continent of Europe. After describing how most of Eastern Europe fell under the domination of foreign empires, and how this lead to a disparaging attitude towards its peoples and cultures, the author specifically details how Western authors of both general cultural histories and sporting histories and encyclopaedias have ignored Eastern Europe to a quite astonishing extent. The author then goes on to argue that Eastern Europe has a sporting tradition which is at least as rich, if not richer than that of the West. To illustrate this, the phenomena of medieval Polish horse racing, Bulgarian dry wrestling, Russian folk pugilism, Polish religious games, and Asian-influenced archery are explained in some detail. It is hoped that these examples will inspire sports historians from all parts of Europe to tap the rich resources of the East, and to treat this part of Europe as central rather than peripheral to European cultural history.     

Are changes in running economy associated with changes in performance in runners? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Improvements in running economy (RE) are thought to lead to improvements in running performance (P). Multiple interventions have been designed with the aim of improving RE in middle and long-distance runners. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of interventions of at least 2-weeks’ duration on RE and P and to determine whether there is a relationship between changes in RE (ΔRE) and changes in running performance (ΔP). A database search was carried out in Web of Science, Scopus and SPORTDiscus. In accordance with a PRISMA checklist 10 studies reporting 12 comparisons between interventions and controls were included in the review. There was no correlation between percentage ΔRE and percentage ΔP (r = 0.46, P = 0.936, 12 comparisons). There was a low risk of reporting bias but an unclear risk of bias for other items. Meta-analyses found no statistically significant differences between interventions and controls for RE (SMD (95% CI) = ?0.37 (?1.43, 0.69), 204 participants, p = 0.49) or for P (SMD (95% CI) = ?0.65 (?26.02, 24.72, 204 participants, p = 0.99). There is a need for studies of greater statistical power, methodological quality, duration and homogeneity of intervention and population. Standardised measures of performance and greater control over non-intervention training are also required.     

The off-break and “doosra”: Kinematic variations of elite and sub-elite bowlers in creating ball spin in cricket bowling

This study sought to identify kinematic differences in finger-spin bowling actions required to generate variations in ball speed and spin between different playing groups. A 12-camera Vicon system recorded the off-spin bowling actions of six elite and 13 high-performance spin bowlers, and the “doosra” actions of four elite and two high-performance players. Forearm abduction and fixed elbow flexion in the bowling arm were higher for the elite players compared with the high-performance players. The elite bowlers when compared with the high-performance players delivered the off-break at a statistically significant higher velocity (75.1 and 67.1 km/hr respectively) and with a higher level of spin (26.7 and 22.2 rev/s respectively). Large effect sizes were seen between ball rotation, pelvic and shoulder alignment rotations in the transverse plane. Elbow extension was larger for elite bowlers over the period upper arm horizontal to ball release. Compared to the off-break, larger ranges of shoulder horizontal rotation, elbow and wrist extension were evident for the “doosra”. Furthermore, the “doosra” was bowled with a significantly longer stride length and lower ball release height. Although not significantly different, moderate to high effect size differences were recorded for pelvis rotation, elbow extension and elbow rotation ranges of motion.     

Long-term trends in home advantage in professional team sports in North America and England (1876 – 2003)

Home advantage is quantitatively defined and calculated for each season since the start of the main professional sports in North America and England. Over 400,000 games are analysed. The leagues represented are the National League (1876?–?2002) and American League (1901?–?2002) for baseball, the National Hockey League (1917?–?2003) for ice hockey, the National Football League (1933?–?2002) for American football, the National Basketball Association (1946?–?2003) for basketball, and the four levels of professional football, formerly called the Football League, in England (1888?–?2003). Problems caused by unbalanced playing schedules are considered. The results are presented graphically to show long-term trends and sudden changes. The highest levels of home advantage for all sports were in their early years of existence. Home advantage in ice hockey, basketball and football in England has declined over the last two decades. In baseball there has been very little change over the last 100 years, with home advantage consistently lower than in other sports. There was a large drop in home advantage in football in England following the 7-year suspension of the league during the Second World War. The trends and changes provide some evidence that travel and familiarity contribute to home advantage, but little in support of crowd effects.     

Sport-specific and non-specific practice of strong and weak responders in junior and senior elite athletics – A matched-pairs analysis

Elite track and field athletes with greater and lesser multi-year performance improvement were compared regarding their developmental sport-specific and non-specific, organised (coach-led) and non-organised (peer-led) sporting activities. Athlete pairs were matched on gender, discipline and baseline performance in competitions (at 13/19 years). Their unequal subsequent performance development during junior (13–17 years; n = 138) and senior (19–23+ years; n = 80) age ranges defined “strong responders” and “weak responders”. Analyses revealed that junior-age strong responders accumulated more organised practice in athletics than weak responders, while the amounts of all other types of activities were indifferent. Senior-age strong responders did not accumulate a greater total sum of all kinds of sport activities or greater amounts of organised practice in athletics or non-organised involvement in athletics or other sports than weak responders. But they engaged in more organised practice and competitions in other sports over more years (9 vs. 2 years) and specialised in athletics at a later age than weak responders (16 vs. 11 years). The results were also robust among senior international medallists vs. national medallists. The findings are reflected relative to the hypotheses of “multiple sampling and functional matching”, “learning transfer as preparation for future learning” and “authenticity of variable learning experiences”.