1. The effect of expertise in gymnastics on postural control
- Author
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Ludovic Marin, I Weise, Frédéric Danion, Nicolas Vuillerme, Vincent Nougier, J.M Prieur, A Boyadjian, Laboratoire Sport et Performance Motrice (EA 597), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF), Institut des Sciences du Mouvement Etienne Jules Marey (ISM), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU), Euromov (EuroMov), Université de Montpellier (UM), and Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Gymnastics ,Movement ,Posture ,MESH: Space Perception ,MESH: Musculoskeletal Equilibrium ,MESH: Physical Fitness ,MESH: Movement ,Postural control ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Stimulus modality ,Physical medicine and rehabilitation ,Center of pressure (terrestrial locomotion) ,medicine ,Humans ,Postural Balance ,Sensory cue ,Balance (ability) ,MESH: Gymnastics ,MESH: Humans ,General Neuroscience ,[SDV.NEU.SC]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]/Cognitive Sciences ,Motor control ,MESH: Adult ,MESH: Posture ,030229 sport sciences ,MESH: Male ,MESH: Photic Stimulation ,Motor Skills ,Physical Fitness ,Space Perception ,Physical therapy ,Cues ,Psychology ,Photic Stimulation ,MESH: Cues ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,MESH: Motor Skills - Abstract
The goal of this paper was (1) to investigate if gymnasts have a more stable standing posture than experts in other sports, and (2) to determine how much gymnasts are affected by the removal of vision in different postural tasks. Six expert gymnasts and six experts in other non-gymnastic sports were asked to maintain balance in three standing postures of increasing difficulty: bipedal, unipedal, and unipedal + unstable support (i.e. 7 cm thick foam surface). Each posture was tested successively with and without vision. Based on the displacement of the center of pressure (range and mean average speed), the results showed that when visual cues were available, postural sway increased with the difficulty of the task, but both groups had comparable performance in all the tasks. When vision was removed, although both groups demonstrated larger postural sway in the unipedal tasks, this effect was less accentuated for the gymnasts. We concluded that gymnasts are able to use the remaining sensory modalities to compensate for the lack of vision in unstable postures.
- Published
- 2001
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