O.V. Kostromin¹
Dr.Hab., Associate Professor G.V. Rudenko¹
V.A. Dorofeev^1
1St. Petersburg Mining University, St. Petersburg

Keywords: professional physical education, adaptation to professional activity, mining university students, boxing.

Background. In view of the job-specific conditions, requirements to and responsibilities of modern mining specialties (for the purposes of the study the term ‘mining specialties’ collectively refers herein to a variety of the underground mining engineering trades including mining technology engineer, mining machinery engineer, mining process surveyor, mining engineer-physicist, mining electrical engineer etc.), specific conditions of the underground mining operations and still poor physical fitness of the mining university graduates, the mining industry management gives a growing priority to the applied physical training models for the mining university students. The valid academic physical education curriculum offers an applied professional physical training course albeit it is still rather unspecific and limited, plus regulated by very general recommendations only and, hence, not efficient enough as far as the job-specific physical qualities and skills critical for success in a mining career are concerned [2].

Objective of the study was to provide theoretical grounds for and offer a vocational-sports-driven professional training model for mining university students.

Methods and structure of the study. Having analyzed the job-specific conditions, requirements and responsibilities and the popularity of different academic sports in the Mining Universities Sport Festivals, we found academic boxing being the most advantageous sport for future mining specialists. To further substantiate this assumption by comprehensive and more inclusive data on the subject and other matters with concern to the physical education models most efficient for the beginner and academic courses at national mining, mining-and-steel-production, polytechnic and industrial universities, we made resort to a questionnaire survey.

The questionnaire survey data showed most of the preparatory training departments at mining universities offering their physical education services with the relevant vocational sport disciplines (28 sports in total). Volleyball mastered by the beginner groups at 26 mining universities was ranked most popular by the respondents; followed by boxing (24 universities). Martial arts and wrestling sports were ranked third on the list (21 universities); followed by basketball and track and field sports (16 universities); and weightlifting sports (13 universities). Taking into account, however, the job-specific conditions, requirements to and responsibilities of a mining specialist, we arrived to conclusion that modern academic boxing is the most beneficial for the professional physicality and mentality building in the future mining engineers.

One of the reasons for us to give preference to academic boxing was that the practices may be easily complemented and supported by basics of other sports, elementary practices and basic body conditioning tools viewed as an indispensable part of the education and training system. The modern boxing sport requires a variety of physical qualities to be well-developed, and this is the reason why additional sports and body conditioning elements and practices were included in the academic boxing course design and even dominated over special training practices. The training system was designed with domination of the body conditioning practices over the special training ones – even at the special precompetitive training stages in elite boxing groups as opposed to many other sport disciplines where the special training practices take one-and-a-half to two more times than the body conditioning ones. In the beginner boxing groups, for instance, the body conditioning practices normally take 3-4 times as much time as the special ones. Such a design of the modern academic boxing systems meets the key requirement to the leading sport discipline that requires the core sport discipline to be easily combined with and supported by an array of additional physical education and sport tools.

Furthermore, today it is common knowledge that the modern competitive boxing sport is highly demanding to mental fitness. Every boxing fight is extremely challenging and competitive and, hence, demands the following qualities to be well developed:

• Perfect perceptive qualities required to control every fight situation, closely watch each action by the opponent and timely and effectively respond by the footwork, attack and defence;
• Psychomotor qualities to perfectly coordinate movements, counter attacks and control own punching power;
• Intellectual qualities to analyze fight situations and respond by the most efficient tactical decisions as dictated by the situation assessment and forecast; and
• Emotional and mental control qualities to effectively counter active and powerful attacks and stand pain, stresses, fatigue etc.

In view of the above, the stress control abilities and fighting spirits developed by the modern boxing sports are indispensable for success in extreme job-specific situations. Some studies [1] underline the skilled boxers’ adaptability and tolerance to high mental stresses as verified by the skin resistance variation rates in the precompetitive periods prior to the top-ranking events.

It should also be noted that the high intensity of boxing fights, high versatility of the skills and excellent thinking to effectively respond the fast changing situations – require the boxer’s responses to be fast, perfect and versatile, all the more that monotonous actions are never successful in the ring. This is the reason why the boxing sport develops high mental balancing and control abilities, perfect attention, observation power and fast thinking to respond the opponent’s actions. The strong punches missed and landed in the fights force the athletes to develop a variety of mental qualities including high mental control skills, courage, determination and diligence in a training process. High benefits of the modern boxing sport in the mental qualities building domain are substantiated by many studies in the boxing sport psychology. Therefore, the research community tends to acknowledge the modern boxing sport as an efficient physical and mental progress tool.

Results and discussion. Given in Table 1 hereunder is the comparative analysis of mining specialist’s job-specific qualities, conditions, requirements and responsibilities versus boxing-specific ones.

Table 1. Comparative analysis of mining specialist’s job conditions, responsibilities, qualities and requirements versus boxing ones

Note: + means progress of some quality; – means regress or stagnation

The above comparative analyses made it possible to detect the professionally valuable qualities of the mining engineer that cannot be fully developed by the boxing tools and methods. These qualities are addressed in the proposed academic boxing training model by a variety of additional sport practices, elements and focused physical exercises recommended for inclusion in the academic physical education and sport curricula at mining universities.

Conclusion. The academic boxing training model designed to harmoniously develop a range of physical and mental qualities and skills in the trainees includes basics and elements of other sport disciplines and body conditioning exercises to facilitate progress of the job-specific qualities, with the practices intended to organically complement the practices and develop the professionally valuable qualities in future mining specialists, secure their competitive progress and make them fit for the Presidential tests.

References

1. Mokeev G.I., Nikiforov Y.B. Modelnye kharakteristiki trenirovochnykh nagruzok u podgotovlennykh bokserov [Model characteristics of training loads and fitness in professional boxing]. Boks. Ezhegodnik [Boxing: Yearbook]. Moscow: Fizkultura i sport publ., 1983, pp. 17-19.
2. Mokeev G.I., Rudenko G.V., Mokeeva E.G., Panchenko I.A. Eksperimentalnye issledovaniya vzaimosvyazi trenirovochnykh vozdeystviy, sostoyaniya i sorevnovatelnoy deyatelnosti bokserov [Experimental studies of the relationship of training effects, conditions and competitive activity of boxers]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2015, no. 5, pp. 79-80.
3. Yakovlev Yu.V., Rudenko G.V. K probleme fizicheskoy podgotovki rabotnikov gornoy promyshlennosti kak faktora sokhraneniya ikh zdorovya [Regarding physical training of mining workers as a factor of their health protection]. Uchenye zapiski un-ta im. P.F. Lesgafta, 2011, no. 9 (79), pp. 180-183.
4. Yakovlev Yu.V., Rudenko G.V., Mitin A.E. Povyshenie motivatsii studentov tekhnicheskogo vuza k zanyatiyam fizicheskoy kulturoy na osnove gumanitarnykh tekhnologiy [Motivating technical university students for physical training using humanitarian technologies]. Uchenye zapiski un-ta im. P.F. Lesgafta, 2011, no. 12 (82), pp. 211-215.

Corresponding author: gena391@mail.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to provide theoretical grounds for and offer a vocational-sports-driven professional training model for mining university students. Comprehensive and dependable data array for the model on a variety of issues of physical education at mining universities and their primary training departments were obtained by a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire survey data showed most of the preparatory training departments of mining universities offering their physical education services customized to the relevant vocational sport disciplines (28 sports in total). Having analyzed the job-specific requirements and responsibilities, we found academic boxing being the most advantageous sport for future mining specialists, conditional on the boxing sessions being widely complemented by the basics of some other sport disciplines and body conditioning practices as an integral part of the academic physical education process.