Specificity of Postural Control: Comparing Expert and Intermediate Dancers

• Published in: Journal of motor behavior Vol. 51; no. 3; pp. 259 - 271
• Main Authors: Munzert, Jörn, Müller, Jelena, Joch, Michael, Reiser, Mathias
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Routledge 04-05-2019; Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subjects: Adult; Biomechanical Phenomena - physiology; Dance; Dancing - education; Dancing - physiology; expertise; Female; Humans; Male; Motor Skills - physiology; Postural Balance - physiology; postural performance; Posture; Posture - physiology; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; specificity hypothesis; Young Adult; specificity hypothesis; expertise; dance; postural performance
• ISSN: 0022-2895; 1940-1027
• DOI: 10.1080/00222895.2018.1468310

The expert-novice approach is inappropriate for studying postural control in sport and dance when novices are completely unable to perform relevant postural tasks and experts cannot demonstrate specific skills on everyday postural tasks. We tested expertise-specific differences on 6 static everyday and 5 dynamic dance-like postural tasks of varying difficulty in 13 professional and 12 intermediate nonprofessional dancers. Results showed a clear expert advantage on sway area for dance-like postural tasks, but not for static everyday tasks. This effect was also found for the control parameter of root mean square (RMS) velocity and partly for RMS amplitude of the difference signal between CoP and CoG line location. Results indicate that the expert advantage is task-specific and deliver new insights into the specificity of experts' postural performance.