The resonant system: Linking brain–body–environment in sport performance ☆

(Re)conceptualizing movement behavior in sport as a problem-solving activity

The use of the term problem-solving in relation to movement behavior is an often-broached topic within kinesiology. Here we present a clear rationale for the concept of problem-solving, specifically pertaining to the skilled organization of movement behaviors in sport performance, and the respective processes that underpin it, conceptualized within an ecological dynamics framework. The movement behavior that emerges in sport can be viewed as a problem-solving activity for the athlete, where integrated movement solutions are underpinned by intertwined processes of perception, cognition, and action. This movement problem-solving process becomes functionally aligned with sport performance challenges through a tight coupling to relevant information sources in the environment, which specify affordances offered to the athlete. This ecological perspective can shape our lens on how movements are coordinated and controlled in the context of sport, influencing practical approaches utilized towards facilitating dexterity of athletes. These ideas imply how coaches could set alive movement problems for athletes to solve within practice environments, where they would be required to continuously (re)organize movement system degrees of freedom in relation to dynamic and emergent opportunities, across diverse, complex problems. Through these experiences, athletes could become attuned, intentional, and adaptable, capable of (re)organizing a behavioral fit to performance problems in context-essentially allowing them to become one with the movement problem.

Football, Culture, Skill Development and Sport Coaching: Extending Ecological Approaches in Athlete Development Using the Skilled Intentionality Framework

In this manuscript, we extend ecological approaches and suggest ideas for enhancing athlete development by utilizing the Skilled Intentionality Framework. A broad aim is to illustrate the extent to which social, cultural and historical aspects of life are embodied in the way football is played and the skills young footballers develop during learning. Here, we contend that certain aspects of the world (i.e., environmental properties) are "weighted" with social and cultural significance, "standing out" to be more readily perceived and simultaneously acted upon when playing football. To comprehend how patterns of team coordination and athletic skill embody aspects of culture and context we outline the value-directedness of player-environment intentionality. We demonstrate that the values an individual can express are constrained by the character of the social institutions (i.e., football clubs) and the social order (i.e., form of life) in which people live. In particular, we illuminate the extent to which value-directedness can act as a constraint on the skill development of football players "for good or ill." We achieve this goal by outlining key ecological and relational concepts that help illustrate the extent to which affordances are value-realizing and intentionality is value-directed (exemplified, by footballers performing in a rondo). To enhance coaching practice, we offer: (a) insights into markers of skilled intentionality, and (b), the language of skilled intentions, as well as highlighting (c), an additional principle of Non-linear Pedagogy: Shaping skilled intentions, or more precisely shaping the value-directedness of player-environment intentionality. We contend that, if sport practitioners do not skilfully attend to sociocultural constraints and shape the intentions of players within training environments and games, the social, cultural, and historic constraints of their environment will do so: constantly soliciting some affordances over others and directing skill development.

Fitness profiles of elite male Italian teams handball players

BACKGROUND

The aim of this study was to examine the fitness profile of the Italian national male Team-Handball players of different competitive level.

METHODS

Forty-one male handball players from the senior (N.=21, height 1.90±0.06m, body mass 94.04±11.59kg, BMI 26.13±2.45) to the junior category (N.=20, height 1.86±0.06m, body weight 84.99±12.52kg, BMI: 24.56±3.35) Italian National Teams participated in this study. Players were tested for lower and upper limbs muscle strength, change of direction ability and specific endurance. Lower limbs explosive strength was assessed with squat (SJ) countermovement (CMJ), stiff leg (stiffness) jumps. Explosive strength was assessed by measuring kinematic aspects of squat and bench exercises. Change of direction ability was assessed with the 505 test. The Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test (YYIR1) was considered for specific endurance.

RESULTS

Large and significant differences (d>1; partial η²>0.14; P<0.01) between senior and junior national team players were found in anthropometrics, jumping, power, sprint, agility, and aerobic fitness (junior body weight accounting for 10% less than the senior one, P=0.021; SJ and CMJ in juniors smaller than the seniors by 15% and 12%, P=0.000 and P=0.001, respectively). Similar differences were found among positional roles (goalkeepers, backs, centers, pivots, wings), suggesting practical implications for training.

CONCLUSIONS

The differences between the competitive level and the playing role in relevant handball performance were reported in Italian national team players. The magnitude of the differences suggests the need of individual training approach when dealing with the young handball players.

The Active Inference Approach to Ecological Perception: General Information Dynamics for Natural and Artificial Embodied Cognition

The emerging neurocomputational vision of humans as embodied, ecologically embedded, social agents—who shape and are shaped by their environment—offers a golden opportunity to revisit and revise ideas about the physical and information-theoretic underpinnings of life, mind, and consciousness itself. In particular, the active inference framework (AIF) makes it possible to bridge connections from computational neuroscience and robotics/AI to ecological psychology and phenomenology, revealing common underpinnings and overcoming key limitations. AIF opposes the mechanistic to the reductive, while staying fully grounded in a naturalistic and information-theoretic foundation, using the principle of free energy minimization. The latter provides a theoretical basis for a unified treatment of particles, organisms, and interactive machines, spanning from the inorganic to organic, non-life to life, and natural to artificial agents. We provide a brief introduction to AIF, then explore its implications for evolutionary theory, ecological psychology, embodied phenomenology, and robotics/AI research. We conclude the paper by considering implications for machine consciousness.