Sport and Exercise Science (Active Learning in Sport)

240 Pages·2009·3.52 MB·English

by  Joanne Thatcher

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Sport and
Exercise Science
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Active Learning in Sport – titles in the series 1
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Coaching Science ISBN 978 1 84445 165 4 3
Personal Training ISBN 978 1 84445 163 0 4
Sport Sociology ISBN 978 1 84445 166 1 5
Sport and Exercise Science ISBN 978 1 84445 187 6 6
Sport Management ISBN 978 1 84445 263 7 7
Sport Studies ISBN 978 1 84445 186 9 8
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To order, please contact our distributor: BEBC Distribution, Albion Close, Parkstone, 10
Poole, BH12 3LL. Telephone: [phone], email: [email protected]. 1
You can also find more information on each of these titles and our other learning 2
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Sport and
Exercise Science
Joanne Thatcher, Rhys Thatcher, Melissa Day,
Matthew Portas and Simon Hood
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First published in 2009 by Learning Matters Ltd 511
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
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photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from
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Learning Matters.
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© 2009 Joanne Thatcher, Rhys Thatcher, Melissa Day, Matthew Portas and 1
Simon Hood 2
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 978 1 84445 187 6 6
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The rights of Joanne Thatcher, Rhys Thatcher, Melissa Day, Matthew Portas and
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Simon Hood to be identified as the authors of this Work has been asserted by them
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Cover design by Toucan Design 1
Text design by Code 5 Design A ssociates Ltd 2
Project Management by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon 3
Typeset by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon 4
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall 5
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Learning Matters Ltd
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33 Southernhay East
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Exeter EX1 1NX
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Tel: [phone]
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E-mail: [email protected]
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www.learningmatters.co.uk
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Contents
Acknowlegdements vi
1 Introduction 1
2 Understanding research 6
3 Planning research 18
4 Positivist research 32
5 Interpretative research 52
6 Motivation in sport and exercise 67
7 Stress, anxiety and emotions 86
8 Group dynamics 105
9 Exercise psychology 121
10 Nutrition 139
11 Skeletal muscle 153

12 Cardiovascular system 170
13 Describing motion and quantifying kinetics 184
14 Analysing motion and quantifying kinematics 199
15 A multidisciplinary approach to sport and exercise science 211
Bibliography and references 219
Index 228
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We would like to thank a number of people who provided helpful comments on earlier 511
drafts of some of the chapters in this book: Glen Davison, Ruth Hughes, David Lavallee, 6
Rachel Rahman, Les Tumilty and Bernadette Woods. 7
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Joanne Thatcher, Rhys Thatcher,
Matthew Portas and Simon Hood
Sport and exercise science
Sport and exercise science is one of the most exciting ways to study and apply science
and has never been more important than in today’s society. We’re never too far away
from a major sporting event: Wimbledon, the Olympics and Paralympics, the cricket,
rugby and football World Cups, the Ryder Cup in golf, Badminton horse trials ... the list
is almost endless. Sport scientists have an increasingly prominent role in contemporary
sport, working with athletes, coaches and officials to help them to optimise per-
formance and ensure that their involvement in competitive sport is a rewarding and
positive experience.
On the opposite side of the coin, we are faced with increasing levels of obesity and
physical inactivity in our society, contributing to physical and mental ill health in adults,
and, worryingly, in children. Exercise science plays a critical role in understanding these
problems and offering solutions aimed at optimising physical activity levels and the
health benefits that we know can be gained from physical activity.
We can see, then, that there’s a fundamental difference between sport science and
exercise science. The main aim of sport science is to optimise the mental and physical
preparation, performance and overall experience of competitive sports participants,
from amateurs to Olympic champions, including athletes, coaches, officials and so on.
The main aim of exercise science is to optimise physical activity levels, experiences and
benefits in the general population. This fundamental difference aside, there is, of course,
a great deal of overlap between the two areas. For instance, the same theories can be
used to understand why people are motivated to take part in both competitive sport
and health-related physical activity. Many of the same physiological factors limit
physical performance whether it is an elite athlete running at 20km/hour or a previously
physically inactive person who is jogging at 6km/hour. The same can be said of
biomechanics, where the theories and laws of physics that underpin the subject apply to
a person slowly jogging around a park to keep fit or an elite runner speeding through
Central Park at the end of the New York Marathon. These examples also introduce us
to the three key sub-disciplines within sport and exercise science: psychology,
physiology, and biomechanics.
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1 / Introduction
Sport and exercise psychology 1
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As well as being a sub-discipline within sport and exercise science, sport and exercise
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psychology is a sub-discipline within the field of psychology, alongside other areas such
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as clinical psychology, counselling psychology and educational psychology. As such, its
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main concern mirrors that of other fields of psychology: to understand, explain, predict
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and change people’s behaviours, emotions and thought processes.
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Sport and exercise psychology therefore involves the application and use of
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psychology within sport and exercise settings. The box below presents some of the key
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questions and issues that sport and exercise psychologists are interested in.
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• What psychological strategies will help an athlete to stay focused during
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competition?
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• How can we develop cohesion in competitive sports teams?
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• What motivates teenage girls to do physical activity and exercise?
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• Can exercise help to prevent mental ill health, such as anxiety and
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depression?
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Sport and exercise physiology
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Physiology is the study of the function of biological systems. In sport and exercise
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physiology we are interested in how the body responds to exercise and physical activity,
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what limits physical performance, and how training can be used to improve health and
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performance. For instance, we examine how the heart functions to deliver blood to
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muscle and how muscle functions to produce force. Other areas covered in sport and
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exercise physiology include the effects of diet on health and performance. The box
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below presents some of the key questions and issues that sport and exercise
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physiologists are interested in.
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• How can an individual change their diet to improve their health and their
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ability to compete in sport?
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• How can an athlete train to improve their athletic performance?
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• What physical factors can limit an athlete’s sporting performance?
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• What does an athlete need to do to stay healthy while they are training
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hard?
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Sport and exercise biomechanics
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Biomechanics is the application of the laws and principles of physics to biological 4
systems (e.g. a human being). When studying biomechanics you will encounter clinical 5
(generally gait analysis and injury rehabilitation) and applied biomechanics, both of 6
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1 / Introduction
motion. For example, if a person experiences pain in their shins when they try to jog
(known as shin splints), biomechanists can examine the motion of the person’s legs
during running and work out how forces produced by the movement pass through the
body. They then make adjustments to the runner’s technique to try to stop them
experiencing pain. The box below presents some of the key questions and issues that
biomechanists are interested in.
• How can we analyse the techniques used in different sport skills to help
athletes become quicker and more powerful?
• How can we increase efficiency of human movement so that elderly people
are steadier on their feet?
• How do we design sports equipment such as golf clubs that make the ball
travel further with less human effort or footballs that travel through the
air with less resistance?
The aims of this book
With our book, we aim to try to achieve five things:
1 To introduce you to key topics within each of the sub-disciplines of sport and
exercise science.
2 To introduce you to the methods that are used by sport and exercise scientists to
research questions like those listed above.
3 To encourage you to think about, use and develop study skills to help you to get
the most out of reading this book and your future learning.
4 To encourage you to be an active learner as you work through this book.
5 To help you to enjoy studying sport and exercise science.
Aim 1: Introducing sport and exercise science

In the chapters on sport and exercise psychology, Joanne Thatcher and Melissa Day
discuss motivation in sport and exercise, stress, anxiety and coping in sport, the
dynamics of teams and achieving team cohesion and the psychological effects of
exercise participation. In the chapters on sport and exercise physiology, Rhys Thatcher
examines the role of diet and nutrition before moving on to discuss muscle function and
the role of the cardiovascular system in physical performance.
In the biomechanics chapters, Matthew Portas and Simon Hood explore how key
anatomical terminology relates to biomechanics before going on to introduce Newton’s
Laws of Motion. They then consider some of the key principles surrounding the study
of forces and human movement, and conclude by discussing the principles and terms
that are related to the motion of the body in straight lines and during rotation.
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Aim 2: Introducing sport and exercise science research
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As with all academic disciplines, the knowledge we have about sport and exercise
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science is based on research. Theories, for example, about what motivates people to
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take part in sport and exercise, and the practical strategies we use to enhance sport
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and exercise performances and experiences (e.g. drinking carbohydrate drinks), are all
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tested in research. Knowing how to conduct research and being able to distinguish
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between poor quality and good research is therefore an important part of developing
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into a sport and exercise scientist. So, the chapters on research methods introduce you
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to what we mean by research and the different approaches to research that we can use.
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In these chapters, Joanne and Melissa also discuss the key issues involved in planning
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research and how to conduct research using the two major types of research employed
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in sport and exercise science: quantitative and qualitative.
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Aim 3: Studying smart
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In our view, one of the key factors that distinguishes students who learn effectively and
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do well from those who don’t, is their use of appropriate study skills and their ability to
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reflect on their own learning and development. We have, therefore, provided an
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additional chapter on the internet, focusing on how to study. Our aim in doing so is to
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make the chapter truly interactive, so you can complete activities online whenever and
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wherever you like (unless you’re on top of a mountain without internet access, of course,
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but in that instance you may have other things on your mind).
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In this additional chapter, we encourage you to think about the ways that you learn
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best and alternative approaches that might help to make your learning more effective.
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We offer some strategies to help you make your learning more effective, encourage you
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to reflect on your learning and set targets to improve the effectiveness of your learning
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in the future.
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Throughout each chapter of the book we indicate links to this internet-based
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chapter, where we hope you will hop on to the internet to try out some of the strategies
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we offer to help you to better understand the material we cover and to find out which
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strategies work best for you. The links to the internet resource provide, we hope, ways
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to develop your study of sport and exercise science. We should emphasise, however,
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that it is certainly not necessary to have internet access in order to learn from this book,
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which is designed to work effectively as a standalone resource too.
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Aim 4: Learning through doing
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In our experience, people tend to really learn and understand things when they’re active
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learners. If you don’t take our word for it, consider the wisdom of the ancient Chinese
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philosopher, Confucious:
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I see and I forget 2
I hear and I remember 3
I do and I understand. 4
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So by simply reading through this book we don’t feel you’ll get the most out of it;
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you need to do something with or to the material we discuss to really get to grips with it.
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