Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports

Athletes often experience lower airway dysfunction, such as asthma and exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB), which affects more than half the athletes in some sports, not least in endurance sports. Symptoms include coughing, wheezing, and breathlessness, alongside airway narrowing, hyperresponsiveness, and inflammation. Early diagnosis and management are essential. Not only because untreated or poorly managed asthma and EIB potentially affects competition performance and training, but also because untreated airway inflammation can result in airway epithelial damage, remodeling, and fibrosis...

BACKGROUND: Physical inactivity, excessive sedentary time and lack of sleep time have been independently associated with lower health-related physical fitness. However, little is known about the combined association between 24-Hour Movement Guidelines (i.e., physical activity, recreational screen time and sleep duration) and components of physical fitness. OBJECTIVE: The main aim was to examine the likelihood of having high/very high levels on different components of physical fitness based on meeting with 24-Hour Movement Guidelines...

Curling is a target-based team sport played in a cold environment. The type of stress curling players face during a curling match remains to be determined. In the present study, 16 Japanese curling players performed a practice curling match (6 ends lasting 90 min), wherein the following parameters were documented: core and skin temperatures, heart rate, thermal sensation and comfort, urine specific gravity, body fluid loss, salivary cortisol, α-amylase activity, salivary secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA) levels, and fractionated exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO, a respiratory stress marker) levels...

Physiological differences have been reported between individuals who have habitual low (LOW) and high (HIGH) water intake (WI). The aims of this study were to explore body water compartments, hydration status, and fat-free mass (FFM) hydration of elite athletes exposed to different habitual WI. A total of 63 athletes (20.6 ± 5.3 years, 23 females) participated in this observational cross-sectional study. Total WI was assessed by seven-day food diaries and through WI, athletes were categorized as HIGH (n=28, WI≥40...

Performance in short-duration sports is highly dependent on muscle glycogen, but the total degradation is only moderate and considering the water-binding property of glycogen, unnecessary storing of glycogen may cause an unfavorable increase in body mass. To investigate this, we determined the effect of manipulating dietary carbohydrates (CHO) on muscle glycogen content, body mass and short-term exercise performance. In a cross-over design twenty-two men completed two maximal cycle tests of either 1-min (n = 10) or 15-min (n = 12) duration with different pre-exercise muscle glycogen levels...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to explore the influence of a concurrent exercise (aerobic+resistance) training program, from the 17th gestational week (g.w.) until birth on low back and sciatic pain, and pain disability. A total of 93 pregnant women divided into exercise (n=49) and control (n=44) groups followed a 60-min, 3 days/week, concurrent exercise training. METHODS: Low back and sciatic pain were measured with a Visual Analogic Scale (VAS)...

INTRODUCTION: Although stroke is an emerging cause of disability and mortality globally, associations between physical capability markers and mortality in stroke survivors are less well known. This study investigated the individual and combined associations of walking pace and grip strength with all-cause and stroke mortality in stroke survivors. METHODS: Individual and combined associations of walking pace and grip strength with stroke deaths and all-cause mortality were investigated using Cox proportional-hazard models adjusted for sociodemographic, lifestyle and health-related variables...

The aim of the present cross-sectional study was to determine if chronic rock climbing and climbing-specific resistance training (RT) would modify the reticulospinal tract (RST) efficacy. Sixteen healthy, elite level climbers (CL; n=16, 5F; 29.8±6.7y) with 12±7 years of climbing and climbing-specific RT experience and 15 healthy recreationally active participants (CON; n=15, 4F; 24.6±5.9y), volunteered for the study. We quantified RST efficacy by comparing the effects of a startle stimulus over reaction time (Rtime) and measured rate of force development (RFD) and surface electromyography (sEMG) in representative muscles during powerful hand grip contractions...

OBJECTIVES: To assess evidence on the impact of acute and chronic high intensity interval training (HIIT) and sprint interval training (SIT) on work-related performance tests of cognitive function in adults. METHODS: The databases PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, PsycINFO, Embase and the Cochrane Library were searched for relevant articles up to August 2022. Eligible studies assessed the effects of HIIT (70-100% VO2max ) and/or SIT (≥100% VO2max ) on cognitive function test scores in cognitively healthy adults, relative to a control or comparative exercise group/condition...

BACKGROUND: While there have been several school-based physical activity (PA) interventions targeting improvement in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, few have assessed long-term effects. The aim of this paper was therefore to determine intervention effects on CVD risk factors five years after cessation. METHODS: Two schools were assigned to intervention (n=125) or control (n=134). The intervention school offered 210 min/week more PA than the control school over two consecutive years (4th and 5th grades)...

This study applied self-determination theory (SDT) as a psychological framework to examine whether psychological need support and autonomous motivation are predictive of sports injury preventive behaviours and the incidence of sports injuries. 2042 secondary school students (mean age = 14.33, male = 44.3%) from China completed a survey of the study variables (using established scales) at three time points (baseline, 1-month follow-up, 3-month follow-up). Structural equation modelling examined the core tenets of SDT by testing if the change-scores of the SDT variables (i...

Low energy availability (LEA) occurs inadvertently and purposefully in many athletes across numerous sports; and well planned, supervised periods with moderate LEA can improve body composition and power to weight ratio possibly enhancing performance in some sports. LEA however has the potential to have negative effects on a multitude of physiological and psychological systems in female and male athletes. Systems such as the endocrine, cardiovascular, metabolism, reproductive, immune, mental perception, and motivation as well as behaviors can all be impacted by severe (serious and/or prolonged or chronic) LEA...

PURPOSE: The aims of this study were to assess 1) the day-to-day variability in, and 2) the magnitude and time-course of adaptation of physiological parameters (i.e., maximal oxygen uptake [VO2 max], heart rate [HR], blood lactate concentration, respiratory exchange ratio [RER], ratings of perceived exertion [RPE] and time-to-exhaustion [TTE]) in response to an intervention involving 3 incremental ramp tests per week for 9 weeks. METHODS: Twelve participants (25 ± 4 yrs, VO2 max, 47...

OBJECTIVES: Sedentary behavior (SB) and physical inactivity have been associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality. Evidence in China is scarce, and it is unclear whether physical activity (PA) attenuates or even eliminates the harmful effects of prolonged SB in the Chinese population. METHODS: We conducted a prospective cohort study of 17 084 Chinese adults. PA and sitting time (ST) were assessed using the IPAQ. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the risk of PA and ST with all-cause mortality...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the associations of self-perceived and objectively-measured physical fitness with psychological well-being and distress indicators in young paediatric cancer survivors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 116 participants (12.1±3.3 years, 56.9% boys) from the iBoneFIT project participated in this cross-sectional study. Objectively-measured physical fitness (muscular fitness) was obtained by handgrip strength and standing long jump tests for the upper- and lower-body, respectively...

BACKGROUND: Although chronic ankle instability (CAI) patients display altered reactive joint kinematics after inversion perturbation, little is known about the effects of anticipation on reactive joint kinematics among CAI, coper, and control groups. OBJECTIVE: To assess changes in reactive joint kinematics after different inverted landing situations including planned- and unplanned-condition among groups of CAI, coper, and control. METHODS: Sixty-six volunteers participated (22 per group)...

INTRODUCTION: Arterial hypertension is a global health burden that affects vascular structure and function. Assessment of endothelial function can improve cardiovascular (CV) risk stratification. Exercise treatment reduces over all CV risk and improves vascular health. However, it is still not clear which part of the vascular bed is most sensitive to exercise treatment in patients with CV risk. This study aimed to investigate the effects of an 8-week walking based and supervised high-intensity interval training (HIIT) on macro- and microvascular endothelial function as add-on therapy in patients with arterial hypertension...

Intervention strategies to break up sitting have mostly focused on the modality (i.e., comparing different intensities and/or type of activities) and less on how frequency and duration of breaks affect health outcomes. This study compared the efficacy of different strategies to break up sitting time [i.e., high frequency, low duration standing breaks (HFLD) and low frequency, high duration standing breaks (LFHD)] in reducing postprandial glucose. Eleven sedentary and prediabetic adults (mean±SD age = 46...

Predictors and mitigators of strain injuries have been studied in sprint-related sports. While the rate of axial strain, and thus running speed, may determine the site of muscle failure, muscle excitation seemingly offers protection against failure. It seems therefore plausible to ask whether running at different speeds changes the distribution of excitation within muscles. Technical limitations undermine however the possibility of addressing this issue in high-speed, ecological conditions. Here we circumvent these limitations with a miniaturized, wireless, multi-channel amplifier, suited for collecting spatio-temporal data and high-density surface electromyograms (EMGs) during overground running...

Military training is physically arduous and associated with high injury incidence. Unlike in high-performance sport, the interaction between training load and injury has not been extensively researched in military personnel. Sixty-three (43 men, 20 women; age 24 ± 2 years; stature 1.76 ± 0.09 m; body mass 79.1 ± 10.8 kg) British Army Officer Cadets undergoing 44 weeks of training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst volunteered to participate. Weekly training load (cumulative 7-day moderate-vigorous physical activity [MVPA], vigorous PA [VPA] and the ratio between MVPA and sedentary-light PA [SLPA; MVPA:SLPA]) was monitored using a wrist-worn accelerometer (GENEActiv, UK)...