Impact forces and neck muscle activity in heading by collegiate female soccer players

Three soccer header types (shooting, clearing and passing) and two heading approaches (standing and jumping) were manipulated to quantify impact forces and neck muscle activity in elite female soccer players. The 15 participants were Division I intercollegiate soccer players. Impact forces were measured by a 15-sensor pressure array secured on the forehead. The electromyographic (EMG) activity of the left and right sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles was recorded using surface electrodes. Maximum impact forces and impulses as well as the EMG data were analysed with separate repeated-measures analyses of variance. Impact forces and impulses did not differ among the header types or approaches. Higher values were found for jumping versus standing headers in the mean normalized EMG for the right sternocleidomastoid. In addition, the integrated EMG was greater for the right sternocleidomastoid and right and left trapezius (P < 0.05). The sternocleidomastoid became active earlier than the trapezius and showed greater activity before ball contact. The trapezius became active just before ball contact and showed greater activity after ball contact. The increased muscle activity observed in the neck during the jumping approach appears to stabilize the connection between the head and body, thereby increasing the stability of the head-neck complex.     

Research methods in sport and exercise psychology: quantitative and qualitative issues

Contemporary aspects of research methods in sport and exercise psychology are discussed in this wide-ranging review. After an introduction centred on trends in sport and exercise psychology methods, the review is organized around the major themes of quantitative and qualitative research. Our aim is to highlight areas that may be problematic or controversial (e.g. stepwise statistical procedures), underused (e.g. discriminant analysis), increasingly used (e.g. meta-analysis, structural equation modelling, qualitative content analysis) and emergent (e.g. realist tales of writing). Perspectives range from the technical and speculative to the controversial and critical. While deliberately not providing a 'cookbook' approach to research methods, we hope to provide enough material to help researchers to appreciate the diversity of potential methods and to adopt a more critical perspective in their own research consumption and production.     

The early evolution of modern sport in Latin America: a mainly English middle-class inspiration

In any consideration of cultural diffusion, what matters is not only what happens to a cultural form when it arrives, but that it arrives. In the twentieth century, Latin America, like too many other areas of the world, has been a place of diplomatic turmoil, social inequality, political paranoia, capitalist exploitation and class conflict. However, despite all this, and through all this, it may be stated factually and without sentimentality, that it has also been a place where people have survived and thrived, worked, loved and played. Modern sport has brought to their play both unhappy moments of disillusion and disappointment and marvellous opportunities for illusion and pleasure. Modern sport, with its beauty spots and warts, is the reality and while there are things to criticize, there are also many things to applaud. Along with others, the English middle class played a not insignificant part in the arrival of modern sport in Latin America.     

The initiation of distance learning at Thomas Jefferson University: the library as integral partner

In 1998 Thomas Jefferson University offered its first entirely online course. Librarians and library staff were integral in the development, support, evaluation, and refinement of this course. While staff members may have taken non-traditional roles in this effort, their roles generally fell within the broad guidelines of assisting University faculty with information and knowledge management. The development and support of distance course offerings will continue to be a focus at Scott Memorial Library.     

A review of batting in men's cricket

In this review, we critically evaluate the scientific research into the morphology and physiology of cricket batsmen. We consider all aspects of the motor control of this skill, in the context of research into dynamic interceptive actions, the biomechanics (kinematics and kinetics) of the various phases of batting strokes and injuries to batsmen. Some attention is also devoted to batting equipment and to psychological factors in batting. Because of the lack of published scientific research into women's cricket, this review focuses on the men's game and covers research on batsmen of various playing standards. For the future, we see as a high priority research into injury mechanisms, rather than simple injury statistics, and the role of cricket equipment design in injury prevention. A second priority is for multi- or inter-disciplinary research, linking the biomechanics of batting to the underlying motor control of the movements and the effect of environmental information. Biomechanical studies of the variability of the batsman's movements are needed, and these should be related to the compensatory variability proposal of ecological psychology. Clearly, there is also a need for scientific research into batting in women's cricket, which has been inadequately researched to date.