Extreme sports as a facilitator of ecocentricity and positive life changes

Extreme sports and extreme sports participants have been most commonly explored from a negative perspective, for example the 'need to take unnecessary risks'. This study reports on findings that indicate a more positive experience. A phenomenological method was used via unstructured interviews with 15 extreme sports participants and other first hand accounts. The extreme sports included B.A.S.E. jumping, big wave surfing, extreme skiing, waterfall kayaking, extreme mountaineering and solo rope-free climbing. Results indicate that participating in activities that involve a real chance of death, fear and the realisation that nature in its extreme is far greater and more powerful than humanity triggers positive life changes, and an eco-centric standpoint.

Extreme Sports: A positive transformation in courage and humility

Extreme sports and extreme sports participants have been most commonly explored from a negative perspective, for example the “need to take unnecessary risks.” This study explored what can be learned from extreme sports about courage and humility - two positive psychology constructs. A phenomenological method was used via unstructured interviews with 15 extreme sports participants and other first hand accounts. The extreme sports included B.A.S.E. jumping, big wave surfing, extreme skiing, waterfall kayaking, extreme mountaineering and solo rope-free climbing. Results indicate that humility and courage can be deliberately sought out by participating in activities that involve a real chance of death, fear and the realisation that nature in its extreme is far greater and more powerful than humanity.

The role of extreme sports in lifestyle enhancement and wellness

Alternative sports are fast becoming the physical activity of choice. Participation rates are even outstripping more traditional activities such as golf. At their most extreme there is no second chance, the most likely outcome of a mismanaged error or accident is death. At this level participants enjoy activities such as B.A.S.E. (Buildings, Antennae, Space, Earth) jumping, big wave surfing, waterfall kayaking, extreme skiing, rope-free climbing and extreme mountaineering. Probably the most common explanation for participation in extreme sports is the notion that participation is just a matter of some people‟s need to take unnecessary risks. This study reports on findings that indicate a more positive experience. A phenomenological method was used via unstructured interviews with 15 extreme sports participants (ages 30 – 72 years) and other firsthand accounts. Extreme sport participants directly related their experience to personal transformations that spill over to life in general. Athletes report feelings of deep psychological wellbeing and meaningfulness. The extreme sport experience enables a participant to break through personal barriers and develop an understanding of their own resourcefulness and emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual capabilities. Furthermore such a breakthrough also seems to trigger a change in personal philosophy or view on life. The extreme sport experience transforms a participant though not in terms of working towards an external (social or cultural) perception of identity or towards some constructed perception of an ideal self, but by touching something within.

Risk taking in Extreme Sports: A phenomenological perspective

Participation in extreme sports is enjoying incredible growth while more traditional recreational activities such as golf are struggling to maintain numbers. Theoretical perspectives on extreme sports and extreme sport participants have assumed that participation is about risk-taking. However, these theory-driven methodologies may reflect judgments that do not necessarily relate to participants' lived experience. In this paper I review current risk-oriented perspectives on extreme sports and present research findings that question this assumed relationship between extreme sports and risk and thus reposition the experience in a hitherto unexplored manner. Risk taking is not the focus. Participants acknowledge that the potential outcome of a mismanaged mistake or accident could be death. However, accepting this potential outcome does not mean that they search for risk. Participants argue that many everyday life events (e.g., driving) are high-risk events. Participants undertake detailed preparation in order to minimise the possibility of negative outcomes because extreme sports trigger a range of positive experiential outcomes. The study is significant as it followed a hermeneutic phenomenological process which did not presuppose a risk-taking orientation. Hermeneutic phenomenology allows for a multitude of data sources including interviews (10 male and 5 female extreme sports participants, ages 30 to 72 years), auto-biographies, videos and other firsthand accounts. This process allowed this unexpected perspective to emerge more clearly.

Linking the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) and the Compendium of Physical Activities : methods and rationale

Background: The 2003 Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey (ATUS) contains 438 distinct primary activity variables that can be analyzed with regard to how time is spent by Americans. The Compendium of Physical Activities is used to code physical activities derived from various surveys, logs, diaries, etc to facilitate comparison of coded intensity levels across studies. ------ ----- Methods: This paper describes the methods, challenges, and rationale for linking Compendium estimates of physical activity intensity (METs, metabolic equivalents) with all activities reported in the 2003 ATUS. ----- ----- Results: The assigned ATUS intensity levels are not intended to compute the energy costs of physical activity in individuals. Instead, they are intended to be used to identify time spent in activities broadly classified by type and intensity. This function will complement public health surveillance systems and aid in policy and health-promotion activities. For example, at least one of the future projects of this process is the descriptive epidemiology of time spent in common physical activity intensity categories. ----- ----- Conclusions: The process of metabolic coding of the ATUS by linking it with the Compendium of Physical Activities can make important contributions to our understanding of Americans’ time spent in health-related physical activity.

Recognising team activities from noisy data

Recently, vision-based systems have been deployed in professional sports to track the ball and players to enhance analysis of matches. Due to their unobtrusive nature, vision-based approaches are preferred to wearable sensors (e.g. GPS or RFID sensors) as it does not require players or balls to be instrumented prior to matches. Unfortunately, in continuous team sports where players need to be tracked continuously over long-periods of time (e.g. 35 minutes in field-hockey or 45 minutes in soccer), current vision-based tracking approaches are not reliable enough to provide fully automatic solutions. As such, human intervention is required to fix-up missed or false detections. However, in instances where a human can not intervene due to the sheer amount of data being generated - this data can not be used due to the missing/noisy data. In this paper, we investigate two representations based on raw player detections (and not tracking) which are immune to missed and false detections. Specifically, we show that both team occupancy maps and centroids can be used to detect team activities, while the occupancy maps can be used to retrieve specific team activities. An evaluation on over 8 hours of field hockey data captured at a recent international tournament demonstrates the validity of the proposed approach.

Twitter and Sports : Football Fandom in Emerging and Established Markets

Twitter and other social media have become increasingly important tools for maintaining the relationships between fans and their idols across a range of activities, from politics and the arts to celebrity and sports culture. Twitter, Inc. itself has initiated several strategic approaches, especially to entertainment and sporting organisations; late in 2012, for example, a Twitter, Inc. delegation toured Australia in order to develop formal relationships with a number of key sporting bodies covering popular sports such as Australian Rules Football, A-League football (soccer), and V8 touring car racing, as well as to strengthen its connections with key Australian broadcasters and news organisations (Jackson & Christensen, 2012). Similarly, there has been a concerted effort between Twitter Germany and the German Bundesliga clubs and football association to coordinate the presence of German football on Twitter ahead of the 2012–2013 season: the Twitter accounts of almost all first-division teams now bear the official Twitter verification mark, and a system of ‘official’ hashtags for tweeting about individual games (combining the abbreviations of the two teams, e.g. #H96FCB) has also been instituted (Twitter auf Deutsch, 2012).

Physical activities and sedentary pursuits in African American and Caucasian girls

The purposes of this study were to describe and compare the specific physical activity choices and sedentary pursuits of African American and Caucasian American girls. Participants were 1,124 African American and 1,068 Caucasian American eighth grade students from 31 middle schools. The 3-Day Physical Activity Recall (3DPAR) was used to measure participation in physical activities and sedentary pursuits. The most frequently reported physical activities were walking, basketball, jogging or running, bicycling, and social dancing. Differences between groups were found in 11 physical activities and 3 sedentary pursuits. Participation rates were higher in African American girls (p<.001)for social dancing, basketball, watching television, and church attendance but lower in calisthenics, ballet and other dance, jogging or running, rollerblading, soccer, softball or baseball, using an exercise machine, swimming, and homework. Cultural differences of groups should be considered when planning interventions to promote physical activity.

Age related differences in the validity of the OMNI perceived exertion scale during lifestyle activities

PURPOSE The OMNI Perceived Exertion Scale was developed for children to report perceived effort while performing physical activity; however no studies have formally examined age-related differences in validity. This study evaluated the validity of the OMNI-RPE in four age groups performing a range of lifestyle activities. METHODS 206 participants were stratified into four age groups: 6-8 years (n = 42), 9-10 years (n = 46), 11-12 years (n = 47), and 13-15 years (n = 71). Heart rate and VO2 were measured during 11 activity trials ranging in intensity from sedentary to vigorous. After each trial, participants reported effort from the OMNI walk/run scale. Concurrent validity was assessed by calculating within-subject correlations between OMNI ratings and the two physiological indices. RESULTS The average correlation between OMNI ratings and VO2 was 0.67, 0.77, 0.85 and 0.87 for the 6-8, 9-10, 11-12 and 13-15 y age groups, respectively. CONCLUSION The OMNI RPE scale demonstrated fair to good evidence of validity across a range of lifestyle activities among 6-15 year old children. The validity of the scale appears to be developmentally related with RPE reports closely reflecting physiological responses among children older than 8 years.

Exploring motivations of young adults to participate in physical activities

This paper investigates the motivations of young adults aged 18 to 24 years to participate in physical activities and how technology might best support this motivation. Motivational factors were studied through contextual interviews, an adapted cultural probe activity and a survey with a group of young adults currently active in sports. From our preliminary findings we determine that staying healthy, achieving specific goals and socialising represent key motivational factors for young adults to be active in sports, but also, that exercise is not considered a high priority in their daily lives. A link between the motivation of achieving specific goals and a technology to measure and track activities was established. The study concludes with three implications for the design of technology to motivate young adults to participate in sports.

An alternative approach to describing agility in sports through establishment of a relationship between velocity and radius of curvature

Agility is an essential part of many athletic activities. Currently, agility drill duration is the sole criterion used for evaluation of agility performance. The relationship between drill duration and factors such as acceleration, deceleration and change of direction, however, has not been fully explored. This paper provides a mathematical description of the relationship between velocity and radius of curvatures in an agility drill through implementation of a power law (PL). Two groups of skilled and unskilled participants performed a cyclic forward/backward shuttle agility test. Kinematic data was recorded using motion capture system at a sampling rate of 200 Hz. The logarithmic relationship between tangential velocity and radius of curvature of participant trajectories in both groups was established using the PL. The slope of the regression line was found to be 0.26 and 0.36, for the skilled and unskilled groups, respectively. The magnitudes of regression line slope for both groups were approximately 0.3 which is close to the expected 1/3 value. Results are an indication of how the PL could be implemented in an agility drill thus opening the way for establishment of a more representative measure of agility performance instead of drill duration.

The Sports Demonstration Project – An initiative of the Australian Sports Commission: An Evaluation

The Sport Development Project (SDP) was a comprehensive youth strategy for sport in the Northern Territory aimed at diversion from ‘at-risk’ behaviours, improvement of life choices and outcomes, and strengthening youth service infrastructure through engagement in positive (sport) activities. There were five Remote Service Delivery sites that were involved in the trial of this ‘best practice’ model for delivering sport-focused diversion activities. These include: Gapuwiyak, Wadeye, Yuendumu, Gunbalunya and Nguiu.