Plasticity of the postural function to sport and/or motor experience

•Motor experience can engender postural adaptations.•Training can improve postural performance and strategy in inactive subjects.•There is a relationship between motor expertise and postural ability in sportspeople.•The postural adaptations induced are multifactorial and systemic.•These adaptations are very specific and the transfer effect is very limited.

This review addresses the possible structural and functional adaptations of the postural function to motor experience. Evidence suggests that postural performance and strategy evolve after training in inactive subjects. In trained subjects, postural adaptations could also occur, since elite athletes exhibit better postural performance than, and different postural strategy to sub-elite athletes. The postural adaptations induced are specific to the context in which the physical activity is practiced. They appear to be so specific that there would be no or only a very slight effect of transfer to non-experienced motor tasks (apart from in subjects presenting low initial levels of postural performance, such as aged subjects). Yet adaptations could occur as part of the interlimb relationship, particularly when the two legs do not display the same motor experience. Mechanistic explanations as well as conceptual models are proposed to explain how postural adaptations operate according to the nature of physical activities and the context in which they are practiced as well as the level of motor expertise of individuals.