Purpose: This study investigated the different postural control strategies exhibited by experienced and novice dancers in ballet turns ("pirouettes"). Method: Thirteen novice and 13 experienced dancers performed ballet turns with dominant-leg support. The peak push force was measured in the double-leg support phase. The inclination…

Exercise deficit disorder (EDD) is a pediatric medical condition characterized by reduced levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) that are below current recommendations and inconsistent with positive health outcomes. At present, a majority of children and adolescents meet the diagnostic criteria for EDD because they are not…

Purpose: We sought to compare the effects of physical practice (PP) and mental practice (MP) on the immediate and long-term learning of the finger-to-thumb opposition sequence task (FOS) in children; in addition, we investigated the transfer of this learning to an untrained sequence of movements and to the contralateral untrained hand. Method:…

Purpose: Because walking is highly recommended for prevention and treatment of obesity and some of its biomechanical aspects are not clearly understood for overweight people, we compared the absolute and normalized ground reaction forces (GRF), plantar pressures, and temporal parameters of normal-weight and overweight participants during…

The purpose of this article is to bring attention to the 10 most pressing questions relevant to musculoskeletal physical fitness testing in children and adolescents. The goal is to stimulate research to answer these questions. The most pressing needs include establishing definitive links between valid, reliable, and feasible field test measures of…

Purpose: The aims of this study were to analyze the intensity of emotions (positive, negative, or ambiguous) produced when players took part in traditional games with a different social structure and to examine the explanations given by those participants for these emotional experiences. Method: Participants (N = 556) were recruited from 4 Spanish…

Purpose: Improvements in motor performance and coordination may be impacted by the interaction of practice and organismic constraints. It has been proposed that these aspects of motor learning are achieved at a different time rate: first, during placement of the events (performance), and second, segmental spatiotemporal relationships…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to ascertain the biomechanical differences between better and poorer performers of the vertical jump in a homogeneous group of children. Method: Twenty-four girls were divided into low-scoring (LOW; M [subscript age] = 6.3 ± 0.8 years) and high-scoring (HIGH; M [subscript age] = 6.6 ± 0.8 years) groups based on…

Purpose: This exploratory study examined the notion of Seefeldt's (1980) hypothesized motor skill "proficiency barrier" related to composite levels of health-related physical fitness (HRF) in young adults. Method: A motor skill competence (MSC) index composed of maximum throwing and kicking speed and jumping distance in 187 young…

Given that equating/linking applications are now appearing in kinesiology literature, this article provides an overview of the different types of linked test scores: equated, concordant, and predicted. It also addresses the different types of evidence required to determine whether the scores from two different field tests (measuring the same…

Purpose: Visual information is utilized in gymnastics vaulting. The question remains as to which informational sources are used to regulate handspring performance. The purpose of this study was to examine springboard and vaulting table position as informational sources in gymnastics vaulting. The hypothesis tested was that the approach-run and…

Purpose: Female dancers have lower anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury rates compared with physically active women. Enhanced balance can decrease musculoskeletal injury risk. Dancers are proposed to have superior balance compared with physically active nondancers, and this may reduce their risk for ACL injury. However, whether female dancers…

In the Ballabeina study, we investigated age- and BMI-group-related differences in aerobic fitness (20 m shuttle run), agility (obstacle course), dynamic (balance beam) and static balance (balance platform), and physical activity (PA, accelerometers) in 613 children (M age = 5.1 years, SD = 0.6). Normal weight (NW) children performed better than…

This study examined the relationship among sex, body mass index, motor skill competence (MSC), perceived physical competence (PPC), and school-day physical activity in preschool students (N = 34). Physical activity was assessed by steps accumulated during the school day, while MSC and PPC were assessed with the Test of Gross Motor Development--2nd…

The aim of the present work was to analyze the influence of self-controlled task difficulty on motor learning. Participants had to intercept three targets falling at different velocities by displacing a stylus above a digitizer. Task difficulty corresponded to racquet width. Half the participants (self-control condition) could choose the racquet…