Associations between fundamental movement skills, gymnastics and movement specific reinvestment

Abstract

The propensity for conscious monitoring and control of movement (i.e. movement specific reinvestment) influences the acquisition of movement skills. Fundamental movement skills (FMS) are basic motor skills that children must learn and accomplish as they are a key component for participation in sport and physical activity. Recreational gymnastic programmes are saturated with activities associated with the development of FMS, so this study aimed to examine the relationship between conscious control of movements, as defined by the theory of reinvestment (Masters, 1992; Masters & Maxwell, 2008; Masters, Polman, & Hammond, 1993), fundamental movement skills and gymnastic skills in children. The purpose of this study is to understand the role of movement specific reinvestment (MSR) and gymnastics experience in developing FMS and gymnastic- specific skills in children. Two hundred and two novice child gymnasts (Mean age = 8.02 ± 2.35 years; range = 5-15 years) were asked to complete a modified version of the Movement Specific Reinvestment Scale for Children (MSRS-CC) (Ling, Maxwell, Masters, McManus, & Polman, 2016; Masters, Eves, & Maxwell, 2005; Masters & Maxwell, 2008) in week 1 and week 9 of a gymnastic course to measure their propensity to consciously monitor and control their movements. Children repeated the modified MSRS-CC again in week 9 to investigate whether the propensity for movement specific reinvestment changed. The children were assessed on two basic gymnastic skills in week 1 and week 9 to investigate whether the propensity for movement specific reinvestment accounts for improvement of gymnastic skill acquisition. Children were also asked to perform four FMS from the two subcategories of object control and locomotor skills in week 1 of the gymnastic course. When registering to participate, parents indicated the level of their child’s previous gymnastic experience by answering questions to investigate if a child’s gymnastic experience and propensity for movement specific reinvestment is associated with developmental level of FMS. The results showed that out of the four measured FMS (horizontal jump, slide, stationary dribble, and underhand throw) only horizontal jump was significantly correlated with gymnastics experience, with more experience associated with better performance. The results further showed that lower scores on the Movement Specific Reinvestment Scale were associated with improvements in the gymnastic skill of the forward roll. When examining the individual contribution of CMP and MS-C to the development of the forward roll, only CMP was found to significantly account for the improvements, with higher scores on CMP associated with less improvement. Results also indicated that both CMP and MS-C increased significantly from week 1 to week 9, suggesting that post-training children tended to consciously engage in movement processing more than pre-training. Training instruction appears to impact reinvestment propensity. To accelerate children’s development of FMS, children need to reduce reinvestment, and this could be achieved with implicit instructional methods that avoid explicit directions to monitor movement and appearance.