The effect of expertise in gymnastics on postural control N. Vuillerme a,b, * , F. Danion c , L. Marin d , A. Boyadjian e , J.M. Prieur a , I. Weise d , V. Nougier a a Laboratoire Sport et Performance Motrice, Universite  Joseph Fourier-Grenoble1, Grenoble, France b Laboratoire de Performance Motrice Humaine, Universite  Laval, Que  bec, Canada c Motor Control Laboratory, Department of Kinesiology, Penn State University, University Park PA, USA d Infant Motor Development Laboratory, Department of Psychology, New York University, NY, USA e UFR STAPS, Calais, France Received 30 October 2000; received in revised form 29 January 2001; accepted 22 February 2001 Abstract The goal of this paper was (1) to investigate if gymnasts have a more stable standing posture than experts in other sports, and (2) to determine how much gymnasts are affected by the removal of vision in different postural tasks. Six expert gymnasts and six experts in other non-gymnastic sports were asked to maintain balance in three standing postures of increasing dif®culty: bipedal, unipedal, and unipedal 1 unstable support (i.e. 7 cm thick foam surface). Each posture was tested successively with and without vision. Based on the displacement of the center of pressure (range and mean average speed), the results showed that when visual cues were available, postural sway increased with the dif®culty of the task, but both groups had comparable performance in all the tasks. When vision was removed, although both groups demonstrated larger postural sway in the unipedal tasks, this effect was less accentuated for the gymnasts. We concluded that gymnasts are able to use the remaining sensory modalities to compensate for the lack of vision in unstable postures. q 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Posture; Gymnastics; Vision; Expertise Performing complex motor skills, such as those performed by gymnasts or dancers, requires a great sense of balance. Consistent with this view, Robertson et al. [17] showed that experts in gymnastics are faster than novices when they are required to walk across a balance beam as quickly as possible, suggesting that gymnasts can control their balance better than inexperienced athletes. It still remains unclear, however, if gymnasts can demonstrate a better sense of balance than sedentaries or other sportsmen in non-acrobatic tasks, like standing as immobile as possi- ble. This issue can be debated in the context of the two leading theories proposed for the transfer of motor abilities (i.e. the capability for performance in one task as a result of practice or experience on some other task). On one hand, based on the general motor ability hypothesis [1], any human skill (like a better sense of balance) should remain observable among various tests. This opinion is supported by several studies. Using several tasks, Kioumourtzoglou et al. [13] showed that elite gymnasts have better dynamic and static balance than novices. In addition, during unilateral leg movements performed while standing, Mouchnino et al. [16] reported that the lateral sway of the center of pressure was smaller in dancers than in untrained subjects. On the other hand, there are also reports showing that the transfer of motor abilities is not such a simplistic mechanism. In fact, Henry's hypothesis [11] predicts that transfer among skills should be quite low because motor abilities are speci®c to a particular task (see also Ref. [19]). A recent study conducted on ballet dancers suggests that these athletes develop speci- ®c modalities of balance that are not transferable to posture control in daily life situations [12]. More confounding, Bachman [2] found that individual performances in a ladder climbing test and in an unstable balancing board test (stabil- ometer) were poorly correlated. This means that there might not be a general balancing ability, but that this aptitude is likely to vary depending on the nature of the task. Bearing these two camps of research in mind, a question arises; is gymnasts' aptitude for maintaining balance in complex moves transferable to more simple tasks? In an attempt to Neuroscience Letters 303 (2001) 83±86 0304-3940/01/$ - see front matter q 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0304-3940(01)01722-0 www.elsevier.com/locate/neulet * Corresponding author. Tel.: 11-418-656-2147; fax: 11-418- 656-2441. E-mail address: nicolas.vuillerme@kin.msp.ulaval.ca (N. Vuillerme).