Chapter 2a

Experiencing Physical Activity

• Direct Experience vs. Subjective Experience:

  • Direct Experience: Involves performing or observing physical activity.

  • Subjective Experience: Represents the individual reaction to events, feelings, or other stimuli encountered during physical activity. Sensory inputs are converted into perceptions, emotions, and knowledge. These experiences strongly influence individuals both during and after the activity, and are considered as important as, or more important than, the hands-on activity itself.

• Approaches to Physical Activity and Motivation:

  • Extrinsic Approach: Valuing physical activity primarily for the secondary outcome benefits derived from participation, such as winning a prize, losing weight, or receiving a athletic scholarship.

  • Intrinsic Approach: Valuing physical activity for the subjective experiences embedded directly within the activity itself, such as a feeling of accomplishment, enjoyment of the social aspect, or stress relief. Intrinsic motivation is significantly more influential for long-term physical activity engagement.

• Four Truths About Sport and Exercise:

  1. Physical activity experiences are always accompanied by subjective experiences.

  2. Subjective experiences are unique to the individual and the specific situation.

  3. People often participate in physical activities without ever asking or understanding why.

  4. Physical activity will not be meaningful unless it is enjoyable.

  • Fundamental Premise: The optimal physical activity for any individual is simply the activity that they will consistently perform.

Spheres of Physical Activity Experience

• Overview of Spheres:

  • Spheres represent distinct compartments of life experiences in which physical activity plays a vital role.

  • The spheres are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive; activities and experiences frequently overlap across multiple domains.

Sphere of Self-Sufficiency

• Definition:

  • Physical activity is mandatory to care for oneself.

  • Self-sufficiency encompasses physical activities performed to independently provide for personal needs without assistance from others.

  • Physical and Occupational Therapists work directly with individuals to help them gain or regain the functional capacity to perform self-sufficiency tasks.

• Activities of Daily Living (ADLs):

  • Basic personal care behaviors required for minimal functioning.

  • Includes bathing, dressing, transferring, using the bathroom, eating, and walking.

• Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs):

  • Slightly more complex and physically demanding activities required to function independently in a community.

  • Includes light housework, preparing meals, taking medications, shopping for groceries, and using the telephone.

Sphere of Self-Expression

• Expressive Body Movement:

  • Body movement serves as an immediate outlet for emotional states and cultural identity.

  • Examples include clapping to express appreciation or support, dropping the head to convey sadness or disappointment, and jumping up and down to display excitement.

  • Active rituals and dance function as primary avenues for expressing cultural identity.

• Categorization of Nonverbal Gestures:

  • Emblems: Intentional movements that convey direct verbal meaning without speech (e.g., an umpire calling a "strike" or a referee calling an "offsides").

  • Illustrators: Intentional movements that complement spoken words and indicate emotional tone or emphasis (e.g., athletic posturing demonstrated by Usain Bolt or Peter Sagan).

  • Regulators: Body movements that guide and manage the flow of conversation or social interactions (e.g., greeting someone with a high-five versus a handshake, or placing a hand on a door handle when preparing to leave).

Sphere of Work

• Workplace Activity Demands:

  • Work comprises a primary portion of daily adult life, typically totaling $8\,\text{hours/day}$ for $40+\text{ years}$.

  • Daily Time Allocation (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015 American Time Use Survey):

  • Data reflects annual averages on non-holiday weekdays for employed persons aged $25$ to $54$ living with children under $18$ (including related travel time):

    • Working and related activities: $8.8\,\text{hours}$

    • Sleeping: $7.8\,\text{hours}$

    • Leisure and sports: $2.6\,\text{hours}$

    • Other: $1.5\,\text{hours}$

    • Caring for others: $1.2\,\text{hours}$

    • Household activities: $1.1\,\text{hours}$

    • Eating and drinking: $1.0\,\text{hours}$

• Health Status vs. Pay Status:

  • Modern occupations span a wide physical spectrum, including manual roles (Plumber, Forester, Farmer, Server, Construction worker, Firefighter) and highly sedentary professional roles (Teacher, Attorney, Architect, Banker, Physician/Healthcare worker, CEO).

  • Society often attributes lower social status to manual labor occupations.

  • Lower-status jobs requiring elevated levels of daily physical activity can confer a health bonus to workers.

  • Caveat: High psychological or physiological stress in lower-paying occupations may offset or outweigh the health benefits derived from occupational physical activity.

• Occupational Physical Activity Distribution:

  • According to Macera et al. (2005) data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) phone survey of $n = 203{,}120$ U.S. adults:

  • $41\%$ of the primary occupational activity distribution is categorized in the highest sitting/sedentary tier.

  • $38\%$ falls into standing/light activity categories.

  • $13\%$ and $8\%$ represent increasingly heavy manual labor tiers.

  • While modern sedentary and sitting workplace arrangements provide convenience and productivity, they carry severe negative physical health consequences.

• The London Bus Study (1953):

  • Conducted by Dr. Jeremy Morris, marking the foundational beginning of physical activity epidemiology.

  • Investigated coronary heart disease incidence and mortality among double-decker bus staff in London, comparing sedentary Drivers against physically active Conductors.

  • Findings: Sedentary drivers experienced a $2\times$ higher rate of sudden death from coronary heart disease and overall cardiovascular mortality compared to active conductors (measured in incidence per $1000\,\text{person years}$).

Sphere of Education

• Physical Activity in Learning Settings:

  • Educational activities require a spectrum of physical actions ranging from fine motor tasks (hand/wrist movements for writing, eye movements during reading like Dr. Seuss's One fish two fish red fish blue fish) to complex gross motor movements.

  • Instruction in sport and exercise occurs through personal trainers, coaches, dance classes, horseback riding lessons, youth sports, summer camps, ski instructors, and online instructional video content.

• Public School Physical Education:

  • Physical education forms an integral part of formal public education, extending well beyond basic motor skill acquisition.

  • Teaches critical developmental domains including learning skills, social interaction, cooperation, teamwork, sportsmanship, personal responsibility, character, and discipline.

Sphere of Leisure

• Free Time vs. Leisure:

  • Free Time: Disengaging from mandatory everyday obligations to do whatever one chooses.

  • Leisure: A subjective state of being characterized by feelings of supreme contentment. An activity pursued during free time (e.g., television viewing, social media scrolling) does not automatically constitute leisure.

  • Leisure physical activity can range from sedentary choices (sitting beside a stream) to highly active pursuits (running, hiking, skiing).

• Leisure-Time Physical Inactivity Statistics:

  • Approximately $25\%$ of U.S. adults report zero leisure-time physical activity.

  • Demographic Trends (NHIS, 2013 / USDHHS Surgeon General's Call to Action, 2015):

  • Sex: Male participation in leisure-time physical activity is consistently higher than female participation.

  • Age: Activity participation steadily decreases as age increases.

  • Race/Ethnicity & Education: Higher education levels (e.g., college graduates vs. non-high school graduates) correlate directly with lower rates of leisure-time physical inactivity.

Sphere of Health

• Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (2nd Edition, 2020):

  • Fewer than $25\%$ of adults satisfy the full 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines:

  • At least $150\,\text{minutes/week}$ of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity.

  • At least $2\,\text{days/week}$ of muscle-strengthening activity.

• Immediate Health Benefits of Single Bouts:

  • Improves overall sleep quality.

  • Reduces acute feelings of anxiety.

• Long-Term Preventive Health Benefits:

  • Brain Health: Decreases risk of developing dementia (including Alzheimer's disease) and reduces depression risk.

  • Heart Health: Lowers risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

  • Cancer Prevention: Decreases risk for eight specific cancers: bladder, breast, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, lung, and stomach.

  • Cardiovascular & Weight Management: Reduces blood pressure and mitigates risk of weight gain.

  • Musculoskeletal: Improves bone strength and balance/coordination, significantly reducing fall risks.

  • Immune Function: Research (Nieman; Jones) demonstrates a direct link between physical activity and enhanced immune function.

Sphere of Competition

• Nature of Competition:

  • Functions primarily as an organizing principle for physical activity.

  • Competition can heighten or diminish personal enjoyment depending on individual preferences.

  • Competition intrinsically requires cooperation: all participants must adhere to rules and exert effort to preserve the integrity of the event.

• Types of Competition:

  • Side-by-Side: Competitors perform concurrently without direct physical interaction (e.g., swimming, running, shot-put).

  • Face-to-Face Non-Contact: Competitors interact directly to maximize their own scoring opportunities while hindering the opponent's chances, without direct physical contact (e.g., volleyball, baseball, tennis, racquetball).

  • Face-to-Face Contact: Competitors actively thwart opponent efforts via direct physical contact and body manipulation (e.g., wrestling, football, rugby, hockey).

  • Impersonal: Competitors perform against personal records or historical benchmarks set by themselves or others (e.g., attempting a new hiking route, pursuing a personal best completion time).

• Socioeconomic Access to Competitive Sport:

  • Socioeconomic status (SES) strongly dictates access to competitive youth sports (Aspen Institute / SFIA data):

  • Core sports participation scales directly with household income across sports such as tackle football, baseball, basketball, outdoor soccer, team swimming, and lacrosse.

  • Families with higher financial resources ($\ge \$100\text{K}$) exhibit substantially higher participation rates across almost all structured sports compared to lower-income tiers (< \$25\text{K}).

Factors Affecting Physical Activity Experiences

• Social Environment:

  • Interactions with parents/guardians, peers, teachers, and coaches heavily dictate the types and volumes of physical activity an individual pursues.

• Personal Circumstances:

  • Geography & Local Culture: Environmental climate and local customs shape participation options (e.g., physical activity adages such as "There's No Bad Weather ONLY BAD CLOTHING").

  • Personal Attributes:

  • Self-Efficacy: Personal belief in one's capacity to reach specific goals. Represents one of the single strongest predictors of physical activity engagement.

  • Other attributes include personal self-perceptions, feelings, and movement competency.

  • Heredity and Experience: Genetic predispositions and innate physical abilities serve as baseline building blocks for movement experiences.

  • Economic Considerations:

  • Walking remains the most universally popular physical activity across all income levels.

  • Higher-income individuals participate in sports and physical activities at greater rates across the board, benefiting from financial privilege and time availability.

Effects of Physical Activity Experience on Performance

• Practice vs. Training Mechanics:

  • Physical activity experiences lead to performance improvements through two distinct developmental pathways: skill development and physical capacity development.

• Skill Development (Practice and Learning):

  • Practice: Physical activity experience that directly involves cognitive processing, leading to skill improvement.

  • Motor Learning: Refers to a permanent alteration in the functioning of the central nervous system that enables performers to achieve predetermined movement goals consistently.

  • Motor Skills: Physical activities where performers attempt goals by executing efficient, coordinated motor responses.

  • Primary Effect: Permanent enhancement of performance.

  • Examples: Dribbling a basketball, serving a tennis ball, putting a golf ball, playing a video game.

• Physical Capacity Development (Training and Conditioning):

  • Training: Physical activity carried out specifically for the purpose of conditioning an individual for performance in an event.

  • Conditioning: The temporary end state of training, reflected in the performer possessing adequate strength, endurance, and flexibility to execute desired physical tasks.

  • Physical Performance Capacity: Aspects of physical fitness systematically built through physical training.

  • Primary Effect: Temporary enhancement of performance (requires ongoing maintenance training).

  • Examples: Performing jumping jacks, sawing a board, blocking an opponent, performing a handspring.

• Quality and Quantity Principles:

  • Critical Components: The underlying fundamental aspects or mechanics of a skill deemed essential for successful performance.

  • Principle of Quality: Physical activity experiences that specifically engage the critical components of a target activity yield the greatest performance improvements in that specific activity (e.g., practicing free throws improves free-throw shooting, but does not improve baseball pitching).

  • Principle of Quantity: Increasing the overall frequency and volume of experiences focused on critical components directly scales capacity improvement.

• Fundamental Motor Skills:

  • Locomotor Skills: Movement from one location to another (walking, running, jumping, sliding).

  • Nonlocomotor Skills: Movement performed in place without spatial translocation (bending, stretching, pushing, twisting).

  • Manipulative Skills: Movement involving object control or manipulation (throwing, catching, striking, kicking).

  • Fundamental motor skills serve as the foundational building blocks for complex specialized movements (e.g., throwing a softball accurately requires combining sliding, twisting, and throwing movements).