Women in sport & physical activity journal最新文献

Throughout their lifespans, women undergo unique endocrinological changes relative to their reproductive hormones. The influence of how the female sex steroid hormones have nonreproductive actions is a trending topic of great interest in the exercise-sports sciences, especially among women of reproductive age. Herein, we present several key points on our perspective for moving the study of this topic forward in the future. These are (a) encouraging researchers to pursue high-quality research on female physiology-endocrinology in the exercise-sports science setting, (b) the need for exercise-sports science educational curriculums at the university level to embrace the study of female physiology-endocrinology area, and (c) the need for innovation in the study of this topic. As such, we propose using research design models involving supraphysiological hormonal states in vivo, that is, pregnancy and in vitro fertilization treatment, to gain new insights on sex steroid hormonal actions in women. Herein, we provide the rationale for our recommendations as well as a brief physiological overview of these clinical states. We acknowledge, exercise sports sciences need more studies on women! But there is a need to "think outside the box" on this topic, and we encourage researchers to be unconventional, be bold, think creatively, and contemplate whether these supraphysiological hormonal states might give them insightful information on female physiology and ovarian sex steroid hormones actions.

Introduction: The present scientific consensus is that the menstrual cycle (MC) and hormonal contraceptive (HC) cycle only influence performance trivially. Nevertheless, athletes perceive changes in performance that they associate with different phases of their hormonal cycle.

Methods: A total of 959 female athletes completed a questionnaire, of which 750 were included in the present analysis. The questionnaire included questions about demographics and experiences of the MC and HC (symptoms, perceived impact on performance characteristics).

Results: In total, 55% of athletes reported a natural MC while 45% reported HC use. Meanwhile, 56% of all athletes reported a decline in perceived performance during the bleeding or inactive phase, whereas 26% of all athletes reported no changes in performance over their hormonal cycle. All athletes reported an average of 10 ± 7 symptoms during hormonal cycles. The naturally menstruating (NM) group reported more symptoms than the HC group (p < .05). The most frequent symptoms reported were abdominal pain, bloating, and mood swings. Only 7% of all athletes (4.1% in NM and 11.3% in HC) reported an absence of any symptoms. Quantity of total symptoms was associated with a perceived decrease in performance (R ² = .138, p < .05). Hormonal cycles had the greatest negative effect on mental performance with 37% reporting a large to very large effect.

Conclusions: Perceived negative effects on performance were similar in both NM and HC groups while perceived mental performance (e.g., mood and attention) appeared to be most affected by both MC and HC.

Colloquial conjecture asserts perceptions of difference in what is more or less important to youth athletes based on binary categorization, such as sex (girls vs. boys), age (younger vs. older), and level of competitive play (recreational vs. travel). The fun integration theory's FUN MAPS, which identify 11 fun-factors comprised of 81 fun-determinants, offers a robust framework from which to test these conceptions related to fun. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to scientifically explore: (a) the extent to which soccer players' prioritization of the 11 fun-factors and 81 fun-determinants were consistent with the gender differences hypothesis or the gender similarities hypothesis, and (b) how their fun priorities evolved as a function of their age and level of play. Players' (n = 141) data were selected from the larger database that originally informed the conceptualization of the fun integration theory's FUN MAPS. Following selection, innovative pattern match displays and go-zone displays were produced to identify discrete points of consensus and discordance between groups. Regardless of sex, age, or level of play, results indicated extraordinarily high consensus among the players' reported importance of the fun-factors (r = .90-.97) and fun-determinants (r = .92-.93), which were consistently grouped within strata of primary, secondary, and tertiary importance. Overall, results were consistent with the gender similarities hypothesis, thereby providing the first data to dispel common conceptions about what is most fun with respect to sex, in addition to age and level of play, in a sample of youth soccer players.