Are Career Termination Concerns Only for Athletes? A Case Study of the Career Termination of an Elite Female Coach

This paper presents a case study of an elite female coach and her career termination from a 20+ year career following a critical life incident. A novel autobiographical approach was adopted whereby the participant undertook expressive writing to describe her experiences prior to, during, and following coaching an athlete at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Thematic analysis indicated seven phases related to the participant’s experiences of the critical incident: Build up to the event, the event, the aftermath, recovery and reflection on the event, sampling of new avenues, enlightenment, and career re-birth. The findings reinforce the high demands placed upon elite coaches, the subsequent threats to physical and mental well-being, and the importance of having robust psychological skills and suitable social support to cope with these demands. Implications for preparing and supporting coaches for successful career transition are discussed

Safe and Healthy Para sport project (SHAPE): a study protocol of a complex intervention within Para sport

Elite Para athletes report a high incidence of sports injuries, illnesses and other health issues. Despite this, there are few prevention programmes in Para sport, and many of the existing prevention programmes are not adapted to Para athletes. To improve the success of preventive measures, it has been suggested that sports safety work should facilitate health promotion, including athlete health education. Therefore, the overarching aim of this project is to evaluate an accessible health promotion web platform as part of a complex intervention that aims to improve knowledge of athlete health in Para sport. In this protocol, the development, future implementation and evaluation of the intervention are described. To inform the implementation and use of such interventions, it is recommended to involve end users in the development and implementation process. Therefore, a participatory design process, including athletes and the sports organisation, was used to develop an accessible health promotion web platform. To evaluate this complex intervention, a process evaluation combining quantitative evaluation assessing causal pathways with qualitative methods assessing multifaceted pathways will be used. The primary outcomes are injury/illness incidence, athlete health parameters, health literacy and user behaviour. A cohort of elite Para athletes (n=150) from Sweden and South Africa will be invited to participate. This project will be the first that aims to improve athlete health in Para sport through pragmatic and accessible health promotion. It is a boundary-crossing project that will be conducted in a real-world sport setting, including athletes with different socioeconomic backgrounds.</jats:p

Development and Validity of the Rating-of-Fatigue Scale

Objective: The purpose of these experiments was to develop a rating-of-fatigue (ROF) scale capable of tracking the intensity of perceived fatigue in a variety of contexts. Methods: Four experiments were carried out. The first provided the evidential basis for the construction of the ROF scale. The second tested the face validity of the ROF, and the third tested the convergent and divergent validity of the ROF scale during ramped cycling to exhaustion and 30 min of resting recovery. The final experiment tested the convergent validity of the ROF scale with time of day and physical activity (accelerometer counts) across a whole week. Results: Modal selections of descriptions and diagrams at different levels of exertion and recovery were found during Experiment 1 upon which the ROF scale was constructed and finalised. In Experiment 2, a high level of face validity was indicated, in that ROF was reported to represent fatigue rather than exertion. Descriptor and diagrammatic elements of ROF reportedly added to the coherence and ease of use of the scale. In Experiment 3, high convergence between ROF and various physiological measures were found during exercise and recovery (heart rate, blood lactate concentration, oxygen uptake, carbon dioxide production, respiratory exchange ratio and ventilation rate were all P < 0.001). During ramped cycling to exhaustion ROF and RPE did correspond (P < 0.0001) but not during recovery, demonstrating discriminant validity. Experiment 4 found ROF to correspond with waking time during each day (Mon–Sun all P < 0.0001) and with physical activity (accelerometer count) (Mon–Sun all P < 0.001). Conclusions: The ROF scale has good face validity and high levels of convergent validity during ramped cycling to exhaustion, resting recovery and daily living activities. The ROF scale has both theoretical and applied potential in understanding changes in fatigue in a variety of contexts

Beat-to-beat vectorcardiographic analysis of ventricular depolarization and repolarization in myocardial infarction

OBJECTIVES: Increased beat-to-beat variability in the QT interval has been associated with heart disease and mortality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the beat-to-beat spatial and temporal variations of ventricular depolarization and repolarization in vectorcardiogram (VCG) for characterising myocardial infarction (MI) patients. METHODS: Standard 12-lead ECGs of 84 MI patients (22 f, 63±12 yrs; 62 m, 56±10 yrs) and 69 healthy subjects (17 f, 42±18 yrs; 52 m, 40±13 yrs) were investigated. To extract the beat-to-beat QT intervals, a template-matching algorithm and the singular value decomposition method have been applied to synthesise the ECG data to VCG. Spatial and temporal variations in the QRS complex and T-wave loops were studied by investigating several descriptors (point-to-point distance variability, mean loop length, T-wave morphology dispersion, percentage of loop area, total cosine R-to-T). RESULTS: Point-to-point distance variability of QRS and T-loops (0.13±.04 vs. 0.10±0.04, p<0.0001 and 0.16±.07 vs. 0.13±.06, p<0.05) were significantly larger in the MI group than in the control group. The average T-wave morphology dispersion was significantly higher in the MI group than in the control group (62±8 vs. 38±16, p<.0001). Further, its beat-to-beat variability appeared significantly lower in the MI group than in the control group (12±5 v. 15±6u, p<0.005). Moreover, the average percentage of the T-loop area was found significantly lower in the MI group than the controls (46±17 vs. 55±15, p<.001). Finally, the average and beat-to-beat variability of total cosine R-to-T were not found statistically significant between both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Beat-to-beat assessment of VCG parameters may have diagnostic attributes that might help in identifying MI patients.Muhammad A. Hasan, Derek Abbott and Mathias Baumer

Match-Fixing Causing Harm to Athletes on a COVID-19-Influenced Gambling Market : A Call for Research During the Pandemic and Beyond

Match-fixing, although not a new problem, has received growing attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been reported in the media to have increased the risk of match-fixing events. Gambling is a well-documented addictive behavior, and gambling-related fraud, match-fixing, is a challenge to the world of sports. Most research on match-fixing has a judicial or institutional perspective, and few studies focus on its individual consequences. Nevertheless, athletes may be at particular risk of mental health consequences from the exposure to or involvement in match-fixing. The COVID-19 crisis puts a spotlight on match-fixing, as the world of competitive sports shut down or changed substantially due to pandemic-related restrictions. We call for research addressing individual mental health and psycho-social correlates of match-fixing, and their integration into research addressing problem gambling, related to the pandemic and beyond

Are Career Transition Concerns Only for Athletes? An Autobiographical Study of the Career Transition of an Elite Coach

In contrast to the wealth of literature devoted to elite and professional athletes few studies have explored the transition experiences of coaches’ out of their respective sports, or into other sports. This is despite the acknowledgement that the career transition can also be a significant and long lasting event for these individuals (Gordon & Lavallee, 2011). Like athletes, coaches do not consider the end of their careers or believe it important to plan for retirement despite acknowledging job instability. This paper presents a case study of a female coach and her transition out of long term coaching from her sport following a critical life event. At the time of the initial data collection the participant had been coaching in her sport at the elite level for 24 years. A novel autobiographical approach was adopted whereby the participant undertook expressive writing to describe her experiences prior to, during, and following the critical life event of coaching an athlete at the 2012 Summer Olympic games. Thematic analysis indicated 7 key moments related to the participant’s experiences of the critical life event: the build up to the event, the event itself, the aftermath, reflection on the event, sampling of new avenues, career enlightenment, and career re-birth. The findings describe the psychological processes that a coach experiences in relation to transitioning out of their sport due to a critical life event. They also reinforce the high demands placed upon elite coaches, the subsequent threats to physical and mental wellbeing, and the importance of having robust mental skills and suitable social support to cope with these demands. Implications for preparing and supporting coaches and support staff for successful career transition are discussed including the provision of structured support programs and resources in the lead up to, and following, critical life events in their professional careers