5th International Scientific Conference on Kinesiology: Kinesiology research trends and applications : proceedings book

Approaching the time of the 50th anniversary of the successful work in the mission of high education and research of the Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, we are exceptionally happy and satisfi ed that all the organisational and programme tasks and goals of the 5th International Scientifi c Conference on Kinesiology have been accomplished. Although our University is a large and among the oldest in the area, our Faculty is a relatively young, small institution of academic education from a small country in transition, which is facing and struggling with typical problems of the era and specifi c social processes. However, all previous efforts of our predecessors, even as far back as the 19th century, but especially of dear doyennes an doyens of kinesiology, as well as the establishing and organisation of the Conference, no matter how inexperienced it might have seemed in the beginning, back in the year 1997 in Dubrovnik, enables us nowadays to be peer members of the circle of internationally recognized and well-known institutions and organizations of sport/exercise science, or kinesiology. With no false modesty, it is a considerable achievement of our scholars, researchers, associates, other employees and last, but by no means the least important, our partners - students. A great contribution of our foreign colleagues should be recognized and accentuated here – nothing of the previously mentioned would have been possible without their good will, open minds and enormous interest in our work and advances. We cannot exclude a contribution of our famous athletes and their sport achievements. This is the right place to express our deepest appreciation and gratitude to them all and our wishes for continuation and expansion of the cooperation in many fi elds. The science fi eld we are interested in is so diverse, broad, complex; it investigates the very essence of life – the movement and everything needed for its realisation – its purpose, its origins, conditions, its means - from the molecular level to the level of anatomy, synergy of hundreds processes within a being, even to social proportions and effects of moving or not moving. All the previous conferences were exceptional opportunities for broadening of scientifi c insights into this miraculous, beautiful phenomenon of physical activity and its effects – its perfection when performed by sport artists, as seen at the XXIX Olympic Games, its joyfulness when happy children enjoy being competent to be in motion, or when we see eager people who enjoy life and nature because they have enough energy and they are healthy thanks to an active lifestyle. Ever better positioning of our science worldwide is obvious – the last example is from Croatia – in any sense, from the legislative to fi nancial, in the Croatian structure of sciences, kinesiology has become equal to physics, economics, medicine, biology, law, sociology and many others. Such a position facilitates inter- and crossdisciplinarity and mobility of scientists and students within Croatia and abroad. The rationale of the 5th meeting on kinesiology is “Kinesiology research trends and applications“ ascends from the very heart of kinesiology, which embraces numerous theoretical, developmental and applicative research issues. Namely, the ultimate purposes of that research is to know and understand human beings and to apply the fi ndings in everyday practice of education, sports, health promotion, recreation, tourism, and kinesitherapy. The Conference will work in usual plenary and parallel sessions addressing fourteen comprehensive kinesiological topics: adapted physical activity and sport for the disabled; biology and medicine of sport and exercise; biomechanics and motor control; history of sport and the Olympic movement; management of sport; tourism and sport; members of the armed forces kinesiology; physical conditioning and fi tness; physical education; psychology of sport; research methodology; sociology of sport; philosophy of sport; Sport for all and health-related activities; and top-level sport. Certain areas will be addressed at the Conference for the fi rst time, like philosophy of sport, Olympic movement and kinesiology applied to armed forces. In these Proceedings all the positively reviewed contributions are published: communications and poster presentations. We are very happy and proud because of the response of the invited 42 lecturers, worldwide famous experts in their areas of scientifi c interests who will undoubtedly throw new light on only seemingly already investigated issues, on the one hand, an on the other, bring the latest advances in research and theory, thus inspiring, especially young, researchers to learn and go ever further. After all, who knows where the frontier is? Proceedings Book contains 239 contributions, which were submitted by the submission deadline, written by 421 authors from 40 countries from all the continents. Besides the presenters, we also expect participants without contributions, among them a lot of graduate, doctoral and postdoctoral students from Croatia and abroad for whom the Pre-Conference School of Kinesiology for Postgraduate and Doctoral Students has been also organised prior to the Conference. Many thanks go to the members of the Organising and Programme Committees who did not spare their effort to prepare and realize the Conference and the Proceedings. Deep gratitude also goes to the team of reviewers, fi fty fi ve of them who carefully evaluated the contributions. The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is for the fourth time the patron of the Conference that is quite in line with the respectable position kinesiology/sport science has earned in the very meticulous scientifi c community The Faculty wishes to express gratitude to the cooperative institutions: the Faculty of Sport, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, the Faculty of PE and Sport, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Faculty of PE and Sport, University of Comenius, Bratislava, Slovakia. Several government institutions supported the organisation of the Conference. We are grateful to: the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport of the Republic of Croatia, the Croatian Olympic Committee and the Croatian University Sport Association. After Dubrovnik and Opatija, dear participants, you have the opportunity to get acquainted with the Croatian capital – Zagreb, and our institution of higher education – with its facilities, its surroundings, other people working in it, our students, our laboratories, lecture rooms, library, etc. This opportunity to really know us will probably increase exchange rates among scholars and students. We wish you feel welcome and come back many times!