Olli-Pekka Nuuttila, Heikki Kyröläinen, Veli-Pekka Kokkonen, Arja Uusitalo
{"title":"Correction: Morning versus Nocturnal Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability Responses to Intensified Training in Recreational Runners.","authors":"Olli-Pekka Nuuttila, Heikki Kyröläinen, Veli-Pekka Kokkonen, Arja Uusitalo","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00806-5","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00806-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"134"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11685333/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142910257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scott Hulm, Ryan G Timmins, Jack T Hickey, Nirav Maniar, Yi-Chung Lin, Katherine R Knaus, Bryan C Heiderscheit, Silvia S Blemker, David A Opar
{"title":"The Structure, Function, and Adaptation of Lower-Limb Aponeuroses: Implications for Myo-Aponeurotic Injury.","authors":"Scott Hulm, Ryan G Timmins, Jack T Hickey, Nirav Maniar, Yi-Chung Lin, Katherine R Knaus, Bryan C Heiderscheit, Silvia S Blemker, David A Opar","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00789-3","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00789-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The aponeurosis is a large fibrous connective tissue structure within and surrounding skeletal muscle and is a critical component of the muscle-tendon unit (MTU). Due to the lack of consensus on terminology and the heterogeneous nature of the aponeurosis between MTUs, there are several questions that remain unanswered. For example, the aponeurosis is often conflated with the free tendon rather than being considered an independent structure. This has subsequent implications when interpreting data regarding the structure, function, and adaptation of the aponeuroses from these studies. In recent years, a body of work has emerged to suggest that acute injury to the myo-aponeurotic complex may have an impact on return-to-sport timeframes and reinjury rates. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to provide a more detailed understanding of the morphology and mechanical behaviour common to all aponeuroses, as well as the unique characteristics of specific lower-limb aponeuroses that are commonly injured. This review provides the practitioner with a current understanding of the mechanical, material, and adaptive properties of lower limb aponeuroses and suggests directions for future research related to the myo-aponeurotic complex.</p>","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"133"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11668723/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142882896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dao Wang, Yang Liu, Justin J Lang, Marilyn G Klug, Ryan McGrath, Grant R Tomkinson
{"title":"Handgrip Strength has Declined Among Adults, Particularly Males, from Shanghai Since 2000.","authors":"Dao Wang, Yang Liu, Justin J Lang, Marilyn G Klug, Ryan McGrath, Grant R Tomkinson","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00800-x","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00800-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Handgrip strength (HGS) is an excellent marker of general strength capacity and health among adults. We aimed to calculate temporal trends in HGS for adults from Shanghai between 2000 and 2020.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Adults aged 20-59 years from Shanghai, China, were included. Representative cross-sectional HGS data (n = 127,756) were collected in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2014, and 2020. HGS was measured using isometric dynamometry and was adjusted for body size (i.e., height-squared). Trends in mean adjusted HGS were calculated using general linear models with adjustments for age, sex, location, occupation, blood pressure, and exercise time. Trends in distributional characteristics were described visually and calculated as the ratio of coefficients of variation (CVs).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We found a significant, small decline in mean adjusted HGS (effect size (ES) [95%CI]: -0.21 [-0.22, -0.20]) since the year 2000. Negligible temporal differences were found across age, location, and occupation groups, with a 2.8-fold greater decline for men than for women. Overall, distributional variability declined negligibly (ratio of CVs [95% CI]: 0.92 [0.91, 0.93]). We also observed a negligible trend (ES < 0.20) in distributional asymmetry among adults with low adjusted HGS (below the 25th percentile) and a small decline (ES = 0.20-0.49) in adults with high adjusted HGS (above the 75th percentile).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>There was a recent small decline in adjusted HGS for adults from Shanghai, which was greater for men than for women and nonuniform across the population. A decline in adjusted HGS may represent a decline in the general/functional health of the population.</p>","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"132"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11666846/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142878016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Astrid Junge, Rogier M van Rijn, Janine H Stubbe, Anja Hauschild
{"title":"Sleeping Beauty? A Prospective Study on the Prevalence of Sleep Problems and Their Potential Determinants in Professional Dancers.","authors":"Astrid Junge, Rogier M van Rijn, Janine H Stubbe, Anja Hauschild","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00798-2","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00798-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Sleep is important for health and performance but has rarely been studied in professional dancers. The aim was to analyse the prevalence of sleep problems in professional dancers and their potential determinants at the beginning of and during the season.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Professional dancers of six German companies answered a comprehensive baseline questionnaire on physical and mental health, including the Sleep Difficulty Score of the Athletic Sleep Screening questionnaire (ASSQ-SDS) in the beginning of the season and weekly health reports during the season. Numerical rating scales were used for severity of poor sleep, musculoskeletal pain, being stressed/overloaded, all health problems, impaired ability to dance, and workload in the previous seven days.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Of the 147 dancers who answered the baseline questionnaire, 104 (70.7%) completed in total 3186 weekly health reports (response rate: 71.2%). In the beginning of the season 53% of the dancers reported sleep problems of mild (34.0%), moderate (13.6%) or severe extent (5.4%), without differences between sexes, age groups, ranks of the dancers, company sizes or dance styles. The average weekly prevalence of \"poor sleep\" during the season was 68.8%. Multivariate regression analyses showed that symptoms of depression were significant determinants of sleep problems and the rating of \"poor sleep\" at baseline; while musculoskeletal pain, being stresses/overloaded, all health problems, impaired ability to dance, and physical and mental workload were significant determinants of \"poor sleep\" during the season. Variables of the baseline questionnaire were not significantly related to the individual mean rating of \"poor sleep\" during the season, except of the quality and duration of sleep.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Sleep problems are frequent in professional dancers and related to their physical and mental health and workload. An assessment of sleep should be part of routine health screenings and interventions to improve sleep should be implemented, especially for dancers with pre-existing sleep problems and for periods of high workload.</p>","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"131"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11662107/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142872931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction: Sex Differences in Performance and Performance-Determining Factors in the Olympic Winter Endurance Sports.","authors":"Guro Strøm Solli, Øyvind Sandbakk, Kerry McGawley","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00805-6","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00805-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"130"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11649587/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142829811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Niklas D Neumann, Jur J Brauers, Nico W van Yperen, Mees van der Linde, Koen A P M Lemmink, Michel S Brink, Fred Hasselman, Ruud J R den Hartigh
{"title":"Critical Fluctuations as an Early Warning Signal of Sports Injuries? A Proof of Concept Using Football Monitoring Data.","authors":"Niklas D Neumann, Jur J Brauers, Nico W van Yperen, Mees van der Linde, Koen A P M Lemmink, Michel S Brink, Fred Hasselman, Ruud J R den Hartigh","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00787-5","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00787-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>There has been an increasing interest in the development and prevention of sports injuries from a complex dynamic systems perspective. From this perspective, injuries may occur following critical fluctuations in the psychophysiological state of an athlete. Our objective was to quantify these so-called Early Warning Signals (EWS) as a proof of concept to determine their explanatory performance for injuries. The sample consisted of 23 professional youth football (soccer) players. Self-reports of psychological and physiological factors as well as data from heart rate and GPS sensors were gathered on every training and match day over two competitive seasons, which resulted in an average of 339 observations per player (range = 155-430). We calculated the Dynamic Complexity (DC) index of these data, representing a metric of critical fluctuations. Next, we used this EWS to predict injuries (traumatic and overuse).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Results showed a significant peak of DC in 30% of the incurred injuries, in the six data points (roughly one and a half weeks) before the injury. The warning signal exhibited a specificity of 95%, that is, correctly classifying non-injury instances. We followed up on this promising result with additional calculations to account for the naturally imbalanced data (fewer injuries than non-injuries). The relatively low F<sub>1</sub> we obtained (0.08) suggests that the model's overall ability to discriminate between injuries and non-injuries is rather poor, due to the high false positive rate.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>By detecting critical fluctuations preceding one-third of the injuries, this study provided support for the complex systems theory of injuries. Furthermore, it suggests that increasing critical fluctuations may be seen as an EWS on which practitioners can intervene. Yet, the relatively high false positive rate on the entire data set, including periods without injuries, suggests critical fluctuations may also precede transitions to other (e.g., stronger) states. Future research should therefore dig deeper into the meaning of critical fluctuations in the psychophysiological states of athletes.</p><p><strong>Key points: </strong>Complex Systems Theory suggests that sports injuries may be preceded by a warning signal characterized by a short window of increased critical fluctuations. Results of the current study showed such increased critical fluctuations before 30% of the injuries. Across the entire data set, we also found a considerable number of critical fluctuations that were not followed by an injury, suggesting that the warning signal may also precede transitions to other (e.g., healthier) states. Increased critical fluctuations may be interpreted as a window of opportunity for the practitioner to launch timely and targeted interventions, and researchers should dig deeper into the meaning of such fluctuations.</p>","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"129"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11649608/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142829814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Aden Kittel, Riki Lindsay, Peter Le Noury, Luke Wilkins
{"title":"The Use of Extended Reality Technologies in Sport Perceptual-Cognitive Skill Research: A Systematic Scoping Review.","authors":"Aden Kittel, Riki Lindsay, Peter Le Noury, Luke Wilkins","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00794-6","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00794-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Extended Reality (XR) technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and 360°VR are growing rapidly in the scientific literature and sporting practice. These have been used for a range of skills, particularly perceptual-cognitive skills. However, to our knowledge, there is no systematic scoping review on this topic identifying the current state of play of the research area by characteristics such as study type, technology type, or sport investigated, and such a review would help guide the future direction of this area. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically review the extent of XR technology in sport for assessing and training athletes' and officials' perceptual-cognitive skills.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Electronic databases (SCOPUS, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus, PsycINFO) were searched for relevant articles up until January 2024. Studies were included if they used XR technologies to assess or develop sport-specific, higher order perceptual-cognitive skills.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>57 studies met the inclusion criteria for this review, of which 67% were published from 2020. Most studies conducted quantitative research designs, with 66% of studies adopting a cross-sectional assessment approach and 28% conducting an intervention to assess performance improvements. Decision-making was the most prevalent skill investigated, across 60% of studies. The most common technology was head mounted display (51%) presenting animated environments and the most common sports investigated were football and handball (32% and 19% of studies, respectively).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This review highlights a significant growth in the research exploring XR technologies in sport for perceptual-cognitive skill development and understanding, with most studies published in the last 4 years. Prominent technology types (e.g. animated HMD), perceptual-cognitive skills (e.g. decision making), study designs (e.g. quantitative assessment), and sports (e.g. football) are identified and discussed along with practical implications and future research.</p><p><strong>Key points: </strong>Extended reality technologies for sports perceptual-cognitive skills is an emerging field, marked by key trends in the types of technology used and the perceptual-cognitive skills being studied. Decision-making is the most commonly studied perceptual-cognitive skill, and these technologies report to have high representativeness and engagement when being used. More research is required to explore the effectiveness of this technology through intervention study designs, and further understand how it can be used and the perceptual-cognitive processes through qualitative research designs.</p>","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"128"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11607248/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142751618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joachim D'Hondt, Laurent Chapelle, Chris Bishop, Dirk Aerenhouts, Kevin De Pauw, Peter Clarys, Eva D'Hondt
{"title":"Association Between Inter-Limb Asymmetry and Determinants of Middle- and Long-distance Running Performance in Healthy Populations: A Systematic Review.","authors":"Joachim D'Hondt, Laurent Chapelle, Chris Bishop, Dirk Aerenhouts, Kevin De Pauw, Peter Clarys, Eva D'Hondt","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00790-w","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00790-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The presence of inter-limb asymmetry in the human body has traditionally been perceived to be detrimental for athletic performance. However, a systematic review addressing and comprehensively assessing the association of asymmetry between the lower limbs and middle- and long-distance running performance-related metrics is currently lacking.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>The main purpose of this systematic review was to examine the relationship between lower inter-limb asymmetry and determinants of running performance in healthy middle- and long-distance runners. The secondary objective was to identify possible avenues for further research in this area.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>PubMed, Web of Science and SPORTDiscus were systematically searched for studies investigating the relationship between lower inter-limb asymmetry and (determinants of) running performance in healthy and injury-free middle- and long-distance runners. The quality of studies eligible for inclusion was assessed using the Downs and Black Quality Index Tool.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Out of 4817 articles screened, 8 studies were included in this review which assessed the association between functional, morphological, kinematic and kinetic asymmetry and running performance-related metrics. The quality score of the included research varied between 5/10 and 9/10. Our results revealed mixed findings, showing both significant negative (n = 16) and positive (n = 1) associations as well as no significant associations (n = 30) between inter-limb asymmetry and running performance-related metrics.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>A high heterogeneity across study methods and outcomes was apparent, making it difficult to draw a straightforward conclusion. Our results indicate that the majority of metrics of functional, morphological, kinematic and kinetic inter-limb asymmetry are negatively or not associated with running performance (and/or its determinants). Thus, a more extensive high-quality body of research using standardised asymmetry magnitude metrics is essential to determine whether, and to what extent asymmetry between the lower limbs could affect middle- and long-distance running performance. Future studies should establish potential trade-off values to help practitioners develop evidence-based training programs.</p><p><strong>Key points: </strong>In the majority of the metrics, the magnitude of lower inter-limb asymmetry was negatively or not associated with middle- and long-distance running performance. Coaches, athletes and researchers should be attentive of the task, time- and metric-specificity as well as the inter- and intra- individual variability of magnitude outcomes, when assessing inter-limb asymmetries.</p>","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"127"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11599690/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142716953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sex Differences in Performance and Performance-Determining Factors in the Olympic Winter Endurance Sports.","authors":"Guro Strøm Solli, Øyvind Sandbakk, Kerry McGawley","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00792-8","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00792-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Most sex comparisons in endurance sports have been derived from performance-matched groups of female and male athletes competing over similar distances within summer sports. Corresponding analyses of sex differences in winter endurance sports have not previously been conducted. In the Olympic Winter Games (OWG), the endurance sports include cross-country skiing (XCS), biathlon (BIA), Nordic combined (NC), ski mountaineering (SkiMo) and long-track speed skating (SpSk). The aim of this narrative review is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the sex differences in performance and performance-determining factors in the OWG endurance sports.</p><p><strong>Main body: </strong>Sex differences in competition speeds are ~ 7-16% in XCS, 12-16% in BIA and 7-11% in SpSk, with race distances often shorter for women compared to men. No comparable data have been published for NC or SkiMo. Slower skiing speeds among women are associated with greater use of the diagonal and gear 2 sub-techniques in classic and skate skiing, respectively. In SpSk, slower skating speeds among women may be related to a less effective push-off being maintained throughout races. Laboratory data have revealed absolute and relative peak aerobic capacity to be 30-63% and 10-27% greater, respectively, in male versus female XCS, BIA, NC, SkiMo and SpSk athletes. There is limited evidence of sex differences in training characteristics, although women currently tend to complete more strength training than men in XCS and BIA. Of note, most data have been derived from studies performed in XCS, with almost no studies investigating sex differences in NC or SkiMo.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This review provides a comprehensive overview of sex differences in performance and performance-determining factors within and between OWG endurance sports, which provides a scientific basis for designing training programs and future studies. Due to the lack of research investigating sex differences in NC and SkiMo, these sports, in particular, would be worthy of further attention.</p><p><strong>Key points: </strong>This narrative review provides a novel and comprehensive analysis of sex differences in performance and performance-determining factors in the Olympic winter endurance sports. Sex differences in competition speeds are ~ 7-16% in cross-country skiing, biathlon and speed skating, while no comparable data were available for Nordic combined or ski mountaineering. Since men have historically skied and skated over greater distances than women in cross-country skiing, biathlon and speed skating competitions, the \"true\" sex differences in performance are likely larger than the differences reported in the literature, therefore exceeding the differences typically reported for summer endurance sports. Most information about sex differences in Olympic winter endurance sports is based on studies performed in cross-country skiing. The conspicuous lack of information on","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"126"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11579258/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142676621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Natalie K Gilmore, Peter Klimek, Emil Abrahamsson, Keith Baar
{"title":"Effects of Different Loading Programs on Finger Strength in Rock Climbers.","authors":"Natalie K Gilmore, Peter Klimek, Emil Abrahamsson, Keith Baar","doi":"10.1186/s40798-024-00793-7","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40798-024-00793-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Climbing places high loads through the hands and fingers, and climbers may benefit from specific finger strength training (hangboarding) protocols. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a 10-minute low intensity hangboard finger strengthening protocol (\"Abrahangs\"), compared with the generally accepted Max Hangs protocol for training maximal grip strength.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We retrospectively evaluated the change in grip strength and Strength: Weight following Max Hangs, Abrahangs, or the two protocols performed concurrently in rock climbers who used the Crimpd app to log their training. Users who had completed two finger strength tests within a 4-16-week period were included. Climbers were grouped by the number of training sessions into: \"Climbing Only\", \"Abrahangs Only\", \"Max Hangs Only\" and \"Both\" Max Hangs and Abrahangs.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Frequent low intensity finger loading was as effective at improving grip strength in climbers as training with maximal loads. Additionally, combining low intensity and maximal load training resulted in additive strength gains.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These results suggest that low-intensity long duration holds provide a promising training paradigm for training finger strength that is gentle enough to incorporate into existing training programs.</p>","PeriodicalId":21788,"journal":{"name":"Sports Medicine - Open","volume":"10 1","pages":"125"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11576708/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142669070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}