Abstract
Inhibition is a central component of human behavior. It enables flexible and adaptive behavior by suppressing prepotent motor responses. In former studies, it has been shown that sport athletes acting in dynamic environments exhibit superior motor inhibitory control based on sensory stimuli. So far, existing studies have corroborated this in manual motor response settings only. Therefore, this study addresses the effector specificity of the inhibition benefit in elite athletes compared to physically active controls. A sport-unspecific stop-signal task has been adapted for hand as well as feet usage and 30 elite handball players as well as 30 controls were tested. A repeated-measures ANOVA with the two factors “effector” (hands, feet) and “group” (expert, recreational athletes) was conducted. Our results suggest no group differences in two-choice response times, but a convincing superiority of handball players in inhibitory control (i.e., shorter stop-signal reaction times), predominantly when responding with their hands, with weaker differential effects when responding with their feet. This suggests that motor inhibition might be a comprehensive performance characteristic of sport athletes acting in dynamic environments, detectable predominantly in eye-hand coordination tasks.
Highlights
Imagine you stand on a soccer field in an offensive play and receive a pass in the midfield from your teammate
An open question is the motor-effector specificity concerning the superiority in inhibitory control in elite athletes. This present study investigated whether response inhibition is effector-specific and how this is related to motor expertise
Since all previous studies we found on this topic tested response inhibition with finger movements, we had a strong hypothesis for differences in the hand condition with superior performance of expert athletes
Summary
Imagine you stand on a soccer field in an offensive play and receive a pass in the midfield from your teammate. Athletes’ benefits have been shown when the sensory inhibition signal is visual or acoustic, when the motor response (or not-response) is required manually (i.e., pressing buttons) and when athletes used manual actions and tools for their sports expertise (e.g., Taekwondo and fencing athletes in Brevers et al, 2018; tennis players in Wang et al, 2013; fencers in Zhang et al, 2015) In all these sports, motor actions with lower extremities such as sprinting and stopping after a run, change-of-direction skills, jumping and delaying the jump, preparing and retarding an explosive step forward, reacting or not-reacting to feints etc., are essential for elite performance. Motor performance superiority related to lower extremities for elite athletes in jumping, sprinting, tapping etc., compared to non-athletes is well established and among others, linked to greater muscular strength in sports athletes (Suchomel et al, 2016, for review)
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