Coordination as a function of skill level in the gymnastics longswing

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Author
Williams, Genevieve K R
Irwin, Gareth
Kerwin, David G
Hamill, Joeseph
Van Emmerik, Richard E A
Newell, Karl M
Date
2015-06-18Acceptance date
2015-05-27
Type
Article
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
ISSN
0264-0414
1466-447X (ESSN)
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of inter-joint coordination at different levels of skilled performance to: (1) distinguish learners who were successful versus unsuccessful in terms of their task performance; (2) investigate the pathways of change during the learning of a new coordination pattern and (3) examine how the learner’s coordination patterns relate to those of experts in the longswing gymnastics skill. Continuous relative phase of hip and shoulder joint motions was examined for longswings performed by two groups of novices, successful (n = 4) and unsuccessful (n = 4) over five practice sessions, and two expert gymnasts. Principal component analysis showed that during longswing positions where least continuous relative phase variability occurred for expert gymnasts, high variability distinguished the successful from the unsuccessful novice group. Continuous relative phase profiles of successful novices became more out-of-phase over practice and less similar to the closely in-phase coupling of the expert gymnasts. Collectively, the findings support the proposition that at the level in inter-joint coordination a technique emerges that facilitates successful performance but is not more like an expert’s movement coordination. This finding questions the appropriateness of inferring development towards a “gold champion” movement coordination.
Journal/conference proceeding
Journal of Sports Sciences;
Citation
Williams, G.K., Irwin, G., Kerwin, D.G., Hamill, J., Van Emmerik, R.E. and Newell, K.M. (2015). 'Coordination as a function of skill level in the gymnastics longswing' Journal of Sports Sciences, 34(5), pp.429-439.
Description
This article was published in Journal of Sports Sciences on 18 June 2015 (online), available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2015.1057209
Sponsorship
Cardiff Metropolitan University (Grant ID: Cardiff Metropolian (Internal))
Collections
- Sport Research Groups [1127]
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