Frontiers in Sports and Active Living最新文献

Limited research exists on the health and injuries of South African senior netball players. Senior netball players may be at greater risk of injuries and chronic disease due to their age. To treat these conditions, they may use prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medications and, therefore, may be more vulnerable to unintentional doping. The primary aim of this study was to determine the health status, medication use and attitudes towards doping of South African senior netball players. A cross-sectional descriptive design was employed to collect data by means of an online survey. The validated 8-item Performance Enhancement Attitudes Scale (PEAS) was used to gather information on the netball player's attitudes towards doping. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data using proportions (categorical), means (normally distributed, continuous) and medians (non-normal distributed, continuous). Doping prevalence and accompanying 95% confidence interval were calculated. Sixty senior netball players consented and completed the self-report questionnaire. The prevalence of chronic disease was 11.67%. Asthma and other conditions such as depression and attention-deficit/hyperactivity (ADHD) had the highest prevalence of 3.33%. The prevalence of chronic prescription medication use was 8.33% and 66.67% of the netball players reported receiving prescription injections, medications or utilizing OTC medications for treating injury or illness suffered 1-6 weeks before or during competition. The netball players do not have a lenient attitude towards doping. The prescription and OTC medication use could put this cohort of netball players at risk of unintentional doping. Anti-doping education aimed at senior athletes may be beneficial to reduce the risk of unintentional doping due to prescription and OTC medication use for injury or illness.

Introduction: Shooting simulations provide an excellent opportunity to train use-of-force decisions in controlled environments. Recently, military and law enforcement organizations have expressed a growing desire to integrate physiological measurement into simulations for training and feedback purposes. Although participants can easily wear physiological monitors in these scenarios, direct implementation into training may not be simple. Theoretical problems exist in the ultra-short heart rate variability windows associated with use-of-force training, and practical problems emerge as existing scenario libraries at training organizations were not designed for physiological monitoring.

Methods: The current study explored the challenges and possibilities associated with direct implementation of physiological monitoring into an existing library of firearms training scenarios. Participants completed scenarios in a shooting simulator using existing military training scenarios while wearing a device to monitor their heart rate.

Results: The results revealed lower heart rate variability (approximately 6%) occurred in scenarios where participants did not have to fire weapons, indicating that don't-shoot scenarios may actually impose more cognitive stress on shooters. Additional evidence further demonstrated how both behavioral and physiological factors could be used concomitantly to predict unintentionally firing on non-hostile actors. However, behavioral measures were more predictive (e.g., β = .221) than physiological measures (e.g., β = -.132) when the latter metrics were limited to specific scenarios. Qualitative results suggest that simply applying physiological monitoring to existing shooting simulations may not yield optimal results because it would be difficult to directly integrate physiological measurement in a meaningful way without re-designing some elements of the simulations, the training procedure, or both.

Discussion: Future use-of-force shooting simulations should consider designing novel scenarios around the physiological measurement rather than directly implementing physiological assessments into existing libraries of scenarios.

The aim of this research was to evaluate the reliability of the measurements of biomechanical parameters of the muscles of athletes representing different disciplines as well as untrained people. Ninety-four young, healthy male individuals participated in the study and were divided into five subgroups: footballers (n = 25), volleyballers (n = 14), handballers (n = 19), MMA fighters (n = 16), and undrained group (n = 20). All of the participants underwent measurements of stiffness (S), muscle tone (T) and elasticity (E) by two independent measurers using MyotonPro equipment. Analysis was conducted on two different parts of the quadriceps femoris: rectus femoris (RF) and vastus medialis (VM. Consequently, the comprehensive analysis comprised 564 measurements (94 participants * 3 parameters = 282 * 2 measurers = 564). The results proves high reliability of the myotonometry (Pearson's CC over 0.8208-0.8871 for different parameters, ICC from to 0.74 to 0.99 for different muscles and parameters) excluding only stiffness for the VM which was characterized withlow ICC of 0.08 and relatively highest between the examined parameters MAE% of 8.7% which still remains low value. The most significant differences between the parameters in examined groups were observed between MMA fighters and volleyballers in terms of muscle tone and elasticity of the VM (correlation of 0.14842 and 0.15083 respecitively). These results confirm the usability of myotonometry in measuring the biomechanical properties of the muscles in different sports groups and confirm the independence of the results obtained from the person performing the measurement.

Background: The use of Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) among gym members has become a significant concern due to their impact on physical training and performance. Research worldwide indicates a notable prevalence of AAS use among athletes and gym attendees, often involving substances that are neither safe nor legal.

Objectives: This study aims to determine the prevalence of AAS use among gym attendees in Amman, Jordan, and to explore the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors associated with AAS use.

Methods: The study involved 399 participants from 35 randomly selected gyms in the metropolitan area of Amman, Jordan. A cluster sampling technique was used to select a diverse and representative sample of gym attendees. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire that assessed AAS use, knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral factors. Statistical analyses were conducted using chi-square tests to explore the relationships between AAS use and categorical variables, while logistic regression was employed to identify predictors of AAS use.

Results: The analysis revealed significant associations between AAS use and various factors, including knowledge, attitudes, behavioral factors, and demographic variables such as gender, age, exercise frequency, reasons for exercise, and total exercise duration. The study identified key predictors of AAS use among gym attendees in Amman, highlighting the importance of demographic and behavioral factors.

Conclusion: The findings underscore the need for targeted interventions to address misconceptions and promote safer practices among gym-goers in Amman. The study provides critical insights that can guide the development of strategies, policy adjustments, and educational initiatives aimed at reducing AAS misuse and fostering a healthier gym culture in the region.

Introduction: This research article presents a phenomenological evaluation of an organization working within disability and with CALD communities of a project that was supporting women carers who are newly arrived to Australia to be happier and healthier. The initiative aimed to alleviate social isolation, enhance wellbeing, and boost confidence among women from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria.

Methods: Through a qualitative exploration of the lived experiences of participants, findings were categorized into enablers and barriers, shedding light on the outcomes of physical activity participation for these women.

Results and discussion: Enablers included improvements in health, skill development, achievement, and enhanced social interaction and support, while barriers encompassed challenges related to access, socio-cultural factors, resource availability, interpersonal dynamics, and physiological constraints. Based on these findings, recommendations are proposed to empower CALD community members in the co-development and co-delivery of future programs, fostering sustainability and community-driven engagement.

Introduction: Physical exercise and gravitational load affect the activity of the cardiovascular system. How these factors interact with one another is still poorly understood. Here we investigate how the cardiovascular system responds to leg-press exercise during head-down tilt, a posture that reduces orthostatic stress, limits gravitational pooling, and increases central blood volume.

Methods: Seventeen healthy participants performed leg-press exercise during head-down tilt at different combinations of resistive force, contraction frequency, and exercise duration (30 and 60 s), leading to different exercise power. Systolic (sBP), diastolic (dBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), pulse pressure (PP) and heart rate (HR) were measured continuously. Cardiovascular responses were evaluated by comparing the values of these signals during exercise recovery to baseline. Mixed models were used to evaluate the effect of exercise power and of individual exercise parameter on the cardiovascular responses.

Results: Immediately after the exercise, we observed a clear undershoot in sBP (Δ = -7.78 ± 1.19 mmHg), dBP (Δ = -10.37 ± 0.84 mmHg), and MAP (Δ = -8.85 ± 0.85 mmHg), an overshoot in PP (Δ = 7.93 ± 1.13 mmHg), and elevated values of HR (Δ = 33.5 ± 0.94 bpm) compared to baseline (p < 0.0001). However, all parameters returned to similar baseline values 2 min following the exercise (p > 0.05). The responses of dBP, MAP and HR were significantly modulated by exercise power (correlation coefficients: r_dBP= -0.34, r_MAP= -0.25, r_HR= 0.52, p < 0.001). All signals' responses were modulated by contraction frequency (p < 0.05), increasing the undershoot in sBP (Δ = -1.87 ± 0.98 mmHg), dBP (Δ = -4.85 ± 1.01 and Δ = -3.45 ± 0.98 mmHg for low and high resistive force respectively) and MAP (Δ = -3.31 ± 0.75 mmHg), and increasing the overshoot in PP (Δ = 2.57 ± 1.06 mmHg) as well as the value of HR (Δ = 16.8 ± 2.04 and Δ = 10.8 ± 2.01 bpm for low and high resistive force respectively). Resistive force affected only dBP (Δ = -4.96 ± 1.41 mmHg, p < 0.0001), MAP (Δ = -2.97 ± 1.07 mmHg, p < 0.05) and HR (Δ = 6.81 ± 2.81 bpm, p < 0.0001; Δ = 15.72 ± 2.86 bpm, p < 0.0001; Δ = 15.72 ± 2.86 bpm, p < 0.05, depending on the values of resistive force and contraction frequency), and exercise duration affected only HR (Δ = 9.64 ± 2.01 bpm, p < 0.0001).

Conclusion: Leg exercises caused only immediate cardiovascular responses, potentially due to facilitated venous return by the head-down tilt position. The modulation of dBP, MAP and HR responses by exercise power and that of all signals by contraction frequency may help optimizing exercise prescription in conditions of limited orthostatic stress.

Introduction: Advances in motion capture technology include markerless systems to facilitate valid data collection. Recently, the technological reliability of this technology has been reported for human movement assessments. To further understand sources of potential error, biological reliability must also be determined. The aim of this study was to determine the day-to-day reliability for a three-dimensional markerless motion capture (MMC) system to quantify 4 movement analysis composite scores, and 81 kinematic variables.

Methods: Twenty-two healthy men (n = 11; $\overline{X}\pm \mathrm{SD}$ ; age = 23.0 ± 2.6 years, height = 180.4.8 cm, weight = 80.4 ± 7.3 kg) and women (n = 11; age = 20.8 ± 1.1 years, height = 172.2 ± 7.4 cm, weight = 68.0 ± 7.3 kg) participated in this study. All subjects performed 4 standardized test batteries consisting of 14 different movements on four separate days. A three-dimensional MMC system (DARI Motion, Lenexa, KS) using 8 cameras surrounding the testing area was used to quantify movement characteristics. 1 × 4 RMANOVAs were used to determine significant differences across days for the composite movement analysis scores, and RM-MANOVAs were used to determine test day differences for the kinematic data (p < 0.05). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were reported for all variables to determine test reliability. To determine biological variability, mean absolute differences from previously reported technological variability data were subtracted from the total variability data from the present study.

Results: No differences were observed for any composite score (i.e., athleticism, explosiveness, quality, readiness; or any of the 81 kinematic variables. Furthermore, 84 of 85 measured variables exhibited good to excellent ICCs (0.61-0.99). When compared to previously reported technological variability data, 62.3% of item variability was due to biological variability, with 66 of 85 variables exhibiting biological variability as the primary source of error (i.e., >50% total variability).

Discussion: Combined, these findings effectively add to the body of literature suggesting sufficient reliability for MMC solutions in capturing kinematic features of human movement.

Introduction: Massage is an effective treatment for reducing pain, swelling, stiffness, and improving muscle mobility. Although self-reported benefits on muscle stiffness and pain are well-known, studies measuring muscle stiffness objectively are scarce.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial involving 30 recreationally active young women (22.3 ± 0.4 years) was conducted. The participants were randomly assigned to either the control group or the intervention group which received a series of five 30-min whole back therapeutic massage sessions over 5 weeks. Shear wave elastography was used to assess muscle stiffness (erector spinae (ESp) and upper trapezius (UT) muscles) before and after the intervention and at 3-week follow-up.

Results: For ESp, there was no statistically significant time × group interaction (F = 2.908; p = 0.063). However, there was a statistically significant and large time × group interaction for UT (F = 13.533; p = 0.006; η ² = 0.19). Post-hoc testing for time indicated that the shear modulus in the intervention group was reduced at follow-up (p = 0.005; d = 1.02), while the difference between baseline and post-intervention measurements were not statistically significant (p = 0.053; d = 0.75).

Conclusion: In conclusion, massage significantly reduced proximal UT stiffness both 3 days and 3 weeks after the intervention. However, it had no significant effect on the distal part of UT or the ESp muscle.