(BQ) Continued part 1, part 2 of the document Introduction of the masters athlete has contents: Understanding masters athletes’ motivation for sport, masters sport as a strategy for managing the aging process, injury epidemiology, health, and performance in masters athletes, and other contents. Invite you to refer. | Introduction of the masters athlete: Part 2 CHAPTER SEVEN UNDERSTANDING MASTERS ATHLETES’ MOTIVATION FOR SPORT NIKOLA MEDIC The objective of this chapter is to discuss motivational processes underlying lifelong involvement in sports. Information pertaining to the topic will be mainly derived from survey data on over 600 Masters Athletes and on archived records from over 40,000 Masters Athletes of different sports; however, additional insights will be provided from other existing motivational research on Masters Athletes. The motivational themes will be discussed with respect to the following: n The importance of understanding motivational processes underlying lifelong involvement in sport; n The question of whether relative age effects exist in Masters sports; n The question of what motivates Masters Athletes. THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING MOTIVATIONAL PROCESSES UNDERLYING LIFELONG INVOLVEMENT IN SPORT Over the last three decades, an impressive body of literature has focused on the concept of motivation in sport settings. Various research strategies have been utilized successfully in pursuit of clarifying the complexity of this concept, and over 30 different theories have been proposed to explain and predict what motivates athletes to behave the way they do (Paskevich et al., 2006; Roberts, 2001). This research has been valuable because it provided the basis for understanding the choice, effort, and persistence tendencies, and their relation- ship to human behaviour. This research has also facilitated the development of strategies for maximizing positive outcomes in sport and physical activity settings in general. Sport motivational literature available to date offers many insights regarding the development of motivational factors until the time athletes reach 105 understanding masters athletes’ motivation for sport peak performance in their sports. However, our knowledge is much more limited, but emerging, .
