Gymnastics Experience Enhances the Development of Bipedal-Stance Multi-Segmental Coordination and Control During Proprioceptive Reweighting

Abstract

Performance and control of upright bipedal posture requires a constant and dynamic integration of relative contributions of different sensory inputs (i. e., sensory reweighting) to enable effective adaptations as individuals face environmental changes and perturbations. Children with gymnastic experience showed balance performance closer to that of adults during and after proprioceptive alteration than children without gymnastic experience when their center of pressure (COP) was analyzed. However, a particular COP sway can be achieved through performing and coordinating different postural movements. The aim of this study was to assess how children and adults of different gymnastic experience perform and control postural movements while they have to adjust balance during and after bilateral tendon vibration. All participants were equipped with spherical markers attached to their skin and two vibrators strapped over the Achilles tendons. Bipedal stance was performed in three 45-s trials in two visual conditions (eyes open, EO, and eyes closed, EC) ordered randomly in which vibration lasted 10 s. Posture movements were analyzed by a principal component analysis (PCA) calculated on normalized and weighted markers coordinates. The relative standard deviation of each principal movement component (principal position, PP-rSTD) quantified its contribution to the whole postural movements, i.e., quantified the coordinative structure. The first (principal velocities, PV-rSTD) and second (principal accelerations, PA-rSTD) time-derivatives characterized the rate-dependent sensory information associated with and the neuromuscular control of the postural movements, respectively. Children without gymnastic experience showed a different postural coordinative structure and different sensory-motor control characteristics. They used less ankle movements in the anterior-posterior direction but increased ankle movements in medio-lateral direction, presented larger hip and trunk velocities, and exhibited more hip actions. Gymnastic experience during childhood seemed to benefit the development of proprioceptive reweighting processes in children, leading to a more mature form of coordinating and controlling posture similarly to adults.

Sport-specific training induced adaptations in postural control and their relationship with athletic performance

“…(a) shooting and air-rifle shooting (Niinimaa and McAvoy, 1983;Larue et al, 1989;Aalto et al, 1990;Era et al, 1996;Ball et al, 2003;Mononen et al, 2007;Ihalainen et al, 2016a,b;Spancken et al, 2021;Lang and Zhou, 2022a,b), air-pistol shooting (Ko et al, 2017(Ko et al, , 2018, sharpshooting (Konttinen et al, 1998(Konttinen et al, , 1999, small-bore shooting (Spancken et al, 2021); (b) biathlon (Niinimaa and McAvoy, 1983;Larue et al, 1989;Ihalainen et al, 2018;Michalska et al, 2022); (c) archery (Mason and Pelgrim, 1986;Stuart and Atha, 1990;Mohamed and Azhar, 2012;Spratford and Campbell, 2017;Musa et al, 2018;Serrien et al, 2018;Simsek et al, 2019;Wada and Takeda, 2020;Sarro et al, 2021;Vendrame et al, 2022); (d) gymnastics (Bringoux et al, 2000;Vuillerme et al, 2001a,b;Aydin et al, 2002;Asseman et al, 2004Asseman et al, , 2005Asseman et al, , 2008Davlin, 2004;Bressel et al, 2007;Carrick et al, 2007;Croix et al, 2010;Omorczyk et al, 2018;Marcolin et al, 2019;…”

“…gymnastics ( Bringoux et al, 2000 ; Vuillerme et al, 2001a , b ; Aydin et al, 2002 ; Asseman et al, 2004 , 2005 , 2008 ; Davlin, 2004 ; Bressel et al, 2007 ; Carrick et al, 2007 ; Croix et al, 2010 ; Omorczyk et al, 2018 ; Marcolin et al, 2019 ; Busquets et al, 2021 ), rhythmic gymnastics ( Kioumourtzoglou et al, 1997 ; Calavalle et al, 2008 ), acrobatic gymnastics ( Sobera et al, 2019 ; Gómez-Landero et al, 2021 ; Opala-Berdzik et al, 2021 ), and artistic gymnastics ( Puszczałowska-Lizis and Omorczyk, 2019 );…”

“…Age influences static balance in acrobatic gymnastics ( Gómez-Landero et al, 2021 ). Proprioceptive reweighting processes can be improved by gymnastic training during childhood, leading to similar control and coordination of posture as adults ( Busquets et al, 2021 ). More specifically, better anteroposterior postural stability with eyes open is related to greater age, body mass and height, biological maturity, and training experience in artistic gymnasts, whereas better postural stability regardless of visual conditions is related to higher body mass and BMI percentiles in acrobatic gymnasts ( Opala-Berdzik et al, 2021 ).…”

The Role of Neuromuscular Control of Postural and Core Stability in Functional Movement and Athlete Performance

“…Furthermore, specific postural stability control plays an essential role in acrobatic sports. Gymnastic experience during childhood is beneficial for the development of proprioceptive reweighting processes that lead to a more mature form of controlling and coordinating posture similar to adults ( Busquets et al, 2021 ). Anthropometric characteristics and discipline-specific training experience are associated with postural steadiness ( Opala-Berdzik et al, 2021 ).…”

Isokinetic leg muscle strength relationship to dynamic balance reflects gymnast-specific differences in adolescent females

“…Sánchez-Lastra et al (2019) showed that children and adolescents could improve their balance skills within 5-10 weeks of proprioception-oriented gymnastic training. Thus, the observed higher proprioception performance in gymnasts should be, at least to some extent, related to the gymnastic training (Kochanowicz et al, 2015;Skopal et al, 2020;Busquets et al, 2021). Balance in gymnastics is considered one of the most important performance factors that correlate with selected drop jump parameters (Istenič et al, 2016).…”