The Importance of Physical
Activity Experiences
1
 Defined as: training in, observation of, practice
of, or participation in physical activity to increase
one’s capacity for physical performance.
 Differentiated from subjective physical activity
experiences (reactions, feelings, and thoughts;
these are the focus of the next chapter).
 Kinesiologists are experts at designing and
manipulating physical activity experiences to
bring about desired ends, such as improvement in
 skill,
 performance,
 and health and well-being.
2
 Is rooted in intricate, intelligent plans
 Can be used to express aesthetic imagination and moral
reasoning
 Is flexible and adaptable
 Illustrates capacity to improve performance through
planned and systematic practice and training
 * We were MADE to move!!! (outdoors)
3
Human physical activity
 Intelligence-based physical activity
 Our activity tends to be more complex and has more
sophisticated goals that lower animals
 Animals have relatively simple plans
 Cheetah can outrun a human, but….
4
Human physical activity
 Ethically and aesthetically based physical activity
 We use movement to express imagination and
moral reasoning
 Express joy, beauty, wonder, other
5
Human physical activity
 Flexibility and adaptability of physical activity
 Upright posture and bipedal gate
 Great ability for movement
 Hand, arms, shoulders, stereoscopic vision
 Fine motor
 Perform movement in our field of vision
6
Human physical activity
 Ability to improve performance through planned
experience
 Systematic and scientifically ways as means of
improving health, performance, skill or for
rehabilitation
7
 Enormous disconnect between what we know about
benefits of physical activity and our behavior
 Why is this?
 Three primary barriers:
 Lack of time
 Accessibility
 Safe environment
8
9




Geography
Local physical activity culture
* Historical norm shifts
Socioeconomic considerations
 Access
 Acceptable activities
 Personal attributes
 Self-perceptions
 Feelings
10
 Parents
 Physically active parents more likely to have active
children
 Same gender parent as child will have most influence
 Peers
 Will influence activity level along with other areas
 Teachers and coaches *
11
 Teachers and coaches
 Influential – can confirm or disconfirm person’s
competency in an activity
 Can create social environment that discourage young
persons from seeking out physical activity experiences
 Gatekeepers – may have life long experience
12
13
 Self-perceptions
 Tend to participate in activities we enjoy
 Difficult to pinpoint factors why
 Feelings
 Research shows involvement or avoidance
influenced by feelings of self-esteem or perceptions of
competence
14
15
Skill, Practice, and Learning
Motor skills: Physical activities in which
performers try to attain specific goals by
executing efficient, coordinated motor
responses
Practice: Physical activity experience that
involves cognitive processing and leads to
skill improvement
Learning: Permanent alteration in functioning
of nervous system that enables performers to
achieve a predetermined goal consistently
16
Physical Performance
Capacity, Training, and Conditioning
Physical performance capacity: Aspects of
physical activity developed through training
Training: Physical activity carried out for the
purpose of conditioning one for performance in
an athletic or other event
Conditioning: Temporary end state of training
reflected in the performer’s possessing
adequate strength, endurance, and flexibility
in order to carry out desired tasks
17
18
 A physically fit person
 can perform the essential activities of daily living at a
high level,
 has sufficient energy remaining to pursue an active
leisure life, and
 can meet unexpected physical demands that
emergencies may impose.
 Types of physical fitness
1. Motor performance fitness
2. Health-related fitness
 Two major U.S. tests for youth fitness
 President’s Challenge Physical Fitness Test
 Fitnessgram
 Anyone done these???
19
 Measuring physical fitness
 Type of physical fitness
 Motor performance fitness
 # curlups/1 minute
 Agility test
 Health-related fitness
 Run on treadmill
 Monitor HR, blood pressure, oxygen consumption
 Skin fold test for body composition
20
21
Physical fitness activities are
training experiences that
improve our general capacity
for performing daily activities
and prevent disease processes
associated with low levels of
physical activity.
22
 Generalists vs. specialists
 Generalist: breadth of experience
 Exposure to many different types of experiences will
increase breadth of capactiy
 Advantage: enjoyment from many different physical activity
experiences; not at a high level
 Specialist: depth of capacity
 Limit physical activity to single/narrow range will have
increased depth of capacity
 Advantage: remarkable proficiency; in a limited area
23
 Principle of quality
Experiences that engage us in the critical components of
an activity are most likely to improve our capacity to
perform that activity.
 Principle of quantity
Increasing the frequency of experiences that engage us
in the critical components of a physical activity will
lead to increases in our capacity to perform that
activity.
24
 Critical component
The aspect of an activity deemed most important for
successfully performing that activity
 Task analysis
The systematic examination of a particular physical
activity for purposes of disclosing its critical
components
25
If physical activity experiences are to lead to
specific improvements in our learning and
conditioning, they must be planned
intelligently and systematically. This means
that they must engage the individual in the
critical components of the activity as
frequently as possible.
26
 Abilities as building blocks for experience
 Interactions of experience and abilities
 Underachievers
 Natural ability; fail to develop abilities through
training and practice
 Overachievers
 Little natural ability; compensate through practice and
training
27
28
Contribution of Practice,
Training, and Heredity.
Figure 3.11
29
 Think about your activity experiences and their
influence on your capacity to perform particular
skills or achieve certain levels of fitness.
 Remember that, as a Kinesiologist, you need to be
aware of the experiences of others!
30
chapter
4
The Importance of
Subjective Experiences
in Physical Activity
31
Derived from physical activity
 Emotions
 Cognitions
 Dispositions
 Knowledges
 Meanings
 Basically, subjective experiences are how we
feel, think, and react to physical activity
rather than the actual performance itself.
32
1. Always accompanied by subjective experiences
 Experiencing an activity means more than just
performing it
2. Subjective experiences are unique
 How activity makes us feel determines whether we
continue
33
3. Might do physical activities without ever asking why
or understanding purpose
 How does activity fit in larger scheme of life’s meaning?
4. Will not be meaningful unless enjoyable
 Experience may be hollow
34
One of the primary reasons we
participate in exercise and sport
is that they supply us with
unique forms of subjective
experience that are not available
in other daily activities.
35
1. Subjective experiences can help clarify the bases of
our career choices.
2. Subjective experiences can help develop our skills
as physical activity professionals.
3. Most important, how we feel and what we think
before, during, and after a physical activity largely
determines whether we will make that activity part
of our lives.
The focus is on internal dynamics rather than
external performance.
36
 Immediate subjective experiences
 Your best game
 Hole in one!
 A “bad” day
 Immediate emotional & cognitive
impressions
 Proprioceptive stimulation
 Tendon, ligaments, muscles, inner ear
 Provide information about body in space
 Biochemical changes
 Circulatory system
 Perceptions of fatigue and effort
37
 Replayed subjective experiences
Do you remember the feeling?

process of examining past experiences
 Opportunity for self reflection
 Put experience in a framework that make it more
meaningful and comprehensive
 What about some of your experiences?
38
 Sensations
 Raw, interpreted data collected through sensory organs
 Perceptions
 Means by which we interpret sensations
 Emotions
 Different from person to person
 Perceptions during activity can evoke different responses
 Angry, happy, enthusiastic, etc.
 Emotional Expression
 Tendency to reveal something about our emotional state
 Fear – tremble
 Excited – forceful or rapid movements
39
 Knowledge and subjective experience
 Rational knowledge
 Facts about history; math formulas
 Derived from using logic, reason, and analysis
 Intuitive knowledge
 Derived from subjective experiences
 Intuition – how we come to know something without
conscious reasoning
40
41
 Knowledge and subjective experience
 Psychoanalytic self-knowledge (deep-seated desires)
 And the manner in which we pursue physical activity
 Mystical knowledge (rare and special)
 Experience may take you out of the real world
 Peak performance
 Socratic self-knowledge (we know and don’t know)
 Play within yourself
42
It can be difficult to find the right words to
communicate our subjective experiences of
sport and exercise to others. It is important
that we try, however, since this helps us better
understand the personal meanings we find in
physical activity.
43
 Extrinsic approaches (to physical activity)
Valuing physical activity because of the benefits that
come from participating
 Intrinsic approaches (to exercise for health)
Valuing physical activity because of the subjective
experiences embedded within the activity itself
44
Even though sport and exercise may
provide participants with many different
kinds of benefits, most people likely
engage in them because of the unique
subjective experiences they offer.
45
 Factors related to the activity
 Evenly matched challenges
 Ability and skill go beyond challenge
 Boredom
 Challenge beyond our ability
 frustration
 Clear goals and feedback
 Feedback from coaches, teacher, etc.
 Competition
 An organizing principle that frames physical
activity
46
 Factors related to the performer
 Dispositions
 Short term, highly variable psychological states
influenced by outside factors
 Attitudes (see Kenyon ATPA)
 Relatively stable mind-set toward concrete
objects
 May be favorable or unfavorable
47
 Alone vs. with others
 Environment
 Sense of perceived freedom
48
49
We are more likely to enjoy
physical activities when the
challenges of the activity match
our abilities, when the activity has
clear goals and feedback, and
when the activity is arranged in a
competitive framework.
50
 Dispositions
 Perceived competency
 Absorption
 Perceived control
 Attitudes toward physical activity (ATPA)
 Social experience
 Health and fitness
 Pursuit of vertigo
 Aesthetic experience
 Cathartic experience
 Ascetic experience
51
 Alone vs. presence of others
 Running on a treadmill vs running in the park
 Environment
 Enriched social environment/leadership may influence
experience
 Sense of perceived freedom
 Or sense of obligation
52
Physical activities are never performed in a
vacuum; the social context and immediate
environment surrounding them can affect
our sense of enjoyment. An example of this is
how feeling forced to engage in an activity
rather than freely choosing to do it can make
it less enjoyable.
53
Watching Sports as a
Subjective Experience
 Vicarious participation
Feeling as though a person is engaged in a sport
contest he is watching
 Disinterested sports spectating
A form of watching sport contests in which the
observer is nonpartisan in his or her feelings about
the outcome
54
55
 Knowledge of game
 Game spectator knowledge
 Enhances watching experience - enjoyment
 Feelings toward the competing teams and players
 Dispositional theory of enjoyment
 Spectators applauded failed play of opponents as much as favorite team
 BIRG (bask in reflected glory)
 Greater joy when closely identify with team
 Human drama of sports competition
 Teams must be equal in talent and ability
 Underdog overcomes heavily favored opponent
56
 Physical activity involves emotions, thoughts, and
reactions.
 Physical activity professionals help people
appreciate physical activity.
 Subjective experiences are gained by participating
or watching.
 Our enjoyment of an activity is one of the greatest
determinants as to whether we continue to
engage in that physical activity. (This is
significant if maintaining or increasing
participation is key.)
57