Exploring the Interplay Between Humans and Sports Equipment in the Quest for Performance

In a study exploring human perceptions of sports equipment under playing conditions, Roberts et al. (2001) interviewed professional golfers about their perceptions of using different golf clubs. One of them expressed himself thus: “You want the whole thing balanced together so that when you hit it, it feels it’s all part of you. You want the club to feel part of yourself really” (quoted by Roberts et al., 2001, p. 493). This excerpt illustrates a classic phenomenological view on tool appropriation as becoming “transparent” in action, implying that it becomes integrated into one’s own body. Another illustration of this transparency is Merleau Ponty’s frequently cited example of the blind person’s cane: “the stick is no longer an object perceived by the blind man, but an instrument with which he perceives” (Merleau-Ponty, 2002, p. 175). Likewise, Gapenne and Declerck (2009) stated that “the transparency of an instrument (i.e., its disappearance from the user’s focal field of attention) is manifestly an indication of its appropriation” (p. 367). In line with these perspectives, human-equipment systems can be considered as soft-assembled perceptual systems (Favela, 2019) in which the equipment is incorporated in the extended human body. Interestingly, while there is currently an interest for research on embodied relationships between humans and a variety of technological artefacts (Black, 2014), few studies have explored the human perception of material equipment when the actors are engaged in a quest for performance. Studying athletes’ activity is known to contribute to the understanding of human adaptive behavior (Davids et al., 2006). In most sports, athletes make use of all kinds of equipment in their quest for performance, with examples being backpacks, golf clubs, tennis rackets, ice tools, sailboards, or boats. Despite the diversity of the intrinsic characteristics of this equipment, it might be expected that they integrally or partly become transparent to the athletes as they reach expertise, just as an author’s computer mouse is transparent to them when they use it to navigate on the screen while working on this article, or a car becomes transparent to an experienced driver during their daily commute to work.

However, some research on sports equipment has shown that expert athletes are highly aware of their equipment during their ongoing performing action. For example, professional golfers feel whether or not they have control on the club head throughout the shot (Roberts et al., 2001). Adé et al. (2017) showed that expert ice climbers obtain information on the quality of the ice by feeling the vibrations of the shaft of their ice axes. Interestingly, even when the equipment is designed to be transparent in the athlete’s activity, the disappearance from the athlete’s field of experience is not guaranteed as it is highly dependent on the context of performance. For example, Rochat et al. (2019) found that the perception of backpacks by trail runners was more significant in the less technical trails. Similarly, Poizat et al. (2010) determined that using a Measuring Active Drag system (MAD system) contributed to the emergence of uncomfortable sensations in elite swimmers’ experience when swimming at low and maximum speeds. These few cases in point also highlight distinctions of the status of sports equipment in the athlete’s experience. The golfing example demonstrates an awareness of the club head movement that indicates a quality of control over the equipment for reaching an expected performance (Roberts et al., 2001). The instance of the ice axe brings to the fore the awareness of the ice axe shaft acting as a tool that reveals information about the ice’s properties (Adé et al., 2017). The examples of the backpack and the MAD system show that an awareness of these pieces of equipment is experienced by athletes as a disturbance in the course of their activities (Poizat et al., 2010; Rochat et al., 2019).

Furthermore, the studies of Terrien et al. (2020, 2022, 2023a, 2023b) in sailing have shown that the behavior of sports equipment affects the interplay between athletes and their equipment. Indeed, some sports equipment exhibits behaviors that are not directly controlled by the athletes. For instance, the movements of hydrofoil sailing watercrafts (e.g., in windsurfing, kitesurfing, and double-handed sport catamaran) are partly produced by forces created through a craft’s coupling with the environment (e.g., aerodynamic forces in the sail and hydrodynamic forces in the foil). This contrasts with the movements of a backpack, which stop if the runner stops moving, or the movement of a golf club, which directly depends on the forces applied by the golfer. The studies of Terrien et al. (2020, 2022; 2023a, 2023b) were conducted within the course-of-experience framework (Poizat et al., 2022; Terrien et al., 2023; Theureau, 2006) with elite sailors. The aim of this research was primarily to study the interplay between humans, sports equipment, and the environment by analyzing sailors’ intentions, expectations, knowledge, perceptions, and actions, in relation to the equipment’s movements. The results of these studies contain several elements that contribute to the understanding of the interplay between humans and sports equipment. For instance, the studies of Terrien et al. (2023b) and Terrien et al. (2023) in Formula Kite and windsurfing reveal that the sailors are highly sensitive to the transmission of power between sail, body, and board. These studies suggest that the riders’ assessment of performance partly depends on these perceptions of balance. As a case in point, in Formula Kite (Terrien et al., 2023b), when everything is going well, riders perceive the pull of the kite in the direction they want to go. This sensitivity to transmission balance was also identified in windsurfing, where riders express the sensation of feeling the sail “sucking forward” that they associate with episodes of optimal performance (Terrien et al., 2023). While it could be expected that optimal performance is perceived when the equipment becomes transparent, while poor performance would be associated with opacity of the equipment, the above examples demonstrate that fine perceptions of the equipment remain, even during optimal episodes of performance. Moreover, these permanent perceptions of the equipment appear to provide relevant information to the sailor in self-assessing their performance. The studies on double-handed foiling catamarans (Terrien et al., 2020, 2022) suggest that from each sailor’s perspective the boat can be considered as a partner that sometimes responds to the sailor’s action but at other times needs them to accompany it in its movements. That is, reaching optimal performance on double-handed foiling catamarans involves both controlling the boat and accepting to be controlled by its movements. Indeed, solving this paradox presupposes that the sailor develops and maintains a fine sensitivity to the boat’s movements; this would not be compatible with the idea of a boat becoming transparent to expert sailors.

At elite level, there is no doubt that the recurrent use of sports equipment by athletes leads to an advanced process of appropriation that includes integration of the sports equipment in the athletes’ own bodies (i.e., incorporation). While incorporation is usually assimilated to disappearance from the field of experience, the elements presented in the present opinion article suggest that the relation between expertise, appropriation, and transparency of sports equipment is not obvious. We suggest three directions of research to develop a better understanding of the interplay between humans and sports equipment in the quest for performance. The first is to interrogate the notion of transparency in relation to the situation, as did Rochat et al. (2019). For example, the situation of optimal performance may be accompanied by higher sensitivity to sports equipment than the sensitivity we have to our usual equipment in daily routines. This would be in line with the research focused on bodily awareness of athletes absorbed in a quest for performance activity, rebutting the association between expert skills and automaticity of movement execution (Gallagher, 2020; Montero, 2010). Secondly, we suggest that the process of appropriation of sports equipment that has behavior of its own, such as in sailing sports, may include the development of sensorimotor empathy (Chemero, 2016; Leblanc et al., 2022) together with a certain degree of incorporation. Indeed, the research we have presented in sailing has shown that sailors need to “understand” their craft’s movements and possibilities of movement through their own bodies. Thirdly, we suggest developing the reflection of Terrien et al. (2022) on the distinctions between classes of sports equipment, by considering their degree of autonomous behavior and the implication of this on appropriation processes.

In conclusion, in the present opinion article we have used examples from sports for apprehending the interplay between humans and material artefacts, in performance-seeking activities. Along the way, we pointed out issues that are subject of intense debate in 4E cognition approaches such as the phenomenal characterization of transparency and the non-consensual relationship between transparency and incorporation of artefacts (Facchin, 2022; Gallagher, 2023). Considering all these, we encourage further empirical research on the interplay between humans and material artefacts in order to gain an improved understanding of the processes of embodied appropriation of tools and machines.