A study was conducted to investigate the effects of the menstrual cycle and differences in elevation of basal body temperature (BBT) on thermoregulatory responses during continuous constant load exercise in young women. Throughout three menstrual cycles, eight healthy young women were investigated for their thermoregulatory responses during 60-min bicycle exercise at 60% Vo₂max in a normal temperature environment. The “ovulation date estimation method” established by Onoue et al. was used to validate the high-temperature phases. Based on validation of the high-temperature phases (H) and low-temperature phases (L), we categorized the results as follows: “Group I” showing more than 10 continuous days in the normal high phase, “Group II” showing a short high phase of less than 10 days, and “Group III” showing no high phase. For Groups I and II, BBT in H was significantly higher than in L (Group: p<0.001, Group: p<0.05). In Group I, the rectal temperature (Tre) in H showed an evidently higher shift than that in L at rest and during 60-min exercise (p<0.05). Also in Group II, Tre at rest in H was higher than in L (p<0.05). However, Group III without any BBT fluctuation showed no effect of the menstrual cycle on thermoregulation. Although the core temperature of L at the start of exercise was low, continuation of exercise in L tended to increase the core temperature to a regular level, as shown in H. These results suggest that thermoregulatory responses during exercise have no effect on the length of the high-temperature phase, but are affected by the difference between the BBT and the core temperature at the start of exercise.

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A study was conducted to clarify and examine the role played by the Health Centers for the Prevention of Tuberculosis in Children (HCPTCs) and the preventive measures taken against tuberculosis in elementary schools. In 1939, the Ministry of Health set up 40 HCPTCs in six major Japanese cities, including Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, targeting children who attended elementary schools. The major achievements of the HCPTCs included obtaining an accurate grasp of the infection and progression of non-latent disease through conventional in-school physical examinations, defining the levels of disease progression, and taking appropriate measures in accordance with symptoms. In establishing the HCPTCs, the Health Ministry used elementary schools, which were ideal for instituting mass prevention programs. Elementary schools took on an active preventive role, conducting mass tests on children and dealing appropriately with children before they showed symptoms. Since mass testing and care-giving were conducted by school doctors and school nurses, these hygiene-related activities formed the heart of the HCPTC program.

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The concept of “expressive play” was first introduced publicly at the Centennial World Exposition in the United States in 1876 as part of Froebel Kindergarten education, and was introduced to Japan as “yugi” by the Japanese Minister of Education, Fujimaro Tanaka, in his report of his experiences at the Exposition. “Yugi” was exhibited for the first time at the opening ceremony of a government kindergarten in 1877, during which children sang and moved their arms and legs, with spirit to represent a windmill. The term “yugi” had rarely been used before the Meiji Era (1868-1912), but with this occasion yugi became incorporated into the kindergarten curriculum in the early Meiji Era. The present study examined the awareness of “yugi” in kindergarten education during the history of Japan, starting with the report by Tanaka, who was a member of the Iwakura Mission that visited Europe and America in 1873, and was involved in the establishment of kindergartens. It was found that (1) in the early writings of Tanaka, the term “yugi” was used in a negative context indicating a “waste of time”. In the next stage (2), it was used in reports introducing non-deskwork activities conducted by public school pupils in the playground. Finally, (3) “yugi” was introduced not as simple exercise, but as an activity in which children moved their arms and legs while singing, with the intent of expressing some type of form.

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In his treatise A reconsider about the process of forming the concept of physical education “which means an education for both the physical and the mental by means of physical exercises in modern Japan: focusing on the thoughts of the military drill by Arinori Mori” (2003), Koh-ichi Nakano asserts that the concept of physical education, education through physical activity, appeared in Japan some time during 1878-1882 or the first half of the second decade of the Meiji Era. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that the period when this occurred was not the first half, but rather the latter half of the Meiji Era, i.e. 1883-1887, as ascertained by the auther in A Historical Study on the Formation of the Concept of “Physical Education” in the Meiji Era (1971). Following analysis of Nakano's work, one can conclude that the interpretation of the documents upon which he bases his assertions is flawed for the following reasons: (1) Nakano relies upon documents written in 1879, 1880 and 1882 as grounds for his argument. However they were written from the viewpoint of physical well-being involving three facets of holistic education: 1. intellectual, 2. moral and 3. physical well-being. Nakano incorrectly interprets words taken out of context to mean education through physical activity. (2) Nakano relies upon the early works of Arinori Mori, who was Japan's first Minister of Education from 1885 to 1889. In his address Education-Physical Ability (1879) at the Tokyo Academy (present day Japan Academy), Mori suggests that Western military training may be more useful in Japanese schools than Dio Lewis's light exercises taken from America, because it is able to increase both physical ability and spiritual energy, which is neeeded to excite physical ability. The idea is fundamentally based upon the same holistic education mentioned above. Nakano, however, misunderstands that the idea is based upon the concept of education through physical activity, because he presumes that the aims of military training were to instill not only physical, but also mental ability. (3) Mori enforced military training into schools to increase physical ability and also to cultivate the mind and spirit along the lines of moral education in 1885, in the latter half of the second decade. He was the first person in Japan to describe education through military training as a kind of physical activity. However, he did not actually use the term “physical education” to describe his concept until around 1887. Thus Nakano's theory on the formative period of the concept of physical education, education through physical activity, is incorrect due to misinterpretation of the documents upon which he based his theory.

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We investigated the effects of the phonological elements of onomatopoeia on the quantitative and qualitative parameters of the grasping movement. Each of four types of onomatopoeia was repeatedly presented 20 times to eight subjects. Two of them contained a voiced consonant sound /g/ and the vowel /u/. The remaining two contained a more complex phonological structure, in which the semivowel /j/ was added between the voiceless consonant /k/ and the vowel /u/. Two types of onomatopoeia having the phonological structure /g/u/ differed with respect to the duration of vowel production; this was also the case for the phonological structure /k/j/u/. The subjects were instructed to grasp a hand-held cylinder following the presentation of each type of onomatopoeia. The grasping force was recorded via a strain gauge embedded in the cylinder. A larger maximum force was observed for the phonological structure /g/u/, a longer load duration being observed when the duration of vowel production became longer. Although these two quantitative parameters of the grasping movement remained unchanged, qualitative parameters such as load (/unload) time ratio were amplified by repeating the grasping movement 20 times, particularly when the phonological structure /k/j/u/ was presented. We suggest that as a movement instruction, it would be useful to symbolize the quantitative value of the movement in the form of onomatopoeia and to emphasize the qualitative characteristics by repeatedly presenting the type of onomatopoeia that indicates the movement characteristic intended by the instructor.

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It has been clarified that self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977) predicts behavior and plays an important role in improving performance. However, there have been no reports of any practical trials for improving sports performance through the development of self-efficacy. The purpose of this study was to propose concrete application of the concept of self-efficacy to sports coaching, using base-running behavior in baseball as a theme. In Study 1, we examined the reliability (internal consistency and stability) of the Self-Efficacy Scale for Base-Running (SES-BR). In Study 2, we examined whether the intervention of the SES-BR could improve the self-efficacy and the performance of base-running as well as psychological competitive abilities such as “decisiveness,” “predictive ability,” and “judgment.” In Study 1, three coaches from a college baseball team extracted 31 types of base-running behavior that are considered critical in baseball games. In order to examine the reliability of the scale, the self-efficacy scores of the fielders in the team (N =24) were measured twice: once on the first day of the season, and again, one week later. The results indicated Cronbach's a =.94 and a test-retest correlation coefficient r =.81 ( p <.001) for the SES-BR, thus verifying the scale's reliability. In Study 2, the college baseball players received cards on which the SES-BR was printed and were instructed to verify the 31 base-running behavioral items every five days. The results revealed a significant increase in the self-efficacy score during the intervention period ( p <.05). Moreover, the base-run errors—an index for base-running performance—decreased due to the intervention of the SES-BR: 8.30/game before the intervention, 6.77/game (-18%) in the first season, and 4.32/game in the second season (-48%). Furthermore, “decisiveness” and the comprehensive evaluation of psychological competitive ability, as evaluated by DIPCA (Tokunaga, 2001), showed significant improvement during the second intervention season ( p <.05 for both). Therefore, the intervention of the SES-BR, which was developed in this study and confirmed to be highly reliable, was suggested as a possible measure for improving self-efficacy and performance in base-running as well as “decisiveness” and overall psychological competitive ability.

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The purpose of this study was to clarify the effects of sprint practice in physical education practice classes for junior high school students. The subjects were divided into three groups. A unit of practice classes (5 school hours) of sprinting programmed primarily by the students (group I: 15 boys and 11 girls) and a unit programmed primarily by the teacher (group II: 15 boys and 12 girls) were performed by 2nd year junior high school students (12 or 13 years old), while a control group (28 boys and 33 girls) performed long jump or high jump practice. The 50 m sprint time was measured to clarify the performance before and after the corresponding period in the three groups. Groups I and II were assessed for sprint performance including mean speed, mean step frequency, and mean step length every 10 m from the start up to 50 m, and the effects of the two approaches on sprint performance were compared. Five school hours of sprinting practice improved the running ability of students in Group I boys and Group II boys and girls. The improvement was due primarily to increases in the frequency and step length during full-speed running in Group I boys and increases in step length in Group II boys and girls. More students in Group II wrote specific comments concerning motion in sprinting in their learning cards, suggesting that fewer students in Group I understood the contents of the classes. These results suggest that practice classes programmed primarily by the teacher are more effective for improving the sprinting ability of students than practice classes programmed primarily by the students (problem-solving-type approach).

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