Athlete Monitoring

PURPOSE: Female athletes with menstrual abnormalities have poor sleep quality. However, whether female athletes with poor sleep quality based on subjective assessment have distinctive changes in objective measures of sleep in association with menses remains unclear. This study aimed to compare changes in objective sleep measurements during and following menses between collegiate female athletes with and without poor subjective sleep quality. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Female collegiate athletes (age range/mean ± standard deviation: 18-22/ 22...

PURPOSE: While there is a rising focus on sleep issues among athletes, a notable gap exists in the comparative analysis of sleep patterns between male and female athletes. This study aims to evaluate the sleep patterns of collegiate swimmers during a specific period (pre-competition training phase) based on the National Sleep Foundation's recommendations and compares sleep differences between males and females. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 15 swimmers (6 males and 9 females) completed the Athlete Sleep Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) and wore actigraphy devices for 8 consecutive nights to record objective sleep patterns including bedtime, wake time, sleep onset latency, total sleep time, wake after sleep onset, and sleep efficiency...

In sports science, the use of wearable technology has facilitated the development of new approaches for tracking and assessing athletes' performance. This narrative review rigorously explores the evolution and contemporary state of wearable devices specifically engineered for continuously monitoring lactate levels in sweat, an essential biomarker for appraising endurance performance. Lactate threshold tests have traditionally been integral in tailoring training intensity for athletes, but these tests have relied on invasive blood tests that are impractical outside a laboratory setting...

Dyspnea on exertion in otherwise healthy adolescents and young adults is often brought to the attention of a pediatric pulmonologist when it interferes with an athletic activity. Assessment of the cause and management has been controversial. Skilled pediatric pulmonologists may suspect the cause from a careful history, but a more definite diagnosis is needed to provide the most appropriate management. Suspecting that laryngeal obstruction is the major cause, continuous laryngoscopy during exercise has been proposed...

BACKGROUND: Sport schools are popular environments for simultaneously delivering education and sport to young people. Previous research suggests sport school involvement to have impact (i.e. the positive/negative, intended/unintended and long/short-term outcomes, results and effects) on student athlete's holistic (i.e. academic, athletic, psychosocial and psychological) development. However, previous research is limited by (1) cross-sectional methods, (2) limited multidimensional assessments, (3) lack of consideration for athlete characteristics (e...

BACKGROUND: Badminton is a sport demanding both high aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels, and fatigue can significantly impact game performance. However, relevant studies are limited, and none have employed a wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) to investigate the effects of fatigue on athletic performance in the field. HYPOTHESIS: Overall performance and body acceleration in both time and frequency domains during the fundamental badminton skills of vertical jumping and changes of direction will be affected by fatigue...

The efficacy of interrupting prolonged sitting may be influenced by muscle activity patterns. This study examined the effects of interrupting prolonged sitting time with different muscle activity patterns on continuously monitored postprandial glycemic response. Eighteen overweight and obese men (21.0 ± 1.2 years; 28.8 ± 2.2 kg/m2 ) participated in this randomized four-arm crossover study, including uninterrupted sitting for 8.5 h (SIT) and interruptions in sitting with matched energy expenditure and duration but varying muscle activity: 30-min walking at 4 km/h (ONE), sitting with 3-min walking at 4 km/h (WALK) or squatting (SQUAT) every 45 min for 10 times...

CONTEXT: Baseball pitching requires fast and coordinated motions of the whole body to reach high ball speeds, putting considerable strain on the musculoskeletal system, particularly the shoulder and elbow. DESIGN: Descriptive epidemiology study. OBJECTIVE: To describe musculoskeletal symptoms and the functional status of the shoulder and elbow in male high school baseball pitchers. SETTING: Dutch baseball talent academies...

INTRODUCTION: High rates of cardiac involvement were reported in the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This led to anxiety in the athletic population. The current study was set up to assess the prevalence of myocardial fibrosis and ventricular arrhythmias in recreational athletes with the recent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. METHODS: Consecutive adult recreational athletes (≥18 years old, ≥4 h of mixed type or endurance sports/week) underwent systematic cardiac evaluation after a prior confirmed COVID-19 infection...

OBJECTIVE: To compare clinical measures between patients with chronic exertional compartment syndrome (CECS) and healthy controls and evaluate running biomechanics, physical measurements, and exertional intracompartmental (ICP) changes in adolescent athletes with lower leg CECS. DESIGN: Cross-sectional case-control study. SETTING: Large tertiary care hospital and affiliated injury prevention center. PARTICIPANTS: Forty-nine adolescents with CECS (39 F, 10 M; age: 16...

BACKGROUND: For athletes, overcoming obstacles in challenging situations like pandemic home training is crucial. Strategies and approaches in this context are not well-documented. Our study aims to investigate such a scenario from a performance standpoint, based on a major global crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. METHODS: This cross-sectional study surveyed athletes without disabilities using online questionnaires (35 languages) from May to July 2020. Questions included aspects of alternative routines, training monitoring, recovery, sleep patterns, injury occurrence/prevention based on structured answers, and an open-ended question on lockdown training experiences...

There are no investigations about the outcomes of idiopathic PVC catheter ablation (CA) in athletes compared to the sedentary population. We conducted a prospective single-centre observational study. The primary and secondary procedural outcomes were the post-ablation reduction of premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) in an athletes vs. non-athletes group and in agonist vs. leisure-time athletes. The third was the evaluation of the resumption of physical activity and the improvement of symptoms in agonist and leisure-time athletes...

BACKGROUND: l-lactate detection is important for not only assessing exercise intensity, optimizing training regimens, and identifying the lactate threshold in athletes, but also for diagnosing conditions like L-lactateosis, monitoring tissue hypoxia, and guiding critical care decisions. Moreover, l-lactate has been utilized as a biomarker to represent the state of human health. However, the sensitivity of the present l-lactate detection technique is inadequate. RESULTS: Here, we reported a sensitive ratiometric fluorescent probe for l-lactate detection based on platinum octaethylporphyrin (PtOEP) doped semiconducting polymer dots (Pdots-Pt) with enzymatic cascade reaction...

Physical activity is such an essential socio-biological element, which provides a balance between the body and the external environment and contributes to the improvement of metabolic process regulation mechanisms. However, the abuse of physical activity often leads to unwanted changes in the basic physiological processes in the athletes' organism, due to the impact of a variety of reasons. The state of the organism's regulatory systems and the provision of the necessary adaptation of the organism to physical activity are crucial in assessing the athlete's physical fitness...

OBJECTIVES: The study aims to (1) report the process of recruiting young adults into a secondary knee osteoarthritis prevention randomised controlled trial (RCT) after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR); (2) determine the number of individuals needed to be screened to include one participant (NNS) and (3) report baseline characteristics of randomised participants. METHODS: The SUpervised exercise-therapy and Patient Education Rehabilitation (SUPER)-Knee RCT compares SUPER and minimal intervention for young adults (aged 18-40 years) with ongoing symptoms (ie, mean score of <80/100 from four Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score subscales (KOOS4 )) 9-36 months post-ACLR...

BACKGROUND: Over the last few years, there has been a growing interest in workout apps and active virtual reality video games (AVRGs), which provide entertainment and enable users to undertake various forms of physical activity (PA) at home. Presumably, these types of exercises can be particularly useful for people with physical disabilities, who experience problems with access to sports and leisure facilities due to architectural and communication barriers. However, it is interesting whether the intensity of PA in VR is high enough to provide users with health benefits, as it is mainly based on arm movements...

OBJECTIVES: To describe the perceptions of physiotherapists and the injury prevention practices implemented within elite women's football clubs in Brazil. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Online survey. PARTICIPANTS: Head physiotherapists from 32 Brazilian elite clubs. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Structured questionnaire. RESULTS: Physiotherapists identified ACL rupture as the primary target for prevention...

Dawson, L, McErlain-Naylor, SA, Devereux, G, and Beato, M. Practitioner usage, applications, and understanding of wearable GPS and accelerometer technology in team sports. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2024-Monitoring training load is essential for optimizing the performance of athletes, allowing practitioners to assess training programs, monitor athlete progress, and minimize the risk of injury and overtraining. However, there is no universal method for training load monitoring, and the adoption of wearable global positioning system (GPS) and accelerometer technology in team sports has increased the volume of data and, therefore, the number of possible approaches...

OBJECTIVE: Determine the capacity of individual items on the Tendinopathy Severity Assessment - Achilles (TENDINS-A), Foot and Ankle Outcome Score (FAOS), and Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment - Achilles (VISA-A) to differentiate patients with mild and severe tendon-related disability in order to provide clinicians the best questions when they are consulting patients with Achilles tendinopathy. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. PARTICIPANTS: Seventy participants with Achilles tendinopathy (61...

As one of the fundamental volleyball skills, countermovement vertical jump (CMJ) has been commonly implemented in the applied sports setting as a non-invasive and time-efficient assessment of athletes' lower-body neuromuscular function. The purpose of the present study was to examine the differences in CMJ characteristics between starters and non-starters within a cohort of professional female volleyball players. Nineteen athletes competing in one of the top European leagues (i.e., SuperLeague) volunteered to participate in the present investigation...