Physique and performance for track and field events

Evidence of the importance of physique in the athletics disciplines is supported by the persistence of certain characteristics over long periods, despite marked secular changes in the source population. These characteristics may also result in physiological benefits such as effective thermoregulation or a greater power-to-weight ratio. Coaches and athletes are often convinced of weight or fat loss benefits based on personal or anecdotal experience, intuition, and "trained eye" observation of successful competitors. This may entice athletes into adopting unbalanced, erratic or highly restrictive eating patterns that increase the risk for nutrient deficiencies, and disordered eating. Despite heavy training loads and often extreme diets, some athletes fall short of their physique goals as ultimately phenotype is under genetic control. Professionals assisting athletes with physique management need to be highly skilled in anthropometry and require a thorough understanding of sports-specific nutrition requirements. Careful assessment of the risks and benefits of various approaches to weight and fat loss is required before they are recommended to athletes.     

Effects of a motivational climate inntervention for coaches on young athletes' sport performance anxiety

The mastery approach to coaching is a cognitive-behavioral intervention designed to promote a mastery-involving motivational climate, shown in previous research to be related to lower anxiety in athletes. We tested the effects of this intervention on motivational climate and on changes in male and female athletes'cognitive and somatic performance anxiety over the course of a basketball season. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that the athletes in the intervention condition perceived their coaches as being more mastery-involving on the Motivational Climate Scale for Youth Sports when compared to athletes in an untreated control condition. Relative to athletes who played for untrained coaches, those who played for the trained coaches exhibited decreases on all subscales of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 and on total anxiety score from preseason to late season. Control group athletes reported increases in anxiety over the season. The intervention had equally positive effects on boys and girls teams.     

Effectiveness of Four Track Starting Positions on Acceleration

Abstract

Four sprint starting positions—the bunch, medium, elongated, and hyperextended—were compared on mean elapsed times at distances of 10 and 30 yd. Averages of three starts for each of 30 inexperienced college undergraduate males on each type of start were derived from electronically-controlled measures, the times for both distances being recorded from the same start. Statistical analyses indicated significantly lower elapsed times with the hyperextended starting position.     

Establishing workload equivalence: U.S. independent study courses and college residence classes

Abstract

The Learning Council, a corporate interdivisional enterprise, employs distance learning to meet the learning needs of the organization. Specifically, distance learning is used to increase participation in the Johnson &; Johnson tuition reimbursement program, to offer learning opportunities to employees from a variety of sources, and to bring formal university courses on‐site for employees. The Learning Council is continuing to evaluate these programs as the business environment changes. This article reviews these applications of distance learning and lists considerations for other organizations interested in distance education opportunities. The use of distance learning methods facilitates the maintenance of flexibility and responsiveness in providing continuous learning for employees. The use of a combination of various distance learning methods works well, giving the company a “business edge.”     

Enhancing the Educational Communication Process

Abstract

The theme of the 1987 Conference of the International Council for Educational Media to be held at Cardiff on the 26‐27 October is ‘Communication ‐‐ the Essence of Education’.     

Being and becoming: a student trajectory

This article analyses the intellectual discourses of adult development and adult learning. It argues that through a process of transformative adult learning individuals can experience the disintegration and reintegration of past and present human growth. The development of adults is considered not in terms of discrete theories but as a collage of theories. The writers analyse and interpret the literature that attempts to study the interaction of individuals in the total context of the inner and outer forces that impinge on their life.

We conclude from a study of the literature that adult development, from a transformative perspective, is more than adjustment to a particular society; it is a qualitative change in how one views the world; it involves tension and struggle that are productive of a new consciousness. This change occurs through a dialectical process that calls for movement through the old style of meaning‐making to a reconstruction of meaning that is a synthesis of the old and the new. It is also concluded that adult learning can foster critical awareness and critical consciousness that can effect a transformation in the way adults see themselves and others. The route to transformative adult development and transformative learning lies in acknowledging contradictions and differences and working through them, as opposed to ignoring or circumventing them.