Movement Variability in Elite Gymnasts, Beethoven's Brilliance, and Planting Seeds

📝 Weekly paper summary

Is skilled technique characterized by high or low variability? An analysis of high bar giant circles (Hiley et al., 2013)

Is skilled technique characterized by high or low variability? An analysis of high bar giant circles - PubMed

There is conflicting evidence as to whether skilled performance is associated with lower or higher movement variability. The effect of skill level and task difficulty on movement variability during gymnastics swinging was investigated. Four male gymnasts ranging in skill from university standard thr…

PubMedMichael J Hiley

Category

Cross-Sectional

Context

Movement kinematics are inherently variability between repetitions of the same task. Researchers have posed several arguments outlining why this variability exists, and its role in human movement. Pertinent to this investigation is the role movement variability plays for elite-level gymnasts. Some data suggested that elite-level athletes/movers demonstrate more variability than their less-skilled counterparts. However, other data indicates the opposite. The authors proposed that the magnitude of variability measured in elite versus less-skilled athletes might depend on the researchers' measurements. For example, task-relevant components of performance may not be variable in highly skilled athletes, but task-irrelevant elements of performance may vary significantly from trial to trial. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation was to address whether the magnitude of variability was larger in more- versus less-skilled gymnasts during a high bar routine.

Correctness

One strength and weakness of the study is that the researchers recruited truly elite-level gymnasts for this study. However, due to the limited supply of elite-level gymnasts to sample from, the researchers only recruited four male gymnasts for this investigation. The researchers split these gymnasts into two groups (most elite and less elite). The most elite group included two gymnasts that competed internationally (one member had medalled internationally). The less elite group included a university team member and a gymnast who had been a national junior team member.

Contributions

• The most elite gymnasts displayed less movement variability in mechanically-relevant variables for high bar performance than their less elite counterparts.
• The most elite gymnasts displayed more movement variability in mechanically irrelevant variables for high bar performance than their less elite counterparts.
• These findings align well with the concepts of synergies and uncontrolled manifold analyses. The distribution/partitioning of the magnitude of movement variability differs between more- versus less-skilled athletes. Specifically, the more elite athletes stabilize key mechanical variables for performance while allowing other degrees of freedom to vary. This behaviour is advantageous as varying degrees of freedom allow for more feedback control to make the necessary corrections required to stabilize the critical mechanical variables for performance.

🧠 Fun fact of the week

Maybe I'm living under a rock for this one, but this week's fun fact is that Beethoven could still hear the music he was composing after he became deaf. He did this by leveraging bone conduction for hearing! Beethoven would place one end of a wooden stick onto his piano and clench the other end with this teeth. The vibrations for different notes would transfer to his jaw and from there directly to his inner ear so he could hear the music he was playing. Truly a great story of human perseverance coupled with scientific problem-solving and artistic brilliance!

🎙 Podcast recommendation

🗣 Quote of the week

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

- Robert Louis Stevenson