Abstract

The relationship of sporting ability to balancing ability was examined using a proactive transfer design and two versions of the stabilometer balance task. Highly skilled sportsmen and non-sportsmen (n=48) were sub-divided into experimental and control groups so that 24 trials on the standard task over two days were followed by 12 trials on the transfer task on a third day. The hypothesis that the high skill group would perform better than the low skill group on both tasks was supported as was the prediction that the highly skilled subjects would demonstrate more ability to transfer to the second task. The prediction that the rate of learning would be faster for the high skill group was not supported. These findings are in accordance with the view that special coordinative abilities are possessed by gifted sportspeople and that they are able to utilise these abilities to vacilitate adaptation to novel motor problems. Verf.-Referat