Feasibility of Parkour-style training in team sport practice: A Delphi study.

Research has suggested Parkour-style training could act as a donor sport for athlete development in team sports. This study aimed to interrogate expert consensus on the feasibility of integrating Parkour-style training into team sport practice, by employing a three-round, online Delphi method. Talent development and strength and conditioning coaches working in team sport settings were invited to participate. Twenty-four coaches completed Round One, 21 completed Round Two and 20 completed Round Three. In Round One, coaches answered 15 open-ended questions across four categories: (1) General Perceptions of Parkour-style training; (2) Potential Applications of Parkour-style training; (3) Designing and Implementing Parkour-style training Environments; and (4), Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment. Responses from Round One were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis with deductive and inductive coding resulting in 78 statements across three dimensions (Application of Parkour Style Training in Team Sports; Designing and Implementing Parkour-style training Environments; Overcoming Potential Barriers when Integrating Parkour-style training). In Rounds Two and Three, coaches rated these statements using a four-point Likert scale and measures of collective agreement or disagreement were calculated. This study established consensus around a set of design principles for integrating Parkour-style training into team sport practice routines.

Reconceptualising knowledge in the athlete-coach learning system: a mixed-method case study of harnessing bi-directional self-organising tendencies with a national wheelchair rugby league team.

Knowledge and knowledge transfer are often viewed in unitary and hierarchical terms, where a linear transaction exists between an individual possessing a body of knowledge and a person needing that knowledge. Although this traditional view of knowledge transfer is common within the sports domain, it is problematic because knowledge is treated as a self-contained entity. The overarching purpose of this study is to explore the ecological role of knowledge, underpinning performance preparation processes in an international coaching setting. Specifically, we investigated how bi-directional self-organising (coordination) tendencies (coach and athlete-led) can be exploited to facilitate the formation of attacking synergies within the team sport of wheelchair rugby league. A mixed-method case study approach was employed to collect data, involving semi-structured interviews, reflexive observations and field notes, and notational analysis. Results from the study described the transitional process of positioning an ecological view of knowledge transfer as a guiding principle to enhance athlete and practitioner collaboration. This reciprocal relationship provided documented opportunities to enhance on- and off-field team synergies. The pedagogical experiences we describe emerged throughout periods of uncertainty, requiring effortful interactions, forged on the continuous coupling of key agents (individuals), content, and context, enabling application, refinement, and opportunities for team synergies to evolve in performance preparation. Results suggested that the challenge of understanding and facilitating knowledge transfer could be embedded within the ecology of a complex adaptive system, sustained as a contextualised activity reciprocally constructed through on-going correspondence between athletes, scientists, practitioners, and the competitive performance context.

Integrating Deloading into Strength and Physique Sports Training Programmes: An International Delphi Consensus Approach.

BACKGROUND: Deloading is a ubiquitous yet under-researched strategy within strength and physique training. How deloading should be integrated into the training programme to elicit optimal training outcomes is unknown. To aid its potential integration, this study established consensus around design principles for integrating deloading in strength and physique training programmes using expert opinion and practical experience. METHODS: Expert strength and physique coaches were invited to an online Delphi consisting of 3 rounds. Thirty-four coaches completed the first round, 29 completed the second round, and 21 completed the third round of a Delphi questionnaire. In the first round, coaches answered 15 open-ended questions from four categories: 1: General Perceptions of Deloading; 2: Potential Applications of Deloading; 3: Designing and Implementing Deloading; and 4: Creating an Inclusive Deloading Training Environment. First-round responses were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, resulting in 138 statements organized into four domains. In the second and third rounds, coaches rated each statement using a four-point Likert scale, and collective agreement or disagreement was calculated. RESULTS: Stability of consensus was achieved across specific aspects of the four categories. Findings from the final round were used to develop the design principles, which reflect the consensus achieved. CONCLUSIONS: This study develops consensus on design principles for integrating deloading into strength and physique sports training programmes. A consensus definition is proposed: "Deloading is a period of reduced training stress designed to mitigate physiological and psychological fatigue, promote recovery, and enhance preparedness for subsequent training." These findings contribute novel knowledge that might advance the current understanding of deloading in strength and physique sports.

Effects of functional movement skills on parkour speed-run performance.

Parkour speed-runs require performers (known as Traceurs) to negotiate obstacles with divergent properties such as angles, inclinations, sizes, surfaces, and textures in the quickest way possible. The quicker the run, the higher the performer is ranked. Performance in Parkour speed-runs may be regulated through Parkour Traceurs' functional movement skill capacities given the physical requirements of the event. This study examined what functional movement skills correlate with Parkour speed-run performance. Nineteen male Parkour Traceurs undertook a physical testing battery inclusive of: agility T-test, maximal grip strength test, and maximal vertical and horizontal jumps across several jump modalities. For the speed-run, Parkour Traceurs navigated an indoor Parkour installation. Pearson's correlation analyses (r) revealed that agility T-test performance showed a significant positive correlation with Parkour speed-run performance, whereas standing long jump and counter movement jump (with and without arm swing) were significantly negatively correlated with Parkour speed-run performance. Concurrent with the intrinsically-linked building blocks in the Athletic Skills Model, the data from the present study suggest that performance in Parkour-speed-runs are underpinned by functional movement skills (jumping, running; arm swinging) and conditions of movement (agility), all of which encapsulate elements of basic motor properties (speed; strength). From a practical perspective, the agility T-test, standing long jump, and counter movement jump with and without arm swing can form a basic battery to evaluate the physical effects of Parkour speed-run interventions on functional movement skills. HighlightsAs Parkour speed-runs could be implemented to improve functional movement skills in different domains (indoors, outdoors, collectively as members of a team or individually), it was important to explore what composition of a battery of standardised athletic tests for functional movement skills correlated to Parkour speed-run performance (time to completion).In line with the intrinsically-linked building blocks in the Athletic Skills Model, the data from the present study suggest that performance in Parkour-speed-runs are underpinned by functional movement skills (jumping, running; arm swinging) and condition of movement (agility), all of which encapsulate elements of basic motor properties (speed; strength).Testing batteries examining the effects of Parkour speed-run interventions should include the following: agility T-test, CMJ jumps without arm swing using both feet and the dominant and the non-dominant foot, SLJ, and CMJ jumps with an arm swing component using both feet and the dominant and the non-dominant foot.

Parkour-Based Activities in the Athletic Development of Youth Basketball Players.

While ideas from long-term athlete development (LTAD) models have been adopted and integrated across different sports, issues related to early specialization, such as increased risk of injury and burnout, are still common. Although some benefits may be associated with early sport specialization, sports sampling is purported to be a more effective approach to the long-term health and wellbeing of children. Furthermore, the concept of developing what are commonly referred to as "fundamental movement skills" (FMS) is central to the rationale for delaying single sports specialization. However, in place of sports sampling, it appears that the practice of strength and conditioning (S&C) has become a driving force behind developmental models for youth athletes, highlighted by the growing body of literature regarding youth athletic development training. In this perspective piece, we explore how conventional S&C practice may insufficiently develop FMS because typically, it only emphasizes a narrow range of foundational exercises that serve a limited role toward the development of action capabilities in youth athletic populations. We further discuss how this approach may limit the transferability of physical qualities, such as muscular strength, to sports-specific tasks. Through an ecological dynamics lens, and using basketball as an example, we explore the potential for parkour-based activity within the LTAD of youth basketball players. We propose parkour as a training modality to not only encourage movement diversity and adaptability, but also as part of an advanced strength training strategy for the transfer of conventional S&C training.

Physical Literacy - A Journey of Individual Enrichment: An Ecological Dynamics Rationale for Enhancing Performance and Physical Activity in All.

Internationally, governments, health and exercise practitioners are struggling with the threat posed by physical inactivity leading to worsening outcomes in health and life expectancy and the associated high economic costs. To meet this challenge it is important to enhance the quality, and quantity, of participation in sports and physical activity throughout the life course to sustain healthy and active lifestyles. This paper supports the need to develop a physically literate population, who meaningfully engage in play and physical activity through the development of functional movement skills in enriched environments. This is a shift away from reductionist approaches to physical activity engagement and maintenance to an ecological dynamics approach that focuses on enrichment to support functional movement skill learning and development. This is an embedded approach to physical literacy that allows learners the space and time to "explore-discover" (ecological psychology) within environments that will lead to a concomitant self-organization of highly intricate network of co-dependent sub-systems (anatomical, respiratory, circulatory, nervous, and perceptual-cognitive) resulting in functional movement solutions for the performance task and enduring positive adaptations to subsystems supporting the physical literacy journey across the life course. "Explore-discover adapt" is at the heart of two contemporary learner-centered pedagogies: Non-linear Pedagogy (NLP) and the Athletic Skills Model (ASM). Both emphasize the importance of enrichment experiences from an early age, and throughout life course, and both appreciate the inherent complexity involved in the learning process and the importance of designing a rich and varied range of athletic, participatory experiences that will support the embedded development of physical literacy leading to ongoing physical activity for all. The final part of this paper will demonstrate the potential of an ecological dynamics approach for supporting the concept of physical literacy by providing a roadmap for a reliable and valid measurement of physical literacy when considered from both an ecological dynamics perspective and the phenomenology understanding of physical literacy.

Parkour as a Donor Sport for Athletic Development in Youth Team Sports: Insights Through an Ecological Dynamics Lens.

Analyses of talent development in sport have identified that skill can be enhanced through early and continued involvement in donor sports which share affordances (opportunities for action) with a performer's main target sport. Aligning key ideas of the Athletic Skills Model and ecological dynamics theory, we propose how the sport of parkour could provide a representative and adaptive platform for developing athletic skill (e.g. coordination, timing, balance, agility, spatial awareness and muscular strength). We discuss how youth sport development programmes could be (re) designed to include parkour-style activities, in order to develop general athletic skills in affordance-rich environments. It is proposed that team sports development programmes could particularly benefit from parkour-style training since it is exploratory and adaptive nature shapes utilisation of affordances for innovative and autonomous performance by athletes. Early introduction to varied, relevant activities for development of athleticism and skill, in a diversified training programme, would provide impetus for a fundamental shift away from the early specialisation approach favoured by traditional theories of skill acquisition and expertise in sport.