The purpose of this study is to identify potential recreational activity interests of Hopkins County middle school students, thereby assisting the Hopkins County Family YMCA in teen program development. In addition, the study investigates potential constraints these students encounter. One hundred and twenty-five students from four public middle schools participated in the recreation needs assessment. The recreation needs assessment instrument consisted of five activity categories (arts and crafts activities; dance, drama, and music activities; literary activities; nature activities; and sports and games). Category activity selections were limited to those activities the Hopkins County Family YMCA was willing and/or capable of offering considering current human, facility, and fiscal resources. Overall, the adolescent's selected photography, basketball, and modern dance lessons as the top three recreational activities. The assessment's findings also indicated the number one reason for nonparticipation in after school or weekend recreation activities is "I'm too busy to participate" regardless of gender.

Distributive justice outcomes of punishment in an intercollegiate team sport setting were investigated. Male intercollegiate athletes (#=148) participating in the NAIA National Soccer Championship Tournament responded to one of eight scenarios and reported perceived fairness to player, fairness to teammates, deterrence to future player misconduct, and deterrence to future teammate misconduct. The results indicated that athletes perceive consistent distribution of punishment as more fair than conditional distribution of punishment; consistently distributed punishment is perceived to be more likely to deter future misconduct than conditional punishment; punishment, in general, is perceived as more fair when the violation committed is severe as opposed to moderately severe; severe punishment is perceived to deter future misconduct more often than moderately severe punishment when the violation is severe; and severe and moderate punishment are equally likely to deter future misconduct when the violation is moderately severe.

Distributive justice refers to the perceptions of fairness of outcomes received by individuals for their efforts in organizational settings. Punishment is frequently used to eliminate offensive or undesirable behavior in organizations. The present study was based on distributive justice theory and assessed the effects of severity of punishment and the application of distributive justice rules in a sports team setting. Eight scenarios were developed combining two levels of distribution of punishment (consistent or conditional), two levels of severity of misconduct (severe or moderate), and two levels of severity of punishment (severe or moderate). It was hypothesized that consistent punishment across all team members, including the star player, would be perceived as more fair than conditional punishment. It was also hypothesized that more severe punishment would act as a greater deterrent to future offenses than moderate punishment. Each participant responded to one scenario and was asked to rate the following: the fairness of the punishment to the player, the fairness of the punishment to the rest of the team, the likelihood that the punishment will deter the player from future misconduct, and the likelihood that the punishment will deter the other players from future misconduct. The results indicated full support for the first hypothesis and partial support for the second.

The organizational justice perspective suggests that procedural and distributive justice evaluations of a specific punishment event will affect an individual's reactions to the punishment. A 3 (decision-making procedure: autocratic, participative, group) X 3 (punishment severity: low, moderate, high) factorial design was utilized to develop punishment scenarios in team-sport settings which were evaluated by 205 participants. Decision-making procedure and punishment severity both produced significant main effects on evaluations of the fairness of the procedure. Only punishment severity produced a significant main effect on perceptions of the fairness and appropriateness of the punishment, as well as on perceptions of the likelihood of the punishment to deter future violations. Implications for future research and coaching effectiveness are discussed.

This thesis was designed to determine the importance of military recreation programs in improving the quality of life of United States service men and women. The study utilized a survey conducted on Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in the Spring of 1995. The results were analyzed individually and as a group. The findings were that military recreation programs play an important role in the quality of life of United States service men and women and their families. These findings were supported by the review of related literature and results from the survey which showed that 70% of the respondent's "Agreed" or "Strongly Agreed" that military recreation programs play a significant role in quality of life in the military. The findings also indicated that those persons who "Strongly Agreed" that military recreation programs play a significant role in quality of life in the military participate in an average of 6.2 programs while those who "Disagreed" participate in an average of 3.5 programs. The investigator also discovered that respondents "Definitely" planning to make a career of the military participated in an average of 6.28 programs each, while those respondents "Definitely Not" planning to make a career of the military participated in 5.1 programs each.

Study Design. Cross-sectional survey among athletes competing at the collegiate level in basketball, swimming, and track and field, as well as a matched nonathletic control group. Objective. To compare the prevalence of low back pain between sports: basketball, swimming, and track and field, as well as nonathletic control group. Summary of Background Data. With conflicting reports, it is not clear whether athletes are at higher risk for low back pain when compared to nonathletic counterparts. Some literature has found that low back pain was less common in former elite athletes when compared to nonathletes; however, much of the literature supports that athletes experience more low back pain. Methods. Self-reported questionnaire on low back pain adapted for sports based on the Nordic questionnaires for musculoskeletal symptoms. Responders were 10 basketball players, 57 swimmers, 47 track and field athletes and 382 controls. Results. The main findings of the current study support previous literature displaying a greater prevalence of low back experienced in athletes when compared to age-and-sex matched controls. This study found a significant relationship of reported low back pain as age and weight increased. Conclusions. Athletes have a greater prevalence of low back pain when compared to their less athletic peers. A larger sample size could suggest a significant relationship between the prevalence of low back pain and training volume, training season and sport.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The physical limits of the human being have been the object of study for a considerable time. Human and exercise physiology, in combination with multiple other related disciplines, studied the function of the organs and their relationship during exercise. When studying the mechanisms causing the limits of the human body, most of the research has focused on the locomotor muscles, lungs and heart. Therefore, it is not surprising that the limit of the performance has predominantly been explained at a "peripheral" level. Many studies have successfully demonstrated how performance can be improved (or not) by manipulating a "peripheral" parameter. However, in most cases it is the brain that regulates and integrates these physiological functions, and much of the contemporary literature has ignored its potential role in exercise performance. This may be because moderating brain function is fraught with difficulty, and challenging to measure. However, with the recent introduction and development of new non-invasive devices, the knowledge regarding the behaviour of the central nervous system during exercise can be advanced. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) are two such methods. These methods can transiently moderate the activity of a targeted brain area, potentially altering the regulation of a particular physiological (or psychological) system, and consequently eliciting a change in exercise performance. Despite the promising theory, there is little or no experimental data regarding the potential to moderate neurophysiological mechanisms through tDCS to improve exercise performance. Consequently, the experiments performed as part of this thesis investigated the capacity for tDCS to alter physical performance. The ability of tDCS as a targeted and selective intervention at the brain level provides the unique opportunity to reduce many methodological constraints that might limit or confound understanding regarding some of the key physiological mechanisms during exercise. Therefore, the primary aim of this thesis was to investigate how tDCS may moderate both central and peripheral neurophysiological mechanisms, and how this may effect various exercise tasks. The first study investigated the effect of a well-documented analgesic tDCS montage on exercise-induced muscle pain. This study demonstrated for the first time, that although anodal tDCS of the motor cortex (M1) reduces pain in a cold pressor task, it does not elicit any reduction in exercise-induced muscle pain and consequently has no effect on exercise performance. As reductions in exercise-induced pain have previously been documented to improve performance, probably the lack of effect was due to either the M1 having a limited processing role in exercise-induced pain, or that the cathodal stimulation of the prefrontal cortex negated any positive impact of anodal M1 stimulation. Given the lack of guidelines for tDCS electrode montage for exercise, the second study examined the effect of different electrode montages on isometric performance and the neuromuscular response of knee extensor muscle. Given that the anode increases excitability and the cathode decreases excitability, the placement of these has the potential to elicit significant effects on exercise performance. The results showed that exercise performance improved only when an extrachepalic tDCS montage was applied to the M1, but in the absence of changes to the measured neuromuscular parameters. These results suggest that tDCS can have a positive effect on single limb submaximal exercise, but not on maximal muscle contraction. The improvement in performance was probably the consequence of the reduction in perceived exertion for a given load. This is the first experiment showing an improvement in exercise performance on single joint exercise of the lower limbs following tDCS. The results suggest that the extrachepalic set-up is recommended for exercise studies in order to avoid any potential negative effect of the cathodal electrode. Previous studies investigating tDCS have shown its potential to alter autonomic activity, and in some circumstances reduce the cardiovascular response during exercise. Considering the emerging studies and applications of tDCS on exercise and the potential benefits of tDCS in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, the third study monitored multiple cardiovascular variables following tDCS in a group of healthy volunteers. Using more advanced techniques and methods compared to previous research, including the post exercise ischemia technique and transthoracic bioimpedance, the results suggest that tDCS administration has no significant effect on the cardiovascular response in healthy individuals. The final study sought to apply the findings obtained in the study 2 to whole body exercise. The same extrachepalic set up was applied over both the motor cortices, with both anodal and cathodal stimulation conditions. The neuromuscular response and cycling performance was also monitored. Following anodal tDCS, time to exhaustion and motor cortex excitability of lower limbs increased. Interestingly, cathodal stimulation did not induce any change in cycling performance or neuromuscular response. This study demonstrated for the first time the ability of anodal tDCS to improve performance of a constant load cycling task, and highlights the inability of cathodal tDCS to decrease cortical activation during muscle contraction. Taken together, the experiments performed as part of this thesis provide new insights on how brain stimulation influences exercise performance, with notable findings regarding the role of M1 excitability and perception of effort. Furthermore, considering the lack of knowledge regarding the use of tDCS on exercise, these findings will help further understanding of how to apply tDCS in exercise science. This consequently improves the knowledge base regarding the effect of tDCS on exercise and provides both a methodological and theoretical foundation on which future research can be based.

State agencies in many Western nations have utilised sport and physical activity as a means of facilitating various sporting and non-sporting policy outcomes. Surprisingly, however, there remains a dearth of empirical research addressing the working lives of those community sports coaches who are responsible for enacting such initiatives. This includes not only what community sports coaches consider to be the everyday challenges, tensions, and dilemmas that they experience in their work, but also how and why they attempt to navigate these issues in the ways that they do. Similarly, little consideration has been given towards understanding how the employment demands of community sports work impacts upon their health and well-being. To partially address the situation, this thesis provides an insight into the micropolitical and emotional challenges faced by two community sports coaches, Greg and James, when enacting a government-funded initiative to increase young people’s participation in sport and physical activity. Data for this study were collected in two interrelated phases. Phase I entailed the use of participant observations to explore the behaviours and interactions of Greg and James as they sought to realise the programme outcomes in practice. Following the observations, Greg and James participated in a series of in-depth, one-to-one, informal interviews. The fieldnotes and interview transcripts were subjected to an iterative and recursive process of analysis that occurred alongside data collection and writing. Several interrelated themes were identified across Greg’s and James’s career stories and were principally understood in relation to the work of Kelchtermans (e.g. Kelchtermans, 2005; 2011; Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002a, 2002b), Goffman (1990 [1959]), Hochschild (2012 [1983]), Bauman (2007), Burke and Stets (2009), and Stryker (2002 [1980]). I contend that the inherent structural vulnerabilities of their community coaching jobs, as well as their determination to protect and advance their respective careers in order to fulfil various non-workplace ambitions, meant that Greg and James had to learn to act micropolitically. It is believed that by recognising the ambiguity, pathos, and dynamic complexity of Greg’s and James’s community sports work this investigation offers a more reality grounded understanding of this topic area.

Establishing the accurate quantification of the training load is a key focus for researchers and sport scientists to maximise the likelihood of appropriate training prescription. In the field, there are numerous methods adopted to quantify the physiological, physical, mechanical, and other loads placed on team sports athletes, including global positioning systems, accelerometry, heart rate and session rating of perceived exertion. Each method can be classified within one of two theoretical constructs: the external or internal training load. Due to the lack of a gold standard criterion, previous research has investigated validity through relationships with criterion measures of load or dose-response associations with chronic changes in physical fitness. The current research designs within investigations into the validity of those methods have failed to consider the influence of the mode of training on the validity of the measures. As strength and conditioning coaches utilise a variety of training modes to stress the various physiological systems to promote the adaptations required to succeed in competition, investigating the influence of training type on training load validity is warranted. To achieve this, the research (Chapters 3-6) was conducted within two professional rugby league clubs, where training load data (global positioning system, accelerometry, heart rate, session rating of perceived exertion) were collected across three twelve week pre-season preparatory periods. Training sessions were demarcated by training mode. The results of the first study showed that meaningful differences in the distances covered within arbitrary speed-and metabolic power-derived-thresholds exist between field-based training modes (small-sided games, conditioning, skills, speed). These differences in external load also led to differences in the perceptual- and heart-rate-derived internal load response. Establishing how those differences in demands influence the relationships between multiple external and internal training load methods is important to establish the validity of individual methods across different modes of training. In our case study approach in study two, the main finding was that when session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) demonstrated trivial differences across multiple skills training sessions, large variation was present (coefficient of variation range 31-93%) in other training load methods (individualised training impulse [iTRIMP], Body Load™, Total Number of Impacts, high-speed distance) which reduced (coefficient of variation range 3-78%) when sRPE demonstrated trivial differences during small-sided games. This provided initial evidence that training load measures provide different information which might be influenced by the training mode. However, a more comprehensive investigation was needed. In the third study we aimed to examine the influence of training mode on the variance explained between measures of external (arbitrary high-speed distance, Body Load™, total-impacts) and internal (iTRIMP, sRPE) training load over two twelve week pre-season preparatory periods. This was replicated in our fourth study, across a shorter period of training from a different team utilising different methods in which to represent the external (individualised high-speed distance, PlayerLoad™) and internal (heart rate exertion index [HREI], sRPE) training load. During both investigations, we determined the structure of the interrelationships of multiple internal and external load methods via a principal-component analysis (PCA). Within the findings of both investigations, the extraction of multiple dimensions (two principal components) in certain modes of training suggests a single training load measure cannot explain all the information provided by multiple measures used to represent the training load in professional rugby league players. Therefore, if a single measure is used this could underrepresent the actual load imposed onto players. However, establishing the ‘dose-response’ associations between training load and the changes in training outcomes, such as physical fitness is also needed to establish validity. As a result, during study five, we aimed to determine the influence of training mode on the ‘dose-response’ relationship between measures of external (PlayerLoad™ ) and internal (sRPE, HREI) training load and acute changes in physical performance (countermovement jump, 10- and 20-m sprint, Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test level 1) following conditioning and speed training. sRPE was the only training load measure to provide meaningful relationships with changes in Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test level 1 performance. This provides the first evidence of the acute dose-response validity of the sRPE method. No measure provided meaningful relationships with all changes in performance. Therefore, further investigation is warranted to establish whether a combination of measures reflect better those changes than individual measures. The findings of the thesis suggests that practitioner should consider the implementation of both external and internal training load methods within their monitoring practices and researchers should establish multivariate and mode-specific relationships between training load methods to elucidate appropriate evidence of validity.