Journal of Kinesiology & Wellness

Training Current and Future Health-related Practitioners to Accurately and Appropriately Disseminate Physical Activity Guidelines

Jafrā Thomas, Winston Kennedy, Bethany C. Love, Caroline N. Smith — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Current and future health-related practitioners have low awareness of physical activity guidelines (PAGs) for general and clinical populations. The purpose of the present study was to critically appraise the quality of one 2021 draft training video, which was designed to help current and future health-related practitioners give advice consistent with general adult PAGs. A descriptive qualitative analysis was performed on open-ended responses provided by undergraduate research assistants (or recent alumni) affiliated with the first author’s lab and uninvolved in the video’s creation. Participation was optional, anonymous, and through an online questionnaire, open for seven days in April 2021 (14 invited, 8 participated, response rate = 57.14\%). Participant feedback was compared to applicable standards of the RE-AIM framework (i.e., reach, efficacy, and adoption). Face validity and other quality measures were determined through qualitative analysis. The first author performed the descriptive analysis, and the second author, acting as a critical friend, independently verified the trustworthiness of the analysis. No issues were identified (i.e., a succinct and veracious analysis). Participants generally agreed the draft video was clear, concise, informative, and interesting. Participants did not perceive any major concerns with the video (e.g., non-offensive/biased), and their suggestions were used to finalize the training video (e.g., to add closed captioning, further explain a graph). Results confirmed the video had good face validity and could be effective within real-world educational settings for current and future health-related practitioners (e.g., low time burden, stimulating, informative). Future research should investigate learning outcomes of the video and its real-world implementation.

Comparison of Myoelectric Activity Between Standing and Lying Plate Press Exercises in Recreationally-Trained Participants

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The plate press is a multi-joint exercise that involves the elbow and shoulder joints and can be performed in two different body positions (lying and standing). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the myoelectric activity between two different plate press exercises (lying and standing) in recreationally-trained men. Fifteen resistance-trained men (26.7 ± 3.2 years, 83.1 ± 6.8 kg, 176.0 ± 6.4 cm) performed one set of 10 repetitions with a standard weight of 10kg for the standing and lying plate press exercises at 60 beats per minute. Surface electromyography was used to measure the myoelectric activity (integrated electromyography, iEMG) of the pectoralis major (PM), anterior deltoid (AD), triceps brachii (TB), and biceps brachii (BB). Two-way ANOVA (2 x 4) with repeated-measures was used to test differences between exercises and muscle groups (PM, AD, TB, and BB) for the iEMG values. There were significant differences between exercises for AD (Standing > Lying: 41.7\%, p=0.05), TB (Lying > Standing: 51.4\%, p=0.047), and BB (Standing > Lying: 54.6\%, p=0.001). In the comparison between muscle groups, TB presented the lowest myoelectric activation for the standing plate press exercise (57.6\%, p<0.05) and BB presented the lowest myoelectric activation for the lying plate press exercise (48.1\%, p<0.05). In conclusion, the lying plate press exercise showed a greater myoelectric activation of the TB and the standing plate press exercise showed greater myoelectric activation of the AD and BB. PM showed high myoelectric activation in both exercises but with no difference between exercises.

Comprehension of Physical Activity Promotion Material: A Retrospective and Comparative Analysis

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Readability research suggests most physical activity promotion (PAP) materials in circulation are not ready for dissemination. However, these studies are largely based on indirect measures of end-user ability to understand material (i.e., reading grade level, RGL). We advanced knowledge in this area by replicating the cloze procedure study by Cardinal and Seidler (1995), which directly showed lay adults, with a wide range in educational attainment (i.e., ≥ high school diploma; N = 56), could only partially understand a PAP brochure marked for wide dissemination. Limitations of their study included not statistically comparing subgroup scores to interpretive cut-points and using nonrepresentative PAP test material (i.e., RGL equaled 18.52). Our retrospective and comparative analysis of their results (January-April 2023, N = 25) partially confirmed their findings, and we confirmed writing PAP material above the max-recommended RGL (i.e., 8th grade) would likely result in lay adults having inadequate comprehension of these materials.

The Status of Physical Education in Arizona’s Colleges and Universities

Dr. Steven Ross Murray, Dr. Kristin J. Heumann — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

One hundred years ago, physical education was nearly universal in American higher education, with 97 percent of institutions requiring it. The standard mostly continued through the 1960s, when 84-87 percent of institutions required it. By 2012, though, the percentage fell to 39.5, and in 2023, researchers reported, via sampling, that 31.7 percent of institutions required all undergraduate students to take physical education, and another 12.1 percent partially required it. Sampling, while statistically sound, has limitations. To better assess the prominence of physical education across America, examining offerings state-by-state is necessary and has been undertaken for several states thus far. This study investigated the status of physical education in Arizonan higher education institutions to compare to other states’ data and the recently published national sampling data. The specific graduation requirements of each institution were analyzed. Of Arizona’s 29 traditional colleges and universities, 24 (82.75\%) offer physical education; none (0\%) dictates physical education as a graduation requirement for every student, and 15 (51.7\%) have physical education as requirements in particular disciplines or as a general education option. The current trend in higher education is that required physical education is declining, and the results from this study, unfortunately, support this trend. However, most Arizonan higher education institutions offer physical education, and over half allow physical education to count as an option for a graduation requirement. Faculty can use these results to advocate for maintaining and initiating physical education in higher education because the research is clear: Physical education is known to improve students’ health and wellness.