motordevelopmentalism-blog

[motordevelopmentalism-blog]

Introduction

Welcome to our blog. We will be taking you on the journey of how the overhand volleyball serve develops from infancy to adulthood. The overhand serve is a complex discrete skill that requires hand-eye coordination, timing, balance, jumping skills and proper footwork. During our analysis of the skill, we will be focusing on balance, hand-eye coordination, footwork and follow-through. We will also be looking at whether the subjects preformed the skill correctly. We hope you enjoy this wonderful evolution of the overhand volleyball serve.

[motordevelopmentalism-blog]

Early Childhood: Aged 2-6

        The participant presenting the overhand volleyball serve in this video is a five year old female. To begin, she carries the ball with her right hand and forearm. When initiating the toss, the subject rocks onto her left foot and then takes a step with her right foot. During the hitting phase of her movement, she took a step forward with her left foot and swung her left arm back to gain momentum, then forward to strike the ball. Instead of stepping forward with the foot opposite to her hand, she stepped forward with the same foot as her hitting hand. In order to gain enough strength to hit the ball, she propelled her entire body which was shown as she put all her weight onto her left foot and arched over. By using her whole body strength to hit the ball, it caused her to lean to one side as she completed her follow through. Instead of making contact with the ball in an organized fashion, the subject hit the ball with incorrect form. This is due to the fact that gross motor skills develop quicker than fine motor components such as the wrist and fingers (Conolly & Dalgeish, 1989). Apart from the asymmetry in her form, she was still able to successfully hit the volleyball.

        A disadvantage at this age is the size of equipment as she was unable to carry the volleyball in just the palm of her hand. This indicated a lack of muscle growth which is consistent in children ages 2-6 (Horita, Kitamura, & Kohno, 1991). To adjust, she had to carry the ball with her extended right hand and forearm, which affected her tossing accuracy as it altered the direction of the throw. As she began her footwork to get into the correct position to hit the ball, she stepped forward with the same foot as her hitting arm. This created asymmetry in her body movement and disrupted her balance. A struggle with balance is an issue at this age as core stability is still developing (Importance of Core Strength, 2014). She had to adjust to this by propelling her whole body forward to get a touch on the ball but also to aid in enough strength to hit it (Struzik, Pietraszewski & Zawadzki, 2014). Due to the fact that footwork creates the basis of any movement, this affected the overall efficiency of her overhand serve (Malina, 2004). However, her timing and ability to adapt was sufficient enough that she could still perform her hit correctly. She accurately swung her hitting arm back and used successful hand-eye coordination to strike the ball. These findings suggest that children in early childhood have not yet mastered movement patterns (Malina, 2004). However, you will see in the analysis of the other development stages that coordination and balance will improve with age. These components all factor into the overall volleyball overhand serve.

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Later Childhood: Aged 6-12

         The girl that is presenting the overhand volleyball serve in this video is 11 years old and has no previous volleyball experience. To begin the task, she is standing with her left foot in front of her right, shoulder width apart with her knees slightly bent in an athletic stance. She then tosses the ball into the air with her non-dominant hand (left) hand. We can see her initiating the hitting phase of the movement by taking a small step with her left foot. This prevents her from gaining momentum and power in her serve as she lacks lower body movement. She progresses through the hitting phase by transferring her weight onto her left leg by bending at her knee. As she moves her weight forward, she also continues to swing her arm forward and hinging at her elbow to snap her forearm. The subject makes contact with the ball at peak of her arm’s range of motion as she is tracking the location of the ball with her eyes, which indicates that she has a normal level of hand-eye coordination for her age group. As she enters the follow through phase, her arm continues to swing all the way through her range of motion and ends in a position vertical to her body. Her right leg also kicks up into the air behind her, which demonstrates that her lack of power might have caused her to become unbalanced. As a result, she leans slightly to the left and takes a large step backwards with her right leg to catch herself to correct her stance after the serve.

        When we further analyze the subject’s serve, we can see that while she can perform the skill generally, it is not effective. Her lack of efficiency can be attributed to both her lack of full muscular development as well as her lack of volleyball experience. In a study conducted by French, Rink and Werner (1990), it was stated that beginners often had trouble performing effective volleyball serves because a lack of maturation and strength. This is evidenced in our subject as we can see that while she has torso rotation and a strong, follow through with her arm, the trajectory of the ball is downwards. This can be due to a combination in her lack of strength as demonstrated by leg being thrown backwards and her lack of training in volleyball. Since the overhead serve is a complex discrete skill that requires timing, proper footwork and eye-hand coordination, a lack of proper coaching and practice of this skill will cause the subject to be ineffective in its execution (Lidor et al. 2007). While motor performance increases from childhood through to young adulthood (where it peaks), the volume of white matter is still low which means that the axons have not fully formed yet which could contribute to the lack of proficiency in this skill (Leversen et al. 2012).

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Adolescence: Aged 12-18

        The girl performing the overhand volleyball serve is 18 years old and has had little experience playing volleyball. At the start of her serve, she began by raising her dominant hitting arm (right) so that it is vertical with the rest of her body. She then holds the ball with her non-dominant hand (left) extended away from her body . She then tossed the ball into the air while her feet were together. Initiating the hitting phase of the serve, the subject took a step forward with her left foot to gain momentum and power for the rest of the serve. She made contact with the ball at the peak of the arm range of motion as she maintains her eyes’ gaze on the ball so we were able to identify that this subject has normal hand-eye coordination. We can see that she uses her lower body to generate and transfer power for the serve, but we can also see that her balance is not centred as a result of this as we can see her take a step with her right foot to catch herself. In a standard volleyball overhand serve, the athlete completes a follow through with all aspects of their body, however, our subject only follows through with her hitting arm.

        When we further analyze our subject’s performance, we can see that while she completed all of the components of the serve in the correct sequencing, she lacks certain fine motor movements that make the serve efficient. We can see from a study conducted by Leversen, Haga & Sigmundssun (2012) that an individual’s motor performance rapidly increases from early childhood and peaks between the ages of 19 to 25 years old before declining. Our subject’s performance of the overhand serve is concurrent with these findings in that she performs better than the early and later childhood subjects and the later adulthood subject, but does not perform better than the early adulthood subject. This subject has the basic balance and coordination skills that are fully developed as an adolescent coupled with increases in muscle mass and strength could be the reason why this individual is able to perform the serve correctly (Davies & Rose, 2009). While the discrete skills that are absent in this subject’s performance could be attributable to the fact that her brain is still in the developmental stages, it is more likely that the minute differences in technique are due to this individual’s lack of specific volleyball training (Konrad et al. 2013).

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Early Adulthood: Aged 18 - 60 

         The subject performing an overhand serve in this video is 19 years old, and has some experience playing volleyball. The girl in this video is right hand dominant. At the beginning of the serve, she has her knees slightly bent in athletic stance, her left foot slightly forward and the ball mostly weighted on the left hand with the right hand placed for support. The subject then initiates the movement by lowering the ball in preparation of the toss while taking a right step. The right step allows her to gain momentum from her lower body as she steps forward with her left foot. As she tosses the ball up with her left hand, she steps through with her left foot and removes her right hand from the ball to cock her shoulder up and behind her body. In the hitting phase of this movement, the ball reaches the peak height as she transfers her weight to her left foot. She then uses the momentum of the step to swing her right arm forward and make contact with the ball. She goes through a full range of motion (ROM), with the sequence of her arm movement beginning with her shoulder moving forward, swinging the upper arm forwards, the hinging of her elbow to snap the forearm, and then snapping her wrist forwards and downwards. The arm follows-through, and continues to swing after the point of contact and is followed by dragging her right foot forward as well.

        The subject's display of the overhand serve was a successful movement. The subject showed normal hand-eye-coordination as she was able to continuously track the ball with her eyes after she tossed it, and was able to make contact when her arm was at the peak arm ROM. Her body was in balance throughout the movement, which can be seen as she didn't stumble or lose footing when stepping, shifting her weight or contacting the ball. She showed proper footwork, and followed-through with the movement seen with the wrist snap, and continued arm swing after contact with the ball. When comparing the early adulthood model to other age groups, the movement looked more fluid and controlled which can be accounted by multiple factors. Her body systems are working the most efficiently at this age range, shown as an individual’s motor performance rapidly increases from early childhood and peaks between the ages of 19 to 25 years old before declining (Leversen et. al, 2012). One of the factors could be that individuals in early adulthood have more muscle tissue and greater oxygen capacity than other groups (Boyd & Bee, 2019) and an increase in BMI, back muscle strength and endurance capacity is associated with better postural stability (Ángyán et al. 2007). With better postural stability, the whole movement can be more controlled and fluid. As well, the subject has had experience playing volleyball, which has given her prior knowledge on how to perform the skill effectively. In addition, she may have gotten feedback on her performance from coaches, which allows for growth and significant improvement in performance (Pellett & Harrison, 1995). 

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Late Adulthood: Aged 60+

        The woman performing the overhand volleyball serve in this video is 83 years old and had no prior volleyball training. At the start of her serve she held the ball with her left (non-dominant) hand which was extended away from her body. Her feet were slightly staggered; her hips and shoulders were also slightly turned towards the camera. During a standard overhand volleyball serve, the server must toss the ball in the air and then contact the ball at their peak arm height. The subject did contact the ball at her peak arm range of motion, however, she did not toss the ball in the air. Instead, the subject held the ball at her peak so her opposite arm could make contact. Thus, it was hard to identify whether the subject’s hand-eye coordination was normal. To gain momentum and power in a volleyball serve, one must take a step when contacting the ball. However, the subject in the video stayed in the same position throughout the whole skill. Thus, the lack of the lower body movement caused the subject to have limited power and made her unbalanced which can be seen by the swaying in her stance after contact. At the end of a standard overhand volleyball serve, the server usually carries out a follow-through with their whole body. In this case, the subject in the video performs a follow-through, however, limits it to her hitting arm.

        When analyzing the subject’s overhand volleyball serve, it was noted that her serve was properly carried out. However, her lack of skill may not solely be due to her physical development, but also her lack of volleyball training.  According to Williams, Haywood & VanSant (1998), it was suggested that older adults coordinated their throwing patterns the same way younger adults coordinated their movements only with slight differences in their control. These changes included decreased movement in the trunk and preparatory step (Williams, Haywood & VanSant, 1998). Thus, these results are synonymous with the observed actions of the subject, in which, the subject had little trunk movement and no preparatory step. However, her inability to perform the overhand serve properly can be attributable to the lack of training in volleyball. As per Da Matta, Gagen & Rhoads (2013), beginner volleyball players often struggle with effective serves because of maturation and coordination skills. The article suggested that overhand volleyball serves require hand-eye coordination, timing, jumping skills and proper landing skills (Da Matta, Gagen & Rhoads,2013). Without properly training these skills, one will not be able to perform the skill proficiently. Therefore, the subject’s actions can be attributable to her lack of volleyball skill training.

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Conclusion

        The volleyball overhand serve is a technical skill (Inkinen et al. 2013), and the success of the skill execution is dependent on the tactical skills and physical capabilities of the players (Quiroga et al. 2010). These tactical skills are dynamic discrete skills that demand many different areas of ability. The athlete must have eye-hand coordination, timing, balance, footwork and the proper follow through in order to successfully complete a serve. Throughout this blog, we have examined how these skills manifest through the different developmental stages of life. We saw in the early childhood phase (2-6 years old) that there was a lack of strength and mastery of general balance and coordination which led to incorrect footwork of the serve. We can see how while aspects such as timing and eye-hand coordination improve as we move to the later childhood phase (6-12 years), there is still a lack of muscular strength and balance component that prevents an effective serve. However, as we progressed into the adolescent (12-18) and early adulthood (19+years) phases, we can clearly see a drastic improvement in the overall motor skill performance. This is due to large increases in both motor and brain development. The adolescent and early adulthood brain has an increased amount of neuronal connections which allows for improved balance and coordination, as well as increases in muscle mass which contributes to greater strength and power  (Leversen et al. 2012). This is in stark contrast to the later adulthood (60+ years) where we can see that the subject’s limited physical range of motion and compromised balance and coordination skills results in a poorer volleyball serve. While we can clearly see that an individual’s stage of development has a significant impact on their performance of this skill, we also need to take into account their past experience and training in the sport which could have had an impact on their serve. An example of past experience that can change how an age group does a movement would be joining a sports team. A sports team provides a competitive setting with professional coaching which provides individuals opportunity to gain feedback and practice their skills more than a regular individual.

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References

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