Sports Injuries of a Portuguese Professional Football Team during Three Consecutive Seasons.

Professional football players are exposed to high injury risk due to the physical demands of this sport. The purpose of this study was to characterize the injuries of a professional football team in the First Portuguese League over three consecutive sports seasons. Seventy-one male professional football players in the First Portuguese Football League were followed throughout the sports seasons of 2019/2020, 2020/2021, and 2021/2022. In total, 84 injuries were recorded. Each player missed an average of 16.6 days per injury. Lower limbs were massively affected by injuries across all three seasons, mainly with muscular injuries in the quadriceps and hamstrings and sprains in the tibiotarsal structure. Overall, the injury incidence was considerably higher in matches than in training. The two times of the season that proved most conducive to injuries were the months of July and January. Our results emphasize the importance of monitoring sports performance, including injury occurrence, and assisting in identifying risk factors in professional football. Designing individualized training programs and optimizing prevention and recovery protocols are crucial for maximizing this global process.

The relation of education and cognitive activity to mini-mental state in old age: the role of functional fitness status.

It remains unclear so far whether the role of cognitive reserve for cognitive functioning in old age may differ between individuals with low, compared to those with high functional fitness status. Therefore, the present study set out to investigate the relation of education and cognitive leisure activity as key markers of cognitive reserve to mini-mental state in old age (as an indicator of the extent of cognitive impairment) and its interplay with functional fitness status in a large sample of older adults. We assessed MMSE in 701 older adults (M = 70.4 years, SD = 6.9, range: 60-91). We measured functional fitness status using the Senior Fitness Test battery and interviewed individuals on their education and cognitive leisure activity. Results showed that better functional fitness status, longer education, and greater engagement in cognitive leisure activity were significantly related to higher MMSE scores. Moderation analyses showed that the relations of education and cognitive leisure activity to MMSE scores were significantly larger in individuals with low, compared to those with high functional fitness status. In conclusion, cognitive functioning in old age may more strongly depend on cognitive reserve accumulated during the life course in older adults with low, compared to those with high functional fitness status. These findings may be explained by cross-domain compensation effects in vulnerable individuals and may (at least partly) account for the large variability in cognitive reserve-cognition relations debated in the literature.

The relationship of physical activity to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level in a sample of community-dwelling older adults from Amazonas, Brazil.

OBJECTIVES: (1) To study the relation of physical activity (PA) to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and (2) to investigate if the strength of these associations holds after adjustments for sex, age, and other key correlates. METHODS: This study included 550 older adults from Amazonas. HDL-C was derived from fasting blood samples. PA at sport and leisure, smoking, alcohol consumption, and socioeconomic status (SES) were interviewed. Waist circumference (WACI) was assessed. RESULTS: HDL-C was positively related to PA sport, PA leisure, and SES (0.22≤r≤0.34; p≤0.001) and negatively related to smoking and WACI (r≤-0.10; p<0.05). Controlling for sex and age did not affect these relationships. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that the relation of HDL-C to PA sport and leisure remained significant when controlling for all other investigated correlates (0.14≤ß≤0.24; p≤0.001). DISCUSSION: In order to prevent low HDL-C in older adults, promoting PA seems to be an important additional component besides common recommendations concerning weight reduction.

Changes in cardiorespiratory fitness predict changes in body composition from childhood to adolescence: findings from the European Youth Heart Study.

BACKGROUND: Several variables, such as waist circumference (WC) and trunk skinfolds (TS), are indicators of body fat. There is interest in evaluating the effect of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) measures on changes in these markers from childhood to adolescence. PURPOSE: To examine CRF as a potential predictor of changes in body fat over an 8-year follow-up period in a pediatric population. METHODS: A cohort study of 86 children (44 girls, 42 boys) with a mean age of 9.8 ± 0.3 years who participated in the Portuguese arm of the European Youth Heart Study in 2000 completed a follow-up evaluation in 2008 at a mean age of 17.0 ± 0.4 years. Cardiorespiratory fitness, expressed as maximal oxygen consumption (VO2 max) (mL·kg(-1)·min(-1)), was assessed during an incremental multistage bicycle test to exhaustion. Physical activity (PA) was objectively measured by accelerometry at both periods of evaluation. Fat mass (FM) was assessed using anthropometric models, sum of TS, and WC. Changes were expressed as a percentage of the baseline value. Comparison of means and linear regression analysis were used for data analysis. RESULTS: While CRF significantly increased among boys (P < 0.05) and decreased in girls (P < 0.01), the percentage of body fat decreased over time in boys (P < 0.01) and increased among girls. Alone, CRF explained 39%, 26%, and 25% of the total variance in WC, FM, and TS, respectively (P < 0.01). Adjusting for PA, sex, and maturation changes, CRF remained a significant predictor of WC (ß = -0.335; P < 0.01), FM (ß = -2.084; P < 0.01), and TS (ß = -1.500; P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Changes in CRF are a significant predictor of changes in body fat percentage from childhood to adolescence. School-based PA interventions are encouraged to maintain or improve CRF from childhood and throughout adolescence to prevent increased percentages of body fat, particularly in the abdominal region.