Plasticity of the postural function to sport and/or motor experience
Introduction
Posture and balance control are fundamental in daily life in order to safely accomplish any kind of movement and motor task that involves the displacement of body segments or the whole body. Posture can be defined as the position of different body segments, and balance as the maintenance of the center of mass -COM- of the body above the base of support in order to avoid a fall. Thus, postural balance characterizes the ability to maintain a particular segmental organization without falling. Efficient postural balance not only reduces the risk of body imbalance, fall, and subsequent injuries but also contributes to optimizing motor performance (Horak, 2006, Delbaere et al., 2006, Stone et al., 2015). In this respect, the ability to ensure postural balance depends on internal body representation (i.e. body representation in space) which is developed with sensory inputs and is based on body geometry (segmental organization), kinetics (ground reaction force) and body orientation and vertical perception (subjective verticality) cues (Paillard, 2012) (Fig. 1). Postural balance is organized in hierarchical and stereotypic patterns and requires the central integration of vestibular, visual, cutaneous and proprioceptive inputs as well as the motor command of antigravity muscles (Massion, 1994). The postural function chronologically includes sensory, central and motor components (Fig. 2).
The efficiency of postural balance can be quantitatively considered by evaluating the movement of the COM, the center of pressure (COP) of the foot and body segments but also by measuring electromyographic (EMG) activities (with accelerometry, goniometry, kinetic, kinematic, and EMG techniques). The qualitative analysis consists of describing how postural balance is organized in relation to mechanical (segmental organization) and neurophysiological (sensory contributions and their integration and motor command) aspects. Postural balance can be characterized in terms of performance according to the postural condition under consideration. Postural performance refers to the ability to maintain body balance in challenging postural conditions (e.g. a stance classed as a handstand, monopedal dynamic stance) or the ability to minimize continuous body sway in more conventional postural conditions (e.g. bipedal quiet stance) (Paillard and Noe, 2015). Postural strategy can be defined on the basis of the spatial and temporal organization of different body segments as well as the extent and order of recruitment of different muscles activated (Paillard and Noe, 2015). These authors specified that the different sensory sensors involved in postural regulation as well as the weight of different sensory information and/or the preferential involvement of different neuronal loops can also contribute to describing postural strategy.
Many intrinsic factors impact postural balance. These factors include age (with the advancement of age the postural function undergoes involution, with the child’s development -i.e. growth and maturation- the postural function is improved), morphology (weight and height negatively affect postural balance), physiological/physiopathological state (in healthy subjects e.g., muscle typology and neuromuscular characteristics influence the motor output of the postural function; in pathological subjects e.g., some neurological pathologies and pathologies of the locomotor system affect sensory inputs and/or their integration and/or motor output) and psychological/psychiatrical state (in healthy subjects e.g., the visual field dependence can influence the contribution of sensory information; in pathological subjects e.g., some pathologies affecting the cognitive function disturb postural balance) (Assaiante and Amblard, 1995, Slaboda et al., 2009, Steinmetz et al., 2010, Johnson and Woollacott, 2011, Ku et al., 2012, Suttanon et al., 2013, Maitre et al., 2013, Dirnberger and Jahanshahi, 2013, Zaback et al., 2015, Rinalduzzi et al., 2015, Miller et al., 2015). In pathological subjects, rehabilitation programs can reduce or reverse postural impairments through physical, cognitive, orthopedic and other interventions, combined or not (McCaskey et al., 2015, Khanal et al., 2016, Subramaniam et al., 2014). In healthy young subjects, the main factor which is likely to durably modify their postural balance is characterized by motor experience, i.e. all physical activities including domestic and leisure physical activities as well as sport and exercise (for a definition of these terms, see Khan et al., 2012).
Although acute physical activity can disturb postural balance by degrading the effectiveness of sensory inputs and motor output of the postural function (for a review, see Paillard, 2012), chronic/regular physical activity improves postural balance by inducing positive functional adaptations to the postural function (for reviews, see Hrysomallis, 2011, Kiers et al., 2013, Lesinski et al., 2015a, Lesinski et al., 2015b, Behm et al., 2015). There is a relationship between postural performance and athletic performance in healthy persons who regularly practice physical and/or sport activities (Hrysomallis, 2011, Kiers et al., 2013). Moreover, regular balance or strength exercises improve postural balance (Behm et al., 2015, Lesinski et al., 2015a, Lesinski et al., 2015b, Kümmel et al., 2016) according to dose-response relationships (Lesinski et al., 2015a, Lesinski et al., 2015b). Taken together, these reviews of chronic physical activity are informative and complementary in their descriptions of the relationships between physical activities and postural balance. However, they focus essentially on the adaptations in terms of postural balance output, i.e. its functional aspects. The structural adaptations related to chronic physical activity have rarely been addressed. Only Taube et al. (2008) carried out a remarkable review dealing with structural adaptations at the spinal and supraspinal levels induced by very specific training, i.e. only balance training. In fact, the plasticity of the postural function related to structural and functional adaptations of all its components, i.e. sensory, central and motor, remains to be established in the general context of chronic physical activities. Mechanistic explanations related to the improvement of the postural function induced by all kinds of physical activity deserve to be explored much more in order to refine the precepts about the relationship between motor experience and postural balance for sport and rehabilitation medicine. The refinement of these precepts could help sport trainers to optimize motor performance and to prevent injuries among sportspeople, and help physicians to improve the effects of their therapeutic programs as well as their preventive measures against falls for frail or older subjects.
The present work therefore aims to provide an overview of the plasticity of the postural function to motor experience in order to specify the structural and functional adaptations engendered and to suggest the mechanistic explanations induced.
Section snippets
Postural effects of different types of exercise and physical and/or sport activity
On the basis of the data mentioned in the introduction, it is first necessary to analyse the effects of different types of exercise and physical and/or sport activity in terms of postural balance (through postural tests standardized in static and/or dynamic conditions and monopedal or bipedal stances with eyes open or closed) in trained subjects in comparison with control subjects by means of cross-sectional and intervention studies.
Structural and functional adaptations of the postural function induced by the motor experience
As posture and balance control involve taking information (sensory functions), processing this information and command of action (central integration) as well as motor action (motor function), the possible adaptations of the postural function related to motor experience mainly concern neurophysiological components (the neural loops involved as well as their sensory receptors), cognitive function relative to body representation in space (cortical regulation) and motor function (muscle command).
Motor experience and postural balance
The postural improvements related to different exercises and physical and/or sport activities could emanate from multifactorial, systemic and specific adaptations.
Interlimb relationship and postural balance
The interlimb relationship can mainly be studied by comparing the postural balance of the dominant leg (the dominant leg is classically defined by asking an individual to kick a ball) with that of the non-dominant leg, as well as by determining the possible cross-effects related to ipsilateral limb training on contralateral monopedal postural balance.
Motor and sport expertise and postural balance
Since firstly, movement and balance are intimately linked and inseparable when analyzing motor performance for most physical and sport activities, and secondly, sport experts exhibit high levels of motor skills (command and control of movement), one can expect that sport experts also display high levels of postural performance through fine postural strategies. In the present article, sport experts are elite sportspeople compared to other sub-elite, amateur or recreational sportsmen who are not
Conclusion
Plasticity of the postural function to the motor and sport experience turns out to be undeniable, although many mechanisms are not yet explained. Regularly repeated physical and/or sport activities (for the most part) induce structural and functional adaptations of the postural function (each of its sensory, central and motor components) which improve postural performance and refine postural strategy. These postural adaptations are not only multifactorial and systemic concerning
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Dr Frédéric Noé for reading and commenting upon my manuscript.
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