Anthropometric characteristics, physical fitness and motor coordination of 9 to 11 year old children participating in a wide range of sports.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent 9 to 11 year old children participating in a specific sport already exhibit a specific anthropometric, physical fitness and motor coordination profile, in line with the requirements of that particular sport. In addition, the profiles in children with a different training volume were compared and possible differences in training hours per week between children from a low, moderate, and high level of physical fitness and motor coordination were investigated. METHODS AND RESULTS: Data of 620 children, 347 boys and 273 girls, who participated in the Flemish Sports Compass were used. Only the primary sport of each child was considered and six groups of sports (Ball sports, Dance, Gymnastics, Martial arts, Racquet sports and Swimming) were formed based on common characteristics. Measurements consisted of 17 tests. Independent T-tests and Mann-Whitney U-tests revealed few differences between the groups of sports and the discriminant analyses with the moderate and low active group did not show any significant results (p > .05). However, when discriminating among the high active children, a 85.2 % correct classification between six groups of sports was found (Wilks' Λ = .137 and p < .001). Finally, children performing under average on the tests spent significantly fewer hours in sport per week (2.50 ± 1.84 hours) compared to the children performing best (3.25 ± 2.60 hours) (p = .016) and the children performing above average (2.90 ± 1.96 hours) (p = .029) on physical fitness and motor coordination. DISCUSSION: The study showed that in general, children at a young age do not exhibit sport-specific characteristics, except in children with a high training volume. It is possible that on the one hand, children have not spent enough time yet in their sport to develop sport-specific qualities. On the other hand, it could be possible that they do not take individual qualities into account when choosing a sport.

The influence of target context and early and late vision on goal-directed reaching.

The online visual control of movement involves contributions from 2 processes: a process early in the trajectory concerned with comparisons between actual and expected sensory consequences and another process late in the trajectory that reduces the discrepancy between the position of the hand and the target. This experiment was designed to determine how early and late visual controls are impacted by the illusory characteristics of the target in a rapid reaching task. Participants performed 500 ms movements to the vertices of Müller-Lyer figures with the availability of full vision on the majority of trials. However, on a fraction of the trials, movements to the targets were performed with either early vision (first 200 ms of movement), late vision (last 200 ms of movement) or no vision. Although participants undershoot the targets under all target and visual conditions, the impact of the target configuration was greatest when vision was available during only the final portion of the movement trajectory and least when only early vision was available for limb regulation. Aiming bias under full-vision and no-vision conditions was intermediate. These findings indicate that visual context has a greater impact on late discrete limb regulation than on early dynamic control of the limb trajectory.