The Coping Strategies Used by Young Tunisian Athletes in Individual and Collective Sports

The objective of this study was to discover the repertoire of coping strategies used by young Tunisian male and female athletes in individual and team sports when competing in their sport, and to examine the effect of gender and type of sport on these strategies. A total of 917 young Tunisian athletes including 349 female athletes and 568 male athletes, aged 14 to 19, with an average age of 15.63 ± 1.5 years, participated in our study. Participants were invited to respond to the Arabic version of the Competitive Sport Adaptation Strategy Inventory to assess their coping repertoire. The results revealed that factors, such as gender, and type of sport, influenced the coping repertoire among young athletes. In the inter-personal and intra-personal context, young athletes used a wide variety of coping strategies, all of which were task-oriented and disengagement-oriented

The Impact of a Motor Imagery-Based Training Program on Agility, Speed, and Reaction Time in a Sample of Young Tennis Athletes during Ramadan Fasting: Insights and Implications from a Randomized, Controlled Experimental Trial

The objective of this study was to explore whether a training program incorporating motor imagery could have an effect on physical performance outcomes in terms of agility, speed, and reaction time in a sample of tennis athletes who fasted during the month of Ramadan. Recruited subjects were 27 young male tennis players, randomly allocated to two groups: the imaging training group (n = 13) and a control group (n = 14). The study was designed as a randomized, controlled experimental study. The control group was engaged in watching videos concerning the history of the Olympic Games, whereas the motor imagery group followed a motor imagery-based training program. Physical performance outcomes were assessed during four sessions (one before Ramadan and three during Ramadan) by means of field tests. Our results revealed a drop in all performance outcomes measured in the middle and at the end of Ramadan for both groups (p < 0.01). The effect of the group × time interaction (p < 0.01) was reported for all physical performance outcomes measured for the two groups. This drop in performance was greater for the control group compared to the motor imagery group in the middle and at the end of Ramadan. This study showed that fasting during Ramadan reduced agility, speed, and reaction time performance for tennis players. A motor imagery-based training program could be an effective approach to reduce the effect of fasting during Ramadan and stabilize physical performance outcomes in terms of agility, speed, and reaction time for male tennis players