Search results for "athlete"
showing 10 items of 777 documents
Load Monitoring Practice in Elite Women Association Football
2021
The description of current load monitoring practices may serve to highlight developmental needs for both the training ground, academia and related industries. While previous studies described these practices in elite men's football, no study has provided an overview of load monitoring practices in elite women's football. Given the clear organizational differences (i.e., professionalization and infrastructure) between men's and women's clubs, making inferences based on men's data is not appropriate. Therefore, this study aims to provide a first overview of the current load monitoring practices in elite women's football. Twenty-two elite European women's football clubs participated in a close…
Ultrasound Imaging Evaluation of Textural Features in Athletes with Soleus Pathology—A Novel Case-Control Study
2021
Background: the aim of this study was to compare the echotexture of patients with soleus muscle injury and age matched controls. Methods: a sample of 62 athletes was recruited at the private clinic and was divided in two group: a healthy group (n=31) and a soleus pathology group whose athletes had soleus muscle injury, located in the central tendon (n=31). The muscle thickness (MTh), echointensity (EI) and echovariation (EV) were analyzed. An intra-rater reliability test (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient-ICC) was performed in order to analyze the reliability of the values of the measurements. Results: Sociodemographic variables did not show statistically significant differences (p >
Muscle training for bone strength
2006
The main function of bone is to provide the mechanical integrity for locomotion and protection; accordingly, bone mass and architecture are adjusted to control the strains produced by mechanical load and muscular activity. Age-related patterns involve peak bone mass during growth, a plateau in adulthood, and bone loss during aging. The decline in bone mass and structural integrity results in increased risk of fractures, particularly in post-menopausal women. Athletes competing in strength and power events, such as weight-lifting and jumping, have superior bone mass and structure compared with their untrained counterparts in all age groups. Exercise seems to be most effective during rapid gr…
Exercising recommendations for paroxysmal AF in young and middle-aged athletes (PAFIYAMA) syndrome.
2017
We have recently described a new syndrome: strenuous endurance exercise-related atrial fibrillation (AF) under the acronym of ‘paroxysmal AF in young and middle-aged athletes’ (‘PAFIYAMA’). Provided that other risk factors for AF and underlying conditions have been excluded (1), the diagnostic criteria for this syndrome entail a number of conditions, classified as major and minor. An enhanced risk of AF has been clearly documented in endurance athletes (top-class, elite and recreational) (2-5), and such risk typically ranges between 1.2- to 15-fold compared to the general, sedentary population (the better cardiovascular fitness, the higher incidence of AF) (6-11). Anecdotally, the last auth…
An innovative way to highlight the power of each polymorphism on elite athletes phenotype expression
2017
The purpose of this study was to determine the probability of soccer players having the best genetic background that could increase performance, evaluating the polymorphism that are considered Performance Enhancing Polymorphism (PEPs) distributed on five genes: PPAR alpha, PPARGC1A, NRF2, ACE e CKMM. Particularly, we investigated how each polymorphism works directly or through another polymorphism to distinguish elite athletes from non-athletic population. Sixty professional soccer players (age 22.5 +/- 2.2) and sixty healthy volunteers (age 21.2 +/- 2.3) were enrolled. Samples of venous blood was used to prepare genomic DNA. The polymorphic sites were scanned using PCR-RFLP protocols with …
Prospective study of sport dropout: A motivational analysis as a function of age and gender
2012
Abstract Introduction: This paper aimed to analyse the predictive ability of a self-determination theory (SDT) based model describing competitive sport dropout, and variance as a function of age and gender. Variables included in the model were: psychological need satisfaction, self-determined motivation, perceived conflict between sport and study, intention to practise sport, and dropout. Methods: A prospective study was performed over a period of 19 months. Variables considered as predictors of sport dropout were measured initially, and after 19 months persistence or dropout was assessed. The sample consisted of 857 athletes aged 11–19 (mean value 15.3; standard deviation = 1.77), 680 male…
Is unintentional doping real, or just an excuse?
2017
Although some athletes who engage in doping do so willingly in order to gain an unfair advantage (ie, ‘to cheat’), the possibility of athletes doping inadvertently or unintentionally cannot be discounted. In this article, we aim to address common misconceptions of the notion of ‘unintentional doping’, and discuss this topic with reference to statistics, reports and recommendations (eg, anti-doping codes) produced by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), together with evidence from recent empirical research. Unintentional doping (also known as ‘inadvertent’ or ‘accidental’ doping) refers to the accidental consumption of performance-enhancing substances included on WADA’s banned list.1 It ofte…
Predicting ACL Injury Using Machine Learning on Data From an Extensive Screening Test Battery of 880 Female Elite Athletes
2022
Background: Injury risk prediction is an emerging field in which more research is needed to recognize the best practices for accurate injury risk assessment. Important issues related to predictive machine learning need to be considered, for example, to avoid overinterpreting the observed prediction performance. Purpose: To carefully investigate the predictive potential of multiple predictive machine learning methods on a large set of risk factor data for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury; the proposed approach takes into account the effect of chance and random variations in prediction performance. Study Design: Case-control study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: The authors used 3-dime…
Impulsivity and physical activity: A T-Pattern detection of motor behavior profiles.
2020
The relation between impulsivity and physical activity has been scantly investigated. Actually, during physical activity, several goals are achieved on the basis of a certain dose of impulsiveness. This study detects motor and interactive behavior profiles from athletes with traits of impulsiveness, moderate impulsiveness and non-impulsiveness, performing open motor tasks concerning material, space and interaction behaviors. A specific test was administered to assess the impulsivity profiles of athletes; then the Observational System of Motor Skills, Space, Time and Interaction (OSMOSTI), was used to observe and detect movement sequences patterns throughout T-Pattern detection and analysis …
Swimrun: An emerging new endurance sport
2018
International audience; The swimrun is a new endurance team-sport based on two persons swimming and running alternatively through open water and mostly trails. The aim of this study was to analyse participation and performance trends for males, females and mixed duo team at the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun race (10 km open-water swimming and 65 km trail running). During the 2012–2016 period, the mean total time performance of the best athletes at the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun decreased significantly by 17 min/year for males, 40 min/year for mixed and 59 min/year for females duo, respectively. The difference in performance between the best males and females duo (26 ± 15%) was significantly greater compared to the di…