Search

Studies have shown that doping behavior emerges from contexts. Educational research would therefore be enriched by explorations of the situatedness of athletes’ activity and its dynamics of development inside sporting life courses. The principles can be summarized as (a) the connection between antidoping and athletes’ time-specific and meaningful concerns, (b) the creation of fields of possible activity that preserve athletes from doping, (c) the focus on propensities toward activities that pull athletes away from doping, and (d) the regular and timely updating of programs. Following this, the general framework for the antidoping education of elite athletes comprises four levels articulated by their distribution over the periods of athletes’ careers: (a) creating and maintaining a global antidoping culture via continuous socialization, (b) developing a sustained antidoping background via situated activities, (c) supporting punctual and specific needs with free services for all athletes, and (d) promoting tertiary prevention and post-career education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of the present article was to present a specific activity approach called the ‘life course of a practice’ that could be used for the analysis of the long-term dynamic of learning within diverse social practices. The cases of unethical actions (doping) within a population of high-level athletes were examined, considering they could be fruitful examples for this type of analysis. After describing the theoretical construct ‘life course of a practice’, the places of these unethical actions in the sporting life courses and elements that characterize their emergence in the long-term dynamics are described. Last, targeted prevention measures of unethical actions over a lifetime are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to identify the links between the use of prohibited performance-enhancing substances and the changing characteristics of athletes' activity within the framework of situated action and dynamical investigations. The changes in diverse components of activity (e.g. performance, forms of training, modes of involvement) of 10 elite track and field athletes (5 with 2-year suspensions) were compared. Data were collected by enquiries and structured and self-confrontation interviews. Results showed that during the use of prohibited substances, doping athletes appeared (1) to be closed to all external environmental offers except training and performance, (2) to experience changes in their sporting results and (3) to be experiencing disturbances in their lives. Doping appeared after (4) a specific number of years of sporting activity (i.e. 17 years), (5) a specific path had been followed (i.e. a shorter time spent in 'open focus' during the development of activity), (6) 2 years of regular legal substance use, (7) a change in training and (8) a period of personal distress. A signature of doping activity was identified in relation to suffering athletes. Several initial conditions that lead to prohibited substance use were extracted and are utilized for educational programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Substance Use & Misuse is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents a particular form of reflective practice used with elite French acrobatics athletes since 1999. The practice is based on course-of-experience theory, which provides a methodology for analysing athletes' activity in relation to the stream of their situated and pre-reflexive consciousness that emerges during performance. Traces of past activity and self-confrontational interviews provide the elements of this experience, as well as support for the reflective practice in articulation with training. Five orientations for intervening to enhance performance shape the process of learning or help athletes with performance blocks are identified and illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of this study were to identify and analyse elite athletes' problems in competition. A situated cognition approach placed the emphasis on athletes' actions (i.e. cognitions and behaviours), which were considered to emerge from couplings with selected elements of the context. Fifty-two exercises performed by 10 elite trampolinists were analysed. Field observations, structured interviews, and self-confrontation interviews were conducted and transcribed, and used together with behavioural descriptions derived from video recordings. Performance problems were selected from these reports and from the major infringements of trampoline rules. Qualitative analysis identified the meaningful units of action and their semiotic components for each problem. Four categories of problem were identified and noted to appear either separately or jointly while performing: (a) finding the best moment to begin the performance; (b) finding and maintaining the best mode of involvement to end the performance; (c) recovering normal sensory-motor capacity to perform; and (d) solving problems quickly and definitively while performing. The results suggest that the study of action – situation couplings in sports, as well as of their constantly evolving dynamics, not only reveals elite athletes' psychological activity, but is vital to a deeper understanding of these couplings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]