PhD S.V. Mukhaev¹
Dr.Hab., Professor L.A. Semenov^2
1Enisei Basketball Club, Krasnoyarsk
²Surgut State Pedagogical University, Surgut

Keywords: sport technologies, conversion principle in sports, elite sport, youth sports, sportizated physical education, implementation and adaptation rules, conversion model.

Background. The conversion principle offered by V.K. Bal’sevich determines the process of the elite sport technologies being implemented and/or adapted in mass physical education and sport practices [1, 2]. For the last few years the principle has been pursued in the innovative physical education models as outlined in the studies by L.I. Lubysheva [3, 4] et al.

We believe that the conversion principle may be highly relevant in the modern conditions and have important theoretical and practical implications on every level of the sports sector from elite sports to youth sports at CYSS and sportizated physical education at comprehensive schools. It should be noted that the modern sport technologies must be converted not only vertically as mentioned above but also horizontally – from one sport discipline to others. 

This approach is explained by the fact that, first, the modern high technologies that have proved beneficial in some elite sports may not always be directly applied in youth sports and definitely fail to reach the sportizated physical education system. Second, the horizontal conversion could facilitate the most efficient models being transferred from one sport discipline to others – with due consideration for the sport specifics and other relevant factors. 

Objective of the study was to provide a theoretical basis for the modern high technology conversion in sports.

Study results and discussion. The problem of the adequate conversion procedures being developed to adapt new technologies to new conditions is multisided in many aspects and, hence, requires a number of the issues being addressed in the following sequential manner: specify the subject for conversion; identify the horizontal and vertical conversion paths; outline the process logics and principles; and develop the relevant conversion mechanism(s). 

The conversion subject specification component based on the classification of the modern sport technologies as provided by our latest study [5] gives the means to decide on how the advanced technologies will be implemented and adapted horizontally – from one sport discipline to others – and vertically from elite sports downstream to youth sports and sportizated physical education system.

The horizontal conversion is determined by the conversion vectors in the theory and practice of the technologically reinforced subject sport discipline, with the actual changes depending on the classes of the converted technologies as follows: micro-technologies designed to improve efficiencies of specific practices leaving intact traditional forms of training; meso-technologies designed to improve efficiency of certain training forms leaving intact the athletic training system on the whole; and meta- and macro-technologies geared to redesign the athletic training system within the technologically reinforced sport discipline on new theoretical basics and approaches to the key training forms, i.e. totally redesigning ones.

Having analysed a variety of the conversional changes, we may assume that the horizontal conversion process driven by harmonisation of the four classes of sport technologies may produce a perfect technology for an elite athletic training system in a specific sport discipline. Generally, such a technology may be structured in the following way: meta-technologies that determine frame approaches to the athletic training process and set forth the training process strategies; macro-technologies that offer a frame for the macro- and meso-cycles of the training processes based on the above-specified strategies, specific principles and competitive policies within a sport discipline; meso-technologies geared to advance the athletic training systems in the sport-specific training systems; and micro-technologies designed to facilitate progress in specific training subsystems by specific target methods and tools.

As for the vertical conversion, the sport technology adaptation is determined, first of all, by specifics of the training technologies in elite sports, youth sports and sportizated physical education system. Elite sports set high standards for the technologies converted from different sport disciplines to some specific sport discipline. Algorithms of the converted technologies must be more efficient and speed up the training goals being attained versus the traditional technologies, making no harm at the same time to the balance of training forms in developing the discipline-specific qualities etc., i.e. must be designed to avoid distortions in the discipline-specific training system framework. It is also important to ensure that the physical training regimen of the input technologies are higher than the competitive regimen of the technologically reinforced sport discipline, with the training tools being harmonised with the kinematic characteristics of the sport-specific motor abilities. Therefore, the key task at this level of conversion is to select the technology meeting the above conditions.

Adaptive changes must be started from partial transformations or modifications of the training tools as required by the technologies with consideration for the sport discipline specifics. For example, the initiatives to adapt some track-and-field speed- and speed-strength athletic training technologies in the basketball training system may require some basketball-specific motor skills (lacking in the track-and-field sports) being introduced in the technologies – for instance, a defensive footwork with sideward and backward rushes and frequent variations of the movement vector, pace and timing. Special weights or appliances designed to vary the movement strength or speed (for instance, rubber cords for sprint skills building) need to be adapted to the basketball footwork specifics.

The above-mentioned adaptive initiatives may be ranked with the sport-specific skill development technologies; whilst the body conditioning technologies may be applied either in an unchanged format or discretionally limited in terms of the training process time and intensity; and may be used as supplementing at the body conditioning stages of the training process or alternatively for the injury-prevention and body rehabilitation (after high loads) purposes etc.

In modern youth sports a higher priority is given to other crucial aspects for success of the technology conversion initiative: e.g. the technology needs to be customised to the mental and physiological capacities of the growing body, with a special attention to the sensitive periods and gender-specific needs and responses.

It is based on the knowledge of the sensitive periods in the motor skills development process that the special training process management tools must be applied to stimulate the specific qualities being developed in the certain age ranges. This process customisation necessarily implies the specific training loads being varied within the converted technologies. It is important to mention that the sensitive periods are gender-specific that means that both men and women are differently sensitive to the combined training loads geared to develop specific physical qualities in parallel with the motor skills mastering under variable (eased or intensified) training conditions. Therefore, the same technology being adapted in gender-specific training processes must be customised to the gender groups by the training loads, time and intensity being duly managed.

The above gender specificity is quite sensitive to the training process designs and practical methods and tools. At this stage of the conversion process, subject to the adaptive changes are not only the training tools but also the converted technology mechanisms including the proportions of the partial training loads and volumes. Therefore, the key goal of the conversion process is to identify the areas of the converted technology that may be varied to customise it to the sport-, age- and gender-specific training needs, conditions etc.; and what must be retained in the technological mechanisms, design algorithms and operations.

Sport technology conversion specifics in the sportizated physical education system are determined by the following factors: time efficiency to ensure due physical and sport training within the weekly micro-cycle; school training schedules need to be harmonised with the school education process; differences in the schoolchildren’s fitness levels; actual conditions for the physical training and sporting activity (available sport assets including gyms, stadiums, swimming pools, special equipment, tools etc.). It is not unusual that the training volumes are cut down in the conversion process and the training tools are customised to the actual physical education and sporting conditions.

One of the key specific features of this conversion level is that it implies particular structural elements of the converted technology being changed with an emphasis on the training process stages. It should be noted that in the elite sports training process the top priority is given to the sport form being managed as required by the competitive schedule, with the relevant implications for the micro-, meso- and macro-cycles of the training system – versus the training process in the sportizated physical education system where these technological elements are strictly determined by the school education schedules, with the school weeks, quarters and years considered training micro-, meso- and macro-cycles, respectively. Therefore, the key goal of the conversion process at this level is to adjust the converted technology elements to the school schedules.

We believe that the shortage of theoretically grounded conversion policies and practices is the prime reason for the awkward attempts to discretionally adapt the advanced sport technologies straight to the sportizated school physical education system bypassing the natural adaptation stages on the way from elite sports via youth sports and only then to school sports. As a result, the attempts to integrate the high sport technologies to the sportizated scool physical education systems are rather inconsistent, discretional and poorly grounded. It may be pertinent to mention that such discretional efforts may be detrimental to the key components of the high technologies that imply the technological elements being duly harmonised to attain the design benefits; and when these elements are sacrificed, the benefits may hardly be attained.

Having analysed the high sport technology adaptation specifics in elite sports and youth sports and sportizated school physical education system, we obtained good grounds to offer the following key rules of the sport technology adaptation and implementation:

• Subject to the adaptive changes must be the non-frame elements of the technology that cover the content of physical practices, training process specifics and workload management within training sessions and micro-, meso- and macro-cycles with a special emphasis on age-, gender- and fitness-specific intensity management components; and
• The conceptual frame of the technology must be left intact at every level of the conversion process for the reason that the frame determines the core technology with its basic ideas and principles pivotal for the systemic operation mechanisms, design and work algorithms.
• Now as we have developed the sport technologies systemic classification model [5]; outlined the specifics of the horizontal and vertical conversion processes and implementation levels; offered the high sport technology adaptation and implementation rules conditional on the horizontal and vertical conversion process components being duly harmonised – we find it possible to offer the following frame model of the technology conversion process: see Figure 1.

Figure 1. Frame model of the technology conversion in the process of the high sport technology being adapted in elite sports, youth sports and sportizated school physical education system.

Conclusion. The frame conversion model offered herein outlines the sport technologies conversion process design with its essential elements and the relevant causes and effects. The study gives the means to advance the training theory and practices at every stage of the long-term training process on the way from sportizated physical education to youth sports and up to elite sports. The model makes it possible to design the education and training process in the whole sport system from the sportizated physical education to youth sports and up to elite sports – based on the consolidated modern approaches.

References

1. Bal'sevich V.K. Konversiya vysokikh tekhnologiy sportivnoy podgotovki kak aktualnoe napravlenie sovershenstvovaniya fizicheskogo vospitaniya i sporta dlya vsekh [Conversion of high technologies of sports training as actual direction of improving physical education and sport for all]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 1993, no. 4, pp. 21-23.
2. Bal'sevich V.K., Natalov G.G., Chernyshenko Y.K. Konversiya osnovnykh polozhenii teorii sportivnoy podgotovki v protsesse fizicheskogo vospitaniya [Conversion of basic statement of theory of sports training in physical education process]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 1997, no. 6, pp. 15-25.
3. Lubysheva L.I. Konversiya vysokikh sportivnykh tekhnologiy kak metodologicheskiy printsip sportizirovannogo fizicheskogo vospitaniya i «sporta dlya vsekh» [Conversion of high sports technologies as methodological principle of sportizted physical education and "sport for all"]. Fizicheskaya kultura: vospitanie, obrazovanie, trenirovka, 2015, no. 4, pp. 6-8.
4. Lubysheva L.I. Sportizatsiya v obshcheobrazovatelnoy shkole [Sportization at secondary school]. Moscow: Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury i sporta publ., 2009, 168 p.
5. Mukhaev S.V., Semenov L.A. Konkretizatsiya predmeta konversii na osnove vydeleniya razlichnykh klassov sportivnykh tekhnologiy [Specification of subject of conversion by allocating various classes of sports technologies]. Fizicheskaya kultura: vospitanie, obrazovanie, trenirovka, 2016, no. 1, pp. 9-11.

Corresponding author: smukhaev@bk.ru

Abstract

The study provides theoretical grounds for the principle of the advanced technology conversion in sports, with the conversion process designed on the vertical (from elite sports to youth sports and further to sportizated physical education) and horizontal bases (from one sport discipline to others). The key conversion process rules and frame process model are offered. 

The frame conversion model offered herein outlines the sport technologies conversion process design with its essential elements and the relevant causes and effects. The study gives the means to advance the training theory and practices at every stage of the long-term training process on the way from sportizated physical education to youth sports and up to elite sports. The model makes it possible to design the education and training process in the whole sport system from the sportizated physical education to youth sports and up to elite sports – based on the consolidated modern approaches.