Ecological Theories and Sport Performance

Sports performance represents the maximum level of skill that an athlete is able to express in the context of a sports competition. As a complex phenomenon it requires a holistic approach to its treatment that considers the whole as a whole (more than the sum of its parts). Training aimed at improving sports performance must be structured and planned taking into account all the aspects that characterize it: strength, coordination, motivation and environmental contexts. Too often training programs focus selectively on the individual characteristics that make up the performance and most of the time this involves a non-optimal transference in the competitive phase. The objective of this work is to demonstrate the importance of considering sports training, like other learning processes, through a global vision that considers the phenomenon as a whole. Dynamic ecological approach has been explored as a possible learning strategy useful also in the motor and sports fields. The study will be conducted by consulting the relevant scientific literature through search engines and by the use of keywords. The results clarified the foundations which the ecological approach is based on and its applications in sports performance. This approach develops from environmental influences that cause adaptations of the entire body system by developing and refining adequate responses. To this end, the emergence of spontaneous solutions to problems is stimulated: an example is the modification of the game rules or the modification of the game context.