Pandemic Parenting invites you to listen to featured speakers Dr. Daheia Barr-Anderson (University of Minnesota), Megan Bartlett (We Coach), and Christine Pinalto (Sidelined USA) talk about coping with the cancelation of youth sports and activities.
Winter’s here – how will we continue to keep our youth active and healthy during the pandemic? Many sports have had to take a time-out due to COVID-19. Indoor activities have been cancelled, and, pandemic or not, weather doesn’t always permit us to enjoy being physically active outdoors. The cancellation or delay of sports seasons have also had long-term impacts on the futures and identities of youth and young adults. So, as parents, caregivers, and coaches, how do we keep our youth active, healthy, and strong, while helping them (and us) mourn the loss of the activities that help them thrive? Join us and our guest experts as we discuss the ways to tackle these issues and help our youth cope physically and mentally so that everyone “wins.”
The School of Kinesiology Graduate Studies Office is presenting the following lectures during the spring 2021 semester. Attend via the Zoom information below.
1.) The African American Sport and Physical Activity Experience
Dr. Louis Harrison, Jr.
Speaker: Dr. Louis Harrison, Jr. Date and Time: January 29, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. (CST) Host: Zan Gao, PhD, Director of Graduate Studies, School of Kinesiology
Short bio: Dr. Louis Harrison, Jr. holds the Charles H. Spence, Sr. Centennial Professorship in Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. His academic research is focused on the impact of race related stereotypes and the intersection of African American racial and athletic identity development on sport choices and performance. He is an Active Fellow in the National Academy of Kinesiology, the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport and the Society of Health and Physical Educators. Dr. Harrison has been awarded the SHAPE America Scholar, the Charles D. Henry and E. B. Henderson Awards from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (now SHAPE America). He was presented with the Athletic Leadership Award at the Black Student Athlete Summit at the University of Texas. Dr. Harrison is also co-founder of the Black Male Education Research Collection (BMERC.org).
2.) It Takes More Than Just Words: Demonstrating Black Lives REALLY Do Matter in Sport
Dr. Kwame Agyemang
Speaker: Dr. Kwame Agyemang Date and Time: February 8, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. (CST) Host: Clinton Warren, PhD, Lecturer in Sport Management, School of Kinesiology
Short bio: Dr. Kwame Agyemang is an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University in the sport management program. He earned his B.A. degree in Political Science in 2007 and M.Ed. degree in Higher Education Administration in 2008, both from the University of Oklahoma. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Sport Management from Texas A&M University in 2011. His research examines institutional norms, structures, and processes in organizations and industries, most notably, how they shape the experiences of Black professionals in the sport industry. Dr. Agyemang has published more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles in various journals, including Organization, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Sport Management, Sport Management Review, and Journal of African American Studies, among others. He is also the Editor for Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal. He also serves on several other editorial boards.
3.) Sex Differences in Reflex Cardiovascular Control during Hypoxia in Humans
Dr. Jacqueline Limberg
Speaker: Dr. Jacqueline Limberg Date and Time: February 19, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. (CST) Host: Sarah Greising, PhD, Assistant Professor, Exercise Physiology
Short bio: Dr. Limberg is a human integrative physiologist at University of Missouri. She is interested in mechanisms that contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease in obese individuals and interventions that can reverse and/or prevent cardiovascular disease risk. Dr. Limberg is currently studying how blood flow and blood pressure are modulated by the nervous system in human obesity and related conditions, the effect of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions, and how these factors may differ between men and women.
4.) Psychosocial and Life Skill Development Through Sport: Where Do We Need to Go From Here?
Dr. Daniel Gould
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Gould Date and Time: March 19, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. (CST) Host: Maureen Weiss, PhD, Professor, Psychology of Physical Activity, School of Kinesiology
Short bio: Dr. Daniel Gould is the Director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports and the Gwen Norrell Professor of Youth Sports and Student-Athlete Well-Being Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Michigan State University. Dr. Gould has over 200 scholarly publications and has been invited to speak on sport psychology topics in over 30 countries. His research has been funded by organizations such as the U.S. Olympic Committee, U.S. Tennis Association, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, and National Wrestling Coaches Association. Dr. Gould has published three books on children’s sports and served as a founding coeditor of The Sport Psychologist. He co-authored (with Robert Weinberg), Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, the most widely used textbook in sport and exercise psychology, and Understanding Psychological Preparation for Sport: Theory and Practice of Elite Performers (with Lew Hardy and Graham Jones). Among his awards, Dr. Gould holds an honorary doctoral degree from Vrije Universiteit Brussels, was the Bank of America Endowed Chair at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, was named USA Wrestling Man of the Year for his sport science work, and received the Michigan State University Outreach Scholarship and Community Partnership Award for his work with the Detroit Police Athletic League.
5.) Identify Risk Factors for Patella Tendinopathy in College Basketball Players
Dr. Bing Yu
Speaker: Dr. Bing Yu Date and Time: April 2, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. (CST) Host: Zan Gao, PhD, Director of Graduate Studies, School of Kinesiology
Short bio: Dr. Yu a professor in Division of Physical Therapy, School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He obtained his Bachelor Degree in Education majored in biomechanics from Beijing Sport University in 1982, his Master Degree in Kinesiology from Kansas State University in 1988, and his Doctoral Degree in Exercise Science from University of Iowa. He completed his post-doctoral training in Orthopedic Biomechanics Lab at Mayo Clinic in 1996. He served in several study sections in NIH and CDC between 1999 and 2009, and in the NBA & GE Injury Prevention Research Review Panel, 2016, and also served or is serving in editorial boards, associate editor, section editor, or guest editors in 5 sports medicine related journals. His research areas include: (1) biomechanics of sports injuries, (2) biomechanics of sports techniques, and (3) musculoskeletal system modeling with over 150 peer reviewed publications.
The manuscript was systematic review of randomized controlled trials examining the casual evidence regarding the effects of traditional and exergaming-based physical activity interventions on motor skill development in typically developed children (aged 6-12 years).Co-authors on the manuscript include Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory (PAEL) research assistant and PhD candidate, Wenxi Liu, and PAEL director Zan Gao, PhD.
The VR Fitness article cites the study “Virtual Reality Exercise for Anxiety and Depression: A Preliminary Review of Current Research in an Emerging Field” which was coauthored by former School of Kinesiology doctoral students, Nan Zeng, PhD, Zachary Pope, PhD, and Jung Eun Lee, PhD. The study synthesized literature concerning the effect of virtual reality (VR) exercise on anxiety and depression among various populations. The study concluded that existing evidence is insufficient to support the advantages of VR exercise as a stand-alone treatment over traditional therapy in the alleviation of anxiety and depression, and that more research is needed.
Alec Basten, Kinesiology BS, is set to graduate at the end of the Fall 2020 semester with summa cum laude honors. This was not a situation that Basten predicted for himself when he started out as a Freshman in the College of Education and Human Development.
Growing up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Basten was always interested in sports. He participated in High School football, wrestling, and track and field. His senior year, he decided to run cross country instead of playing football for his final year.
“I grew up playing a ton of different sports,” Basten said. “When I decided to run cross country my senior year I actually ended up getting a lot of attention. And then I got recruited to run at the University of Minnesota.”
Having been an athlete for most of his life, Basten was drawn to careers that might keep him in and around sport. Specifically, he was interested in physical therapy, which inspired his choice to enter as a kinesiology student. At the end of his freshman year, he saw a note in an email that said “apply to the School of Kinesiology honors program if you’re interested.”
“I was already looking for a way to continue to challenge myself academically,” Basten said. The honors program seemed like a good way to channel and grow my interest in science.
Once Basten was accepted into the honors program, he began working with Sarah Greising, PhD, director of the Skeletal Muscle Plasticity and Regeneration Laboratory (SMPRL). Basten started as a lab volunteer, and eventually he and Dr. Greising worked out a research project that he could develop for his honors thesis, “Chronic oxidative dysfunction following volumetric muscle loss injury.” (Check out Basten’s final project here.)
“I hadn’t even considered a career of research before this experience,” Basten said. “By participating in the honors program I was able to drive my own research project, within the lab goals of course. I really fell in love with the scientific process, I enjoyed the whole thing, and I felt like I could see myself doing more of it in the future.”
Basten’s newfound interest in research led him to reconsider his future path. Instead of looking into a graduate program that was specific to Physical Therapy, he set out to find programs that would allow him to also continue his pursuit of research.
“It turns out that there are a couple of graduate programs that are a combined DPT (doctorate of physical therapy) and PhD programs,” Basten said.
Basten and his advising team of Kristin Farrell, University Honors, and Colin Rogness, Kinesiology BS, spent a lot of time discussing his options, and trying to figure out what his next best step would be. And then, in addition to his adjustment to allow for a potential career in research, Basten faced a new and different challenge regarding his athletic season.
Basten running for the U of M Cross Country team
“I had an extra season of eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Basten said. “Suddenly it made the most sense to stay at the U of M to get my masters degree. That way, I could continue to run while preparing myself to apply for those dual programs I’m interested in.”
With his new plan set and ready, Basten will begin his Kinesiology BS with an emphasis in exercise physiology in the Spring 2021 semester, advised by Greising. He hopes to finish in three semesters, and he’ll start his applications for DPT/PhD programs over the summer.
For students interested in an honors experience, Basten said, “Do it!”
“Take that leap, if it’s available to you I would recommend at least exploring it. It gives you more of a real-world or a graduate school kind of experience. It was really rewarding for me, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to take their undergraduate education to the next level.”
For Basten, the lab experience and the increased advisor contact were big highlights of the overall experience.
“First and foremost the whole lab experience was eye-opening and enriching,” Basten said. “Additionally, the network I’ve been able to build has been huge.”
The School is proud to have Basten as an alum and soon-to-be graduate student. We’re excited to see where his big goals take him!
“It’s been quite the year,” Basten said. “Everyone’s had to make a lot of tough adjustments. I’m looking forward to staying at the U of M, having another season of cross country and track, and maybe even running at the Olympic trials if everything goes just right.”
On November 26, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent on the WristBot technology, the rehabilitation robot that the Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory (HSCL) is jointly developing with international partners.
The patent protects the approach to use the WristBot robotic platform for the assessment and rehabilitation of wrist dysfunction. The patent inventors are School of Kinesiology professor and director of HSCL, Jürgen Konczak, PhD,Giulio Sandinin at the Italian Institute of Technology, Leonardo Capello at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa (Italy) and Lorenzo Masia, now at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
With her recognition, Orr becomes only the second academic to ever make the list, alongside Dr. Christine Baugh whose research on concussions informed national debates. Additionally, Orr is only the tenth Canadian to make the list, surrounded by National Hockey League players or representatives.
Orr said when she received an email from Forbes letting her know she’d been nominated for the list, she wasn’t sure what to think.
“I was excited,” Orr said. “But I had no idea how many people got that email, and what the chances were that I’d make the final list.”
Orr’s nomination is in relation to her work as the founder and co-director of the Sport Ecology Group (SEG). She founded SEG in 2019 as a graduate student. (The School did a feature story on SEG at the time, you can read it here.) She was struggling to make connections with fellow researchers that were engaged in work related to her unique research interest: the impact of climate change on the sport sector.
“I founded SEG right after I finished writing my preliminary exams for my thesis,” Orr said. “I remember thinking it was really difficult, because I was pulling together research from the sport management field and the natural resources field. My interests in climate change and sport were really unique, and there weren’t many other people looking at it.”
Her goal in founding SEG, was to create an online community of researchers with similar interests. Since many of the scholars interested in her area of research were located across the world, this “online lab” of sorts would give them the opportunity to collaborate without having to be physically in the same space. The SEG team just hit a milestone of a combined 40 articles that are either in press or have been published which is, “pretty unreal for an online lab,” Orr said.
In addition to their research, the SEG team is also focused on teaching, service, and serving as industry liaisons.
“What we’re researching is impacting people right now,” Orr said. “You often see researchers publish great work in these fancy academic journals and that information just sits and collects dust, we don’t have time for our work to sit around and not get read.”
Orr then rattled off several recent sport industry hurdles that were caused by climate change, including the relocation of the Tokyo Olympic marathon due to heat and a trackable decrease in the length and quality of ski seasons across the globe.
“We want to get our information out there for people to read and understand,” Orr said. “So, we’re doing things like providing syllabi related to sport and climate change and creating modules you can add to a sport management class that already exists. We’re also trying to be visible in the industry, we’ve participated in events like the NCAA Final Four, the Super Bowl, and the X Games.”
It’s obvious that Orr has big goals, and is working to make them happen. But, being on the Forbes 30 under 30 list wasn’t even on her radar before being nominated.
“I have a lot of personal goals,” Orr said. “But, you know, they’re all kind of piecemeal, they’re small, a little here and a little there. My first big goal was to find a tenure-track faculty position, and now I have that. I wasn’t expecting this at all, but it’s been really incredible.”
So how did Orr find out she made the final 30 under 30 list?
“I woke up on December 1 and my Twitter was blowing up,” Orr laughed. “That’s how I found out. Forbes did send me an email later that day, but we found out the old fashioned way – word of mouth.”
Orr said she plans on nominating fellow sport academics next year.
“I think that’s something that the academy could be better at,” Orr said. “We don’t always do a good job of proving our value to the industry. It’s exciting to see the research side of the industry get some visibility.”
As a graduate of the School of Kinesiology, Orr offered this advice to students:
“Think outside the box. Everyone in your field is going to love sports, and love playing sports. If you really want to succeed, you need to think about what you have to offer that goes beyond that, because sport is a business. It’s great to love the product, but sport is the product, and the industry is a business.”
Additionally, she said her experience on the Kinesiology Student Council and participating in the Three Minute Thesis competition gave her great insight into her research and into how academics works on a governance level.
“Both of those experiences really helped me learn how to represent myself, present my research well, and leverage the power I had in my position as a student,” Orr said.
And, Orr’s final bit of advice to sport management students is to, “listen to the Sports Business Journal podcast, because membership to the journal is really expensive, but the podcast is free!”
In addition to her work with SEG, Orr is an assistant professor in the Sport Management department at the State University of New York, Cortland.
The Forbes list nomination process is open to anyone. There is a Forbes committee that screens all of the initial submissions and passes on a curated list to their panel of reviewers. The 2021 panel of reviewers who selected Orr included Emmanuel Acho, a former NFL linebacker, Lyle Ayes, the Managing Director of Evercore, Mark Cuban, a billionaire entrepreneur and the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and Billie Jean King, former professional tennis player and the founder of Women’s Sports Foundation.
Congratulations Maddy, we’re proud to call you an alumni and can’t wait to see what’s next for you!
This study investigated if intensive piano training may be associated with improved motor and somatosensory function. Specifically, researchers examined how well children can differentiate between the differences in joint position at the elbow and the wrist. Study participants were 44 typically developing children aged 11-12 years who either regularly played piano for more than 6 years or had no experience playing musical instruments.
The study found that children who regularly play the piano have superior manual dexterity which is associated with a higher position sense acuity at both the elbow and wrist. That is, they were able to discriminate smaller differences in joint position than their cohort who did not play a musical instrument. This implies training manual dexterity in childhood improves both motor as well as somatosensory function.
Chris Lundstrom, PhD, a School of Kinesiology lecturer and the director of the Sport and Exercise Science MEd, shared insight with Nike on how to Make the Most of Training in a Mask. The article covers ways to mentally adapt to wearing a mask as you exercise, the importance of following gyms’ mask protocols, and how to continue to make the most of your workouts throughout these uncertain times. Read the full article here.
Nick Evanoff, MS (left) and Don Dengel, PhD (right) welcome you to their Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology!
The Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology (LIHP) is a research laboratory and the Human Performance Teaching Laboratory (HPTL) is a teaching laboratory directed by Don Dengel, PhD, a professor in the School of Kinesiology. The LIHP and HPTL are both housed in Mariucci Arena. Recently, the two laboratories had to make major adjustments in the research and teaching processes being used. When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the United States in March, the lab was in full swing, conducting research projects and actively used by both graduate and undergraduate level students.
“Before the pandemic hit, our lab was involved in many different research projects,” said Nick Evanoff, MS,the Laboratory Manager and a PhD student at the School of Kinesiology. “We were conducting body composition scans regularly, working closely with the U of M sports teams and Medical School, and using our research data to teach exercise physiology lab courses.”
Almost all of LIHP’s research is based on human studies, and requires people to come into the lab for tests and measurements. When the pandemic effectively halted all ongoing research, Dengel and Evanoff put their heads together to try to make the best of the situation.
“We knew that the dynamics of our work were going to change, perhaps indefinitely,” Dengel said. “We survived through the spring semester, but right after that we got to work on trying to adapt quickly.”
Don Dengel, PhD (left) and Nick Evanoff, MS (right) are pictured here in their recently revamped laboratory space.
Dengel and Evanoff focused on the teaching component of the HPTL first, considering guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and the Institutional Review Board (IRB). With this information in mind, they completely retrofitted their laboratory space in order to safely accommodate their students and research.
“We probably invested $25,000 into the lab update,” Dengel said. “We purchased additional computers, microscopes, lab equipment, hand washing stations, etc. We even had the lab re-wired to accommodate the new set-up and additional workstations. We knew we needed to move fast and be nimble if we wanted to keep our research moving.”
Not only did Dengel and Evanoff have to re-think and re-organize their entire lab space, but they also needed to make sure that their processes and equipment were as safe as possible. This meant working with the manufacturers of their testing equipment.
“After we got a handle on the education piece, we moved onto the LIHP and the research space,” Dengel said. “How do you scan people as cleanly as possible from a COVID standpoint? A lot of labs use respiratory equipment; how do you do that safely? We worked with our vendors and asked a lot of questions. We wanted to make it as safe as possible for every person involved.”
Dengel and Evanoff both noted that there are many people involved in the research process, and how difficult it was to consider all of the moving pieces and parts that go into a test. Their new safety measures needed to take into account everything from the patient and the person administering the test, to the entrances and exits and the equipment used.
The thought, work, and time they invested in the process of getting the LIHP back up and running inspired Dengel and Evanoff to publish a peer-reviewed paper, “Re-Opening Exercise Science Laboratories and Testing During the COVID-19 Endemic Phase,” a resource that would help set the standard for other exercise science labs trying to continue their research.
“Early on, there were absolutely no guides,” Evanoff said. “We looked everywhere for an industry standard or best practice for re-opening and we couldn’t find it, so we made our own.”
“Nick and I put in all of this work,” Dengel said. “We wanted other people to have access to it. It doesn’t make sense for labs everywhere to have to reinvent the wheel. Our goal was to help other people move through this.”
Not only did their publication help other labs, it also helped the LIHP get their University-mandated return-to-research “sunrise” plan approved.
“We were often having to answer the same questions over and over again when trying to get approval on our sunrise plan,” Dengel said. “It really helped to be able to hold that published paper up and say, ‘Yes, we already thought of that, and we published our solution.’”
Despite the many challenges of keeping the LIHP up and running, both Dengel and Evanoff said there have been many positive take-aways. The students, in particular, continue to be an inspiration to both instructors. This includes both the undergraduate students and the graduate students who are Teaching Assistants (TAs) in the lab.
“It was really inspiring to watch our TAs adjust on the fly and figure out how to teach in this new environment,” Evanoff said. “I feel like this experience really helped those students who want to become faculty in the future. They’ve had to be creative, develop their teaching skills, and be quick on their feet.”
Evanoff and Dengel both mentioned the importance of the positive, team environment in the lab. Their regular lab meetings are full of ideas and discussion that all parties feel comfortable participating in. Some of the ideas that have come from the adjustments made over the last semester and a half will continue to be utilized in the future, even after the pandemic passes.
“It was nice to hear from the students that they want to be in the lab,” Dengel said. “It’s easy to think that students don’t like the lab because it’s hard or it takes more time, but we’ve heard again and again from our undergraduate students that they want to be here, in-person, and getting hands-on experience.”
As the HPTL and LIHP team members prepare for another uncertain semester this spring, they feel more ready to take on the unknown.
“I think it’s really important to note that we’ve got such a great support team,” Evanoff said. “From the faculty, to the School staff team, to the Graduate TAs, to the students. We couldn’t have done any of this without each of those people.”
We know the HPTL, LIHP and School of Kinesiology teams will continue to work hard and creatively to keep the research and learning alive for the Spring semester!
Over the past six years, the HSC Laboratory has investigated the use of laryngeal vibration as a non-invasive method to treat speech symptoms associated with the voice disorder spasmodic dysphonia (SD). The HSC team has established the short-term effectiveness of the approach, with about two-thirds of SD patients responding to the treatment. This research has been partially funded by the NSDA, and the research highlighted in the newsletter mentions that this is “the first grant the NSDA has funded specifically for abductor spasmodic dysphonia.”
Read more about the effects of spasmodic dysphonia; the history of this research project, including the formation of the HSC lab’s hypothesis; and where the project is headed next. The article, “Wearable Non-Invasive Neuromodulation Technology for the Symptomatic Treatment of Spasmodic Dysphonia” can be found on page 12, in the “Research Updates” section of the newsletter.
Standard meta-analytic approaches have allowed researchers in the field to synthesize relevant experimental evidence using pairwise procedures that produce reliable estimates of the homogeneity, magnitude, and potential biases in the observed effects. However, pairwise meta-analytic procedures are only capable of discerning differences in effects between a select intervention strategy and a select comparison or control condition. In order to maximize the impact of physical activity interventions on health-related outcomes, it is necessary to establish evidence concerning the comparative efficacy of all relevant physical activity intervention strategies.
The development of network meta-analysis (NMA)—most commonly used in medical-based clinical trials—has allowed for the quantification of indirect comparisons, even in the absence of direct, head-to-head trials. Thus, it stands to reason that NMA can be applied in physical activity and health promotion research to identify the best intervention strategies. Given that this analysis technique is novel and largely unexplored in the field of physical activity and health promotion, care must be taken in its application to ensure reliable estimates and discernment of the effect sizes among interventions.
The purpose of this review is to comment on the potential application and importance of NMA in the field of physical activity and health promotion, describe how to properly and effectively apply this technique, and suggest important considerations for its appropriate application in this field.
In this paper, overviews of the foundations of NMA and commonly used approaches for conducting NMA are provided, followed by assumptions related to NMA, opportunities and challenges in NMA, and a step-by-step example of developing and conducting an NMA. The Journal of Sport and Health Science (JSHS) is a peer-reviewed, international, multidisciplinary journal with an impact factor of 5.20 in 2019.
GOTR is a physical activity-based PYD program using running as a platform to teach life skills and promote healthy behaviors. In this study, girls in GOTR were compared to girls in Sport and PE on survey measures of life skills transfer and social processes (peer and coach relatedness, coach autonomy support) at season’s end. Focus groups were also conducted with GOTR stakeholders (girls, coaches, caregivers, school personnel). Survey results revealed that girls in GOTR compared favorably to girls in Sport and PE on all life skills—managing emotions, resolving conflicts, helping others, and making intentional decisions—and to PE girls for all three social processes. GOTR girls’ scores on life skills transfer remained stable at a three-month retention assessment. All stakeholders shared corroborating evidence that girls learn positive social and emotional behaviors through participating in GOTR that generalize to school and home contexts. Findings provide strong evidence that Girls on the Run is effective in teaching skills and strategies that generalize to broader life domains. The processes explaining group differences on life skills transfer point to GOTR’s intentional curriculum of skill-building activities delivered by trained coaches using a caring, mastery, and supportive climate.
Sport and exercise science lecturer and MEd director at the School of Kinesiology, ChristopherLundstrom, PhD, was recently featured in Reader’s Digest Canada in an article titled “Walking Mistakes You Didn’t Know You Were Making.” The article addresses nine of the most common mistakes made while walking and provides tips on how to fix them.
When discussing the mistake of swinging your arms too much—or too little, Lundstrom’s advice is to use your arms to your advantage. “When walking, your arms act as counterweights to your legs” says Lundstrom. “While it’s natural to move each arm with the motion of the opposite leg, the movement should be just enough so your trunk isn’t moving back and forth and is nice and stable. The more vigorously you’re walking, the stronger your arm action is going to be. If you’re walking fairly leisurely, you don’t need very much arm motion.”
This review paper synthesized the most updated literature regarding the casual evidence of the effects of active video games (AVGs) on fundamental motor skills (FMS; locomotor skills and object control skills) and physical fitness among healthy children. Overall, the current available evidence supports AVGs as an effective means to improve physical fitness, such as balance, postural stability, and agility, among healthy children. However, the findings of AVGs on healthy children’s object control and locomotor skills remain inconclusive and warrants further investigations.
Their editorial focuses on broad and collective research highlighting cellular, molecular, and/or structure-function assessment of the cross-talk of skeletal muscle with tendon or bone. Specifically, studies included within the specific issue highlight the potential tissue cross-talk which occurs in skeletal pathologies and identify how cross-talk can be targeted for treatments or interventions. This special issue of Connective Tissue Research will kick off 2021 in the print version of the journal.
This chapter analyzed the scrutiny of women’s clothing and physical appearance in the context of the sports media industry. The study found that women sportscasters who appear on television are expected to adhere to highly complex and particular gendered standards of clothing based on cultural norms, audience responses, and industry practices. The chapter brought attention to the barriers that contribute to the marginalization of women in the sports media industry.
The book is one of the two volumes on sportswomen’s apparel published in the New Femininities in Digital, Physical and Sporting Cultures series.
Members of the School of Kinesiology’s Sports Medicine Psychology Lab (SMPL), recently published as co-authors in the November issue of the Soccer Journal.
The article highlighted a collaborative project with the UMN Department of Horticulture that examined the impact of turf grass properties on performance, injuries, and perceptions of players on the University of Minnesota Women’s Club Soccer team.
