Monday 2 April 2012

Olympic Countdown - Gymnastics

I’ve described what Joan Vickers has called the “Quiet Eye”, when experts fix their gaze on a particular place, usually just before making the required movement in their sport (such as a golfer about to putt). One would think this would be rather difficult for a gymnast performing multiple twists and turns, but it seems that expert gymnasts do actually have a similar strategy. Several investigators have found that vision is essential in to a stable landing after performing a somersault (Davlin et al, 2001; Luis & Tremblay, 2008). But until recently, there was little evidence to show exactly how this was achieved. To resolve this, Heinen (2011) got experts and apprentices to carry out a tucked back aerial somersault on a trampoline whilst wearing a helmet fitted with an infra-red camera that tracked their eye movements. One of the striking differences that were found between experts and apprentices was that experts didn’t blink at all during somersaults, whereas apprentices nearly always blinked. This is a strong indication that experts are using visual information to judge their body position more accurately. For eye fixations, the researchers defined a fixation as when the eyes were fixating a specific position for at least 100 milliseconds. They found that for experts, the longer they fixated during take-off, the more accurate were their landings. But this wasn’t true for apprentices. The reason could be related to take-off velocity. Take-off velocity is important because it relates to how long the athlete is in the air. They need enough flight-time to be able to complete the task accurately. It’s already been found that it’s easier to determine your speed through vision than from feedback from your muscles or ears (Lee et al, 1992). This suggests that through experience, experts are able to use visual information at the start of their somersault to adjust the time they take to extend their body, and thus make better landings (in the centre of the trampoline). There’s still plenty of research to be done, for instance finding out exactly what the experts are fixating. But there’s one obvious piece of advice to novice gymnasts. Keep your eyes open. David Donner

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