Frontiers in Sports and Active Living最新文献

Objective: The study aimed to increase our understanding of offensive transitions in football, focusing on the time spent executing them and how it is influenced by the period in which they occur and the instant score. The objective is to understand its temporal variables and how they influence the unfolding of the scoreline during a match.

Methodology: This study analyzes 1,649 goals resulting from offensive transitions in 1,151 games across three leagues categories: Top, Marginal, and Emerging leagues. Multinomial logistic regression was performed to understand associations and predictors between the variables: "duration of a transition", "Time of offensive transition occur" and the "score at the moment".

Results: The research reveals that, across all league categories, the last 15 min of the first and second halves, have the highest frequency of successful offensive transitions, particularly on the last 15 min of matches. In Top leagues, 69% of offensive transitions last for 9 s or more, with slower transitions more prevalent towards the end of games. In Marginal leagues, 41% of successful transitions took 13 s or longer, while in Emerging leagues, 53% of successful offensive transitions occurred when the game was not in a 0-0 state. The results show associations between all variables in Top Leagues. No associations were found in Marginal leagues. Associations between duration of the transition and the time of the game they occur were found on Emerging Leagues.

Conclusion: These findings underscore the importance of tailored strategic plans for offensive transitions, to optimize scoring opportunities and performances.

Introduction: Psychological abuse continues to be the most frequently reported type of maltreatment among athletes leading to negative mental health such as low mood and self-esteem, increased anxiety, self-harm, and eating disorders. Preliminary evidence suggests athlete satisfaction can influence the perceived outcomes associated with psychological abuse. Despite its negative impacts on athletes, psychological abuse continues to be justified as a tool to enhance athletic performance.

Methods: This study sought to examine the effects of psychological abuse on athlete satisfaction and mental health indicators of eating disorders and self-harm. Participants consisted of Canadian National Team athletes who completed a survey of maltreatment in sport with items assessing psychological abuse, athlete satisfaction, eating disorder and self harm indicators (n = 794).

Results: Results indicated a negative correlation between psychological abuse and athlete satisfaction, and a positive correlation with eating disorders and self-harm indicators. Additionally, athlete satisfaction was a significant moderator of psychological abuse on eating disorder and self-harm indicators. High athlete satisfaction buffered against the negative effects of psychological abuse on self-harming indicators in non-aesthetic and weight based sport and non-team sport athletes. Conversely, the interaction between athlete satisfaction and psychological abuse was marginally significant in predicting increased negative effects on eating disorders in aesthetic and weight based sport athletes.

Discussion: These findings highlight the detrimental effects psychological abuse can have on athletes in relation to eating disorders and self-harm, and the buffering role of athlete satisfaction on self-harm but not eating disorder indicators in aesthetic and weight based sport athletes. Recommendations include increased attention to preventing psychological abuse in sport.

Date of birth influences the chances of success in sports. Compared to players born just before a cutoff date for marking the admissibility in a category (age groups), players born soon after are overrepresented. However, it is not yet known whether the effect of date of birth in sports applies beyond the players' active participation in the game. The aim of the study was to determine whether there is a date of birth effect among ice hockey's coaches. The birthdates of 3,380 coaches in minor league hockey for the 2023-2024 season were obtained from Hockey Québec. The investigation indicated that people born in the first half of the year were more likely to become minor hockey coaches than those born in the second half. This significant birthdate effect is observed with coaches born in 1980s (53.42% vs. 46.58%) and after 1989 (55.73% vs. 44.27%), but not with coaches born before 1980 where the effect tended to reverse. This finding is interpreted as a consequence of the birthdate effect during the development as a hockey player and suggests a loss of potential coaches to the ice hockey system.

The rapid development of prepaid consumption in China's sports industry has been hindered by fundamental issues such as operators' blind expansion, lack of transparency in business information, absence of standard contract texts, and inadequate consumer rights protection. These challenges have led to business closures, unfair contract terms, difficulties in card refunds and transfers, and the excessive issuance of long-term or lifetime prepaid cards. These problems severely damage the industry's integrity and impede its healthy and sustainable development. Currently, the governance of prepaid consumption in the sports industry faces several realistic dilemmas, including unclear collaborative regulatory and law enforcement responsibilities of the government, an urgent need to improve the legal framework, ineffective government regulatory tools, difficulties in ensuring the safety of prepaid funds, and limitations in the credit evaluation system. By introducing the concept of collaborative governance, new ideas and practical solutions are proposed to address these issues. The practical pathways for collaborative governance of prepaid consumption in the sports industry based on this concept include constructing a collaborative regulatory mechanism to solidify the foundation of collaborative governance, improving legal regulations to broaden collaborative relief channels, innovating government regulatory tools to build a collaborative regulatory platform; optimizing fund custody mechanisms to ensure the safety of prepaid funds; and enhancing the credit regulatory system to refine the credit reward and punishment mechanism.

Mental preparation for sports competition in karate is significant, as it is deeply embedded in the philosophical and ethical values that underpin this combat method. In practice, the mental preparation of karateka varies depending on the type of competition, for example preparation for kata (forms) and kumite (fights). Thus, this perspective offers a concise account of the authors' viewpoint on the leading mental skills required of kata competitors. It is argued that self-esteem, inner speech, imagination, visualisation, values and personality play a significant role in the development of confidence. In addressing stress, attention was directed towards the role of arousal, coping strategies, Jacobson's progressive relaxation, Schultz's autogenic training, biofeedback, schemas and scripts. Effective management of anxiety relies on the utilisation of mindfulness and desensitisation techniques. In maintaining attention, effective attention management, attention styles, the ability to filter out distractions, mantras and affirmations are significant. Conversely, practicing tasks that induce a Stroop effect can improve executive function skills. The above elements of mental preparation for kata competitors are universally applicable to all competitors in this field, yet they are not the sole elements that may be employed. Given the individual predispositions of kata competitors, other mental training techniques may also be applicable.

Introduction: In the so-called "new career era," career transitions and employability have attracted growing attention. For elite athletes, the Dual Career experiences may be regarded as a protective factor during various career transitions, with the end-of-career transition being closely linked to employability. This contribution aims to explore the dual career paths of athletes through the lens of graduate employability, as perceived by the individuals themselves. Thus, employability can be considered as an important resource for athletes during the many transitions that characterize their sports careers.

Methodology: Study participants included 21 student-athletes participating in the first four editions of the Dual Career program at an Italian university. Using a phenomenological-interpretive approach, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with participants. A top-down and bottom-up content analysis was conducted using Nvivo software for qualitative analysis.

Results: The data derived from interviews and focus groups are presented with reference to four dimensions-Human Capital, Social Capital, Individual Behaviors, and Individual Attributes-that, according to Clarke's integrated model, impact perceived employability in graduate students, including student-athletes. The results highlight traits shared with classic university students while, at the same time, emphasizing peculiar sub-dimensions.

Discussion: This study integrates the constructs of employability and career transitions in the target group of university athletes. Through the Clarke's model, which offers a complex and multidimensional definition of employability, this research explores why the dual career pathway represents a resource for athletes during transitions. The results can serve as a first step in developing good practices for supporting and guiding student-athletes enrolled in Dual Career programs, by addressing aspects recognized in the scientific literature as practical implications for supporting employability development.

Background: In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have begun to focus on the relationship between children's motor development and school activities, with the relationship between children's fine motor skills and academic achievement being a particularly researched area. However, due to different research perspectives among scholars, the results in this field have been somewhat controversial. Therefore, this study aims to delve deeper into the relationship between children's fine motor skills and their various academic abilities through systematic review and meta-analysis.

Method: English databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Embase) and Chinese databases (CNKI, Wei Pu) were searched, and a quantitative meta-analysis was conducted using STATA software, along with a systematic descriptive analysis of the included literature.

Results: From the 1,147 documents retrieved, 11 studies were ultimately included. All meta-analysis results are significant, and there is a medium correlation between fine motor skills and reading ability, a larger correlation is observed with mathematical ability. In the subgroup analysis of each fine motor skill component and academic ability, except for the fine motor coordination, which shows only a small correlation with reading ability, the variables in the other subgroups all exhibit a medium degree of correlation. Notably, the correlation between visual-motor integration and mathematical ability is the strongest in subgroup (r = 0.47).

Conclusion: The meta-analysis provides evidence supporting a positive and statistically significant correlation between preschool children's fine motor skills and learning outcomes. However, the scope of academic abilities examined in this domain is predominantly confined to mathematics and reading. Moreover, existing research largely focuses on surface-level correlational analyses, necessitating deeper exploration into the underlying mechanisms.

Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/, identifier (CRD42023415498).

Introduction: Women with disabilities may experience particular difficulties in starting and developing in sport, also in the Paralympic context. Although a great deal of research has been conducted with high-performance athletes, relatively few studies have focused on athletes with disabilities, especially Paralympic women using person-first approaches. Thus, the main objective of this study is to understand, through the experience and opinion of a Paralympian female athlete, how these athletes reach their full potential, identifying the elements and initiatives that can influence (whether positively or negatively) their sporting trajectory and developmental milestones.

Methodology: This study analyzes the case of a quadruple Paralympic medalist in blind Judo, who has competed in Paralympic Games from Athens 2004 to Paris 2024. Information was gathered from a semi-structured interview, a book chapter she had written, and her participation in a forum.

Results: The athlete differentiated between two key stages in the sports career of people with disabilities: (1) the beginning of sports practice; and (2) development processes and the search for future Paralympic athletes. Women with disabilities face particular difficulties in accessing sport, with foundations for people with disabilities and coaches playing a fundamental role. It is crucial to give visibility and have sports references in these areas, highlighting initiatives such as Paralympic School Days and inclusive competitions. There are conditioning factors in the identification and development of talent, such as the rules and the nature of each Paralympic sport, and the level of inclusion that the athletes have experienced in their environment.

Conclusions: This case study presents the perceptions of a female athlete with regard to the beginnings and development of sport in the Paralympic framework, underlining the need to promote actions that help and encourage the development and participation of women with disabilities in sport.