Relationship between the practice of sports in Sports Clubs and the improvement of impulsivity control in scholars

Abstract

The regular practice of Sports Physical Activity (hereinafter SPA) has beneficial effects at a physical and cognitive level. Recent works have found improvement in memory, in academic performance, in self-esteem, in attention and in Executive Functions. In this comparative study, a sample of 110 students of Primary and Secondary Education from Ourense and Málaga (Spain) between the ages of 8 and 14 years was used (M=10,89; SD=1,54). The participants were assigned to three groups: students who practice federated physical-sports activity in sports clubs at a competitive level or SPA-F (n=37), students who practice physical-sports activity in out-of-school hours in schools or SPA-C (n=37) and a group of students who did not practice any type of physical-sports activity Not-SPA (n=36) The results show the modulation of SPA in different inhibition modes, comparing students who do not practice SPA and those who practice SPA, in line with previous work. In a second step, we analysed whether the SPA modality, that is, whether it is developed in a sports club and therefore the students are federated (SPA -F) or whether it is developed in the school’s extracurricular activities (SPA-C), contributes to the differential development of inhibition. The results show that SPA, regardless of where they carry out the activity, improves some components of EF such as attentional control, inhibitory control, showing similar results in the ability to follow the rules, in the precision in the visual search and in the cognitive flexibility. However, we have found that SPA-F practice improves impulsivity control rates compared to SPA-C practice.