Xu Mengtao stood on the podium. Photo: Xinhua News Agency
On February 14, Xu Mengtao, who competed in the Winter Olympics for four times, won gold in the freestyle ski women's aerial skills final, and successfully fulfilled her dream at home.
Later, the media disclosed that Xu Mengtao was a 2019 doctor of Beijing Sport University, and the public account of "Sports and Science" reprinted Xu Mengtao's doctoral dissertation "Xu Mengtao's Research on Athletic Behavior: A Practical Narrative of Freestyle Skiing Aerial Skills Training - A Dialogue between Xu Mengtao and Cheng Zhili".
Build bridges between scientific research and training
Champion research champions or athletes study athletes are a rising phenomenon in Chinese and foreign sports competitions, and previously, Su Bingtian's behavior of "studying himself" has also attracted widespread attention. It is understood that as early as 2019, Su Bingtian published a paper entitled "Chinese Men's 100m Sprint in the New Era: Review and Prospect" as the first author.
The significance of this kind of "operation" is that athletes can build a convenient and solid bridge between scientific research and training, scientific research and competition. Through the athletes' own practical achievements, the summary and improvement of scientific methods and theories are obtained, and then the sublimation theory is used to guide the training and competition of athletes in the same field and project, so as to help more people get better results.
In fact, not only Xu Mengtao, Su Bingtian, but also a large number of athletes, such as Wu Dajing, Chen Yibing, He Kexin, etc. are "studying themselves".
Xu Mengtao published a paper as the first author. Photo/ Screenshot of CNKI
On paper, I finally realized that I had to do something about it. The biggest advantage of athletes studying themselves is that by experiencing and practicing, they can directly obtain their actual experience in training and competition, and can easily form inheritable information, including data, images and individual feelings, so as to save such information and pass it on.
It should be seen that the biggest feature of competitive sports is that it is highly practical, just like science and engineering, which must be personally experienced and practiced in order to obtain first-hand data on the front line and form scientific cognition.
Athletes study themselves as medical researchers treat themselves as "guinea pigs", and they are both researchers and research objects. This dual-role study yields more solid and reliable data.
Research can contribute to sport
The skiing and skating that Xu Mengtao and Wu Dajing are engaged in have the same commonalities as other sports, but also have more personality. For example, faster speed, higher height, stronger balance, and more movements completed in space, this requires both the guidance of exercise physiology and mechanics, and more importantly, athletes to get their own feelings in training.
Judging from the aerial skill project that Xu Mengtao participated in, it is both ornamental and dangerous, and it is necessary to complete various difficult actions in the air, which is a big challenge for athletes.
Wu Dajing participated in research and published papers. Photo/ Screenshot of CNKI
Therefore, the training of such projects especially requires athletes to perceive themselves in the air how and when to complete each action, so as to make the movement more graceful, the landing more stable, and more competitive.
People's usual exercise is generally upright walking and running, rolling and making a variety of movements are very rare, participating in aerial skill competition, requiring the brain and cerebellum to obtain memories in the actual tumbling to direct the completion of the action.
All this is impossible to form neural memories in the brain and cerebellum to complete and improve movements without the athlete's own involvement and actual training.
Xu Mengtao's paper has a special study of this point, that is, what is the specific state of technical training and its personal feelings? Obviously, this is where athletes study themselves to their advantages: they can get both the speed and spatial perception of exercise, as well as data and image information.
On the other hand, from Xu Mengtao's paper, it can be seen that champions and athletes study themselves not only to be self-congratulatory, but also need to learn from the training data and data of other similar sports and athletes, so as to provide mutually verifiable scientific evidence and technologies for their training and competitions in order to improve their own performance.
Xu Mengtao's research itself borrowed the transfer effect of gymnastics training on freestyle skiing aerial skills training. The family similarity characteristics of sports techniques can form a "technology tree" in the training effect to guide the athlete's own training.
In essence, athletes study themselves not only have the improvement of theory and cognition, but also the experience and practical control operation of personal feelings, which provide a solid foundation for Xu Mengtao, Wu Dajing, Su Bingtian and others to win the championship and obtain good results. The research results from the athletes themselves are more convincing and have extensive guidance and inheritance significance, which can well promote the development of a sport.
Author | Zhang Tiankan (Columnist)
Edit | Chi Daohua
Intern | Velyuil
Proofreading | Wu Xingfa