ISBS 2021 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS TITLE AND FOREWARD

The ISBS is an international society totally dedicated to biomechanics in sports, whose primary purposes are: To provide a forum for the exchange of ideas for sports biomechanics researchers, coaches and teachers. To bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners. To gather and disseminate information and materials on biomechanics in sports. The conference planned for Canberra, Australia did not go ahead in a face-to-face capacity due to COVID-19. The conference was instead delivered fully online. These proceedings are the accepted papers for the online conference. Papers underwent a double blinded review process. Each paper in these proceedings has been reviewed by at least two members of the scientific committee. The scientific committee comprises the current members of the board of directors of the ISBS and the keynote speakers for the upcoming conference

The efficacy of virtual reality in professional soccer

Professional soccer clubs have taken an interest to virtual reality, however, only a paucity of evidence exists to support its use in the soccer training ground environment. Further, several soccer virtual reality companies have begun providing solutions to teams, claiming to test specific characteristics of players, yet supportive evidence for certain measurement properties remain absent from the literature. The aims of this thesis were to explore the efficacy of virtual reality being used in the professional football training ground environment. To do so, this thesis looked to explore the fundamental measurement properties of soccer specific virtual reality tests, along with the perceptions of professional coaches, backroom staff, and players that could use virtual reality. The first research study (Chapter 3) aimed to quantify the learning effect during familiarisation trials of a soccer-specific virtual reality task. Thirty-four professional soccer players age, stature, and body mass: mean (SD) 20 (3.4) years; 180 (7) cm; 79 (8) kg, participated in six trials of a virtual reality soccer passing task. The task required participants to receive and pass 30 virtual soccer balls into highlighted mini-goals that surrounded the participant. The number of successful passes were recorded in each trial. The one-sided Bayesian paired samples t-test indicated very strong evidence in favour of the alternative hypothesis (H1)(BF10 = 46.5, d = 0.56 [95% CI = 0.2 to 0.92]) for improvements in total goals scored between trial 1: 13.6 (3.3) and trial 2: 16 (3.3). Further, the Bayesian paired-samples equivalence t-tests indicated strong evidence in favour of H1 (BF10 = 10.2, d = 0.24 [95% CI = -0.09 to 0.57]) for equivalence between trial 4: 16.7 (3.7) and trial 5: 18.2 (4.7); extreme evidence in favour of H1 (BF10 = 132, d = -0.02 [95% CI = -0.34 to 0.30]) for equivalence between trials 5 and 6: 18.1 (3.5); and moderate evidence in favour of H1 (BF10 = 8.4, d = 0.26 [95% CI = -0.08 to 0.59]) for equivalence between trials 4 and 6. Sufficient evidence indicated that a learning effect took place between the first two trials, and that up to five trials might be necessary for performance to plateau in a specific virtual reality soccer passing task.The second research study (Chapter 4) aimed to assess the validity of a soccer passing task by comparing passing ability between virtual reality and real-world conditions. A previously validated soccer passing test was replicated into a virtual reality environment. Twenty-nine soccer players participated in the study which required them to complete as many passes as possible between two rebound boards within 45 s. Counterbalancing determined the condition order, and then for each condition, participants completed four familiarisation trials and two recorded trials, with the best score being used for analysis. Sense of presence and fidelity were also assessed via questionnaires to understand how representative the virtual environments were compared to the real-world. Results showed that between conditions a difference was observed (EMM = -3.9, 95% HDI = -5.1 to -2.7) with the number of passes being greater in the real-world (EMM = 19.7, 95% HDI = 18.6 to 20.7) than in virtual reality (EMM = 15.7, 95% HDI = 14.7 to 16.8). Further, several subjective differences for fidelity between the two conditions were reported, notably the ability to control the ball in virtual reality which was suggested to have been more difficult than in the real-world. The last research study (Chapter 5) aimed to compare and quantify the perceptions of virtual reality use in soccer, and to model behavioural intentions to use this technology. This study surveyed the perceptions of coaches, support staff, and players in relation to their knowledge, expectations, influences, and barriers of using virtual reality via an internet-based questionnaire. To model behavioural intention, modified questions and constructs from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology were used, and the model was analysed through partial least squares structural equation modelling. Respondents represented coaches and support staff (n = 134) and players (n = 64). All respondents generally agreed that virtual reality should be used to improve tactical awareness and cognition, with its use primarily in performance analysis and rehabilitation settings. Generally, coaches and support staff agreed that monetary cost, coach buy-in and limited evidence base were barriers towards its use. In a sub-sample of coaches and support staff without access to virtual reality (n = 123), performance expectancy was the strongest construct in explaining behavioural intention to use virtual reality, followed by facilitating conditions (i.e., barriers) construct which had a negative association with behavioural intention. This thesis aimed to explore the measurement properties of soccer specific virtual reality tests, and the perceptions of staff and players who might use the technology. The key findings from exploring the measurement properties were (1) evidence of a learning curve, suggesting the need for multiple familiarisation trials before collecting data, and (2) a lack of evidence to support the validity of a virtual reality soccer passing test as evident by a lack of agreement to a real-world equivalent. This finding raises questions on the suitability for virtual reality being used to measure passing skill related performance. The key findings from investigating the perceptions of users included, using the technology to improve cognition and tactical awareness, and using it in rehabilitation and performance analysis settings. Future intention to use was generally positive, and driven by performance related factors, yet several barriers exist that may prevent its widespread use. In Chapter 7 of the thesis, a reflective account is presented for the reader, detailing some of the interactions made with coaches, support staff and players in relation to the personal, moral, and ethical challenges faced as a practitioner-researcher, working and studying, respectively, in a professional soccer club

Quiet Eye research – Joan Vickers on target

In this target article (TA; CISS2016_100), Joan Vickers gives an overview of 20 years of research on her discovery that a relatively long lasting fixation before movement initiation enhances complex-motor performance, the so-called Quiet Eye (QE) phenomenon. Vickers’ main article (CISS2016_101) is the focus of sixteen peer commentaries (CISS2016_102 – CISS2016_117), authored by sport scientists with a special focus on the QE (Causer; Farrow & Panchuk; Klostermann, Vater & Kredel; Mann, Wright & Janelle; Schorer, Tirp & Rienhoff; Williams; Wilson, Wood & Vine), by sport scientists with different research foci (Baker & Wattie; Davids & Araujo; Frank & Schack; Helsen, Levin, Ziv & Davare; Rodrigues & Navarro), and by experts in human perception from disciplines beyond sport science (Foulsham; Gegenfurtner & Szulewski; Spering & Schütz; Watson & Enns). Finally, critiques, suggestions, and extensions brought forward by the commentators are acknowledged by Vickers in her closing response (CISS2016_118)

Biomechanical Spectrum of Human Sport Performance

Writing or managing a scientific book, as it is known today, depends on a series of major activities, such as regrouping researchers, reviewing chapters, informing and exchanging with contributors, and at the very least, motivating them to achieve the objective of publication. The idea of this book arose from many years of work in biomechanics, health disease, and rehabilitation. Through exchanges with authors from several countries, we learned much from each other, and we decided with the publisher to transfer this knowledge to readers interested in the current understanding of the impact of biomechanics in the analysis of movement and its optimization. The main objective is to provide some interesting articles that show the scope of biomechanical analysis and technologies in human behavior tasks. Engineers, researchers, and students from biomedical engineering and health sciences, as well as industrial professionals, can benefit from this compendium of knowledge about biomechanics applied to the human body

"It's not about luck": the production of Australian elite athletes

This thesis examines the mechanisms of athletes’ training to explore the production of Australian elite athletes within a premier national sports training institution in Canberra, Australia. Drawing on the twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork I undertook while living on campus at the institution, this thesis analyses the everyday practices and the numerous training processes of athletes as well as the contributions of coaches and sports science and sports medicine experts involved in crafting athletes into distinctive, elite subjects. Situated in the sporting embodiment literature within the broader field of the anthropology and sociology of sport, this project advances the empirical research on elite athletes, on elite sports institutions and on the complex mechanisms of training elite athletes. I explore the linking mental, moral, emotional, temporal, physiological and subjectified mechanisms of training that inform athletes’ daily lives and lived embodiment. Much of the existing research has examined one single sport, and relatively homogenous demographics of sporting participants. In contrast this thesis looks at male and female athletes in senior and junior levels of elite sport across a range of sports. In doing this, it sheds light on the shared experiences of the multiple mechanisms of elite training to create elite athletes. Through the theoretical lens of Michel Foucault and a phenomenological understanding of habitus I explore how the disciplinary techniques of training produced by multiple agents influence elite athletes’ embodiment and experiences of the cultural norms of elite sport. Through the investigation of the mental, moral, emotional, temporal, physiological and subjectified mechanisms of training, I observe how the production of elite athletes is particularly marked by temporally informed micro-regimes, Hochschild’s (1979 and 1983) ‘emotion work’ and Mauss’s (1973) ‘techniques of the body’. In examining the influence of an elite athlete work ethic discourse and the moral code of elite sport on athletes through interlinking mechanisms of training, I argue that the production of Australian elite athletes is not about luck. Instead, an elite athlete’s habitus is reconstituted through interlinking mechanisms of training that are produced by multiple agents, including coaches, sports science and sports medicine experts and athletes alike, which craft elite athletes as distinct subjects

Ears in motion: designing a toolkit for the sounds of sport

Athletes hear many different sounds while playing sport: the sounds of teammates, crowds, equipment, their own body, and their mind at work. Some hear nothing at all - a complete sonic blackout. This PhD outlines the design of a new “toolkit” for describing, recording, and representing this richly varied terrain. This toolkit has two components. The first is a notation system for describing the auditory experiences of athletes. The second is a wearable microphone system for capturing these sounds in new ways. The toolkit been used by the author and other athletes to create new works of sound design that represent the body in motion. In the design of this toolkit, I draw on a variety of disciplines that each touch on a particular aspect of sound in sport, including psychoacoustics, sports studies, anthropology, and media studies. While the auditory experience of athletes exists at the margins these disciplines, this PhD is an effort to draw these disparate fields together for a more comprehensive approach. The notation system, the first element in the toolkit, draws on these varied disciplines and defines new ways to identify specific sounds and their relationship to athletic performance. The majority of the design work in this PhD is devoted to creating new microphone systems for capturing the sounds of sport. While existing technologies tend to capture these sounds from the side-lines, these new microphones are worn on the athlete’s body or mounted to the athlete’s equipment. To enable recordings from the athlete’s body itself, these new microphones have been designed from the “ground up” – from circuit design to PCB fabrication to software to industrial design to 3D fabrication. These microphones isolate specific sounds in the athlete’s environment to be re-assembled in the recording studio. This synthetic process of isolating and re-assembling sound allows listeners to examine these individual sounds in new levels of detail. For the sound designer, this presents new creative possibilities. For the athlete, this process can teach them to hear their sport in new ways. The toolkit is both diagnostic and creative. The research findings sit across three closely integrated advances: the toolkit comprising new notation and microphone design, insights into the auditory experience of athletes, and a framework for a transdisciplinary field in sport, media, and sound studies

The Longitudinal Application of Biomechanical Biofeedback on Whole Limb Complex Motor Skill Development

The provision of augmented feedback using biomechanical measures, termed biofeedback (BFb), both guides and reinforces skill development. Previous BFb research has; mostly used simple skills that do not transfer to complex skills, focused on single joints thus missing BFb influence on other variables within the kinematic chain, and omitted long-term retention testing so learning is not assessed. Therefore, using 3 themes, the aim of this thesis was to identify the effectiveness of knowledge of performance (KP) BFb on influencing a whole limb complex motor skill, and assess longitudinal retention. Theme 1 identified biomechanically relevant task dynamics, using the fencing attacking lunge as a vehicle for analysis. Differences between skilled (n=7) and novice (n=8) fencers in the rear leg kinematic chain identified skilled displayed greater proximal-to-distal extension angular velocity (skilled, 1.9±0.7, 6.0±2.4, 9.1±2.1 for hip, knee and ankle; novice, 2.4±0.9, 4.6±1.3, 5.4±2.9 rad·s-1; p<0.05) and greater normalised horizontal impulse (skilled 2.51±0.25; novice 1.92±0.36 Ns·kg¯¹); p<0.05), and that ankle plantarflexion correlated with peak horizontal force (r=0.81; p<0.05). Findings from Theme 1 informed a visual, KP intervention for Theme 2 to assess the effectiveness of an intervention applied to a whole limb technique. Novice participants randomized to BFb (n=16) and Control groups (n=16) visited the laboratory on three occasions over one week, and returned for retention testing at 4-6weeks. Findings indicated that KP on whole limb kinematic extension angular velocities, and sequential patterning of joints, was effective in manipulating the whole limb kinematic chain in a novel lunge task. Angular velocities significantly increased at post testing by 34±38%, 25±24% and 33±47% for the hip, knee and ankle in the BFb group versus no significant change of 9±29%, 6±20% and 8±28% in Controls. There were no changes in any external kinetics, and no correlation between ankle plantarflexion and any external kinetic measures for the 4416 lunges. Theme 3 examined learning through a dynamical systems framework, exploring coordination during a longitudinal, 26-week KP intervention using a fading schedule (i.e. increasing time between visits). Kinematic changes occurred within just two visits, and were retained throughout the intervention for the BFb group. Coordination coupling of both the hip-knee and knee-ankle angular-velocities, quantified using a modified vector coding (VC) method, did not change in both groups (p>0.05). Given known limitations of VC, a new coupling-area based method was developed (CI2Area) to quantify longitudinal coordination-variability. BFb participants demonstrated a continual increase in coordination-variability, shown by the positive gradient of CI2Area over the 26-weeks for the BFb versus negative gradient for Controls (hip-knee BFb 0.7, Control -0.9; knee-ankle BFb 3.14, Control -0.24). In addition to the group effect, 9 individuals who had a CI2Area greater than the upper 95%CI of the Control group’s gradient were considered to have responded to the BFb. In conclusion, this thesis contributes to the body of knowledge, using the developed CI2Area as a new method to explore learning in whole-limb complex tasks. This research demonstrated that a fading BFb KP intervention is effective for long-term learning and changes are achieved quickly in targeted variables

Exploring the effects of traditional and expert-derived attentional focus cue structures on complex skill learning

Instructions that direct attention externally have been shown to enhance motor performance. However, research on learning effects has produced mixed findings, particularly in skilled populations, and particularly when realistic instructional protocols have been used. Most studies have presented an overly simplistic view of attention, such that all-internal focus protocols are contrasted with all-external focus protocols. Expert performers, however, have reported adopting combined approaches, revealing the need for research to test more realistic instructions. The current project was a two-part study designed to investigate the effects of realistic focus instructions on performance and learning. Study 1 was an exploratory study of expert jump rope athletes’ attentional strategies during the learning process. Results showed that experts focused on a wide range of cues related to control of the upper limbs and the rope as well as the movements of the lower body. Most cues were internal or non-distinguishable (i.e., neither clearly internal nor clearly external) and were often used in the context of stated externally-focused goals. Study 2 provided an experimental test of focus instructions modeled after experts’ foci. Four groups of near-expert jump rope athletes practiced new skills under various instructions. The internal focus (IF) and external focus (EF) groups were given traditional internal and external focus instructions, respectively. The expert modeled (EM) group was given instructions that were based on experts’ reported focus strategies. The expert modeled-autonomous (EM-A) group was given the expert modeled instructional set but was allowed to choose how they used the instructions. All groups completed a baseline assessment, four practice sessions, and a learning assessment. Results of a chi-square test of independence revealed no relationship between group assignment and performance during baseline or practice. There was a significant relationship between group assignment and performance during the learning assessment (p \u3c .05). Specifically, the IF group performed worse than expected while the EM group performed better than expected. Findings support previous research showing internal focus learning detriments compared to external focus conditions and also provide new insight into the advantages of using instructional approaches modeled after experts’ strategies. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed