Measurement invariance of the satisfaction with leisure satisfaction scale by gender, marital status, and age.

BACKGROUND: Leisure satisfaction is the degree of positive perception and emotions that an individual acquires as a result of participating in leisure time activities, and it has an important function in maintaining and increasing leisure time participation. Some studies on leisure satisfaction address the comparisons between groups. These studies are based on the premise that the measurement tool used to reveal the between-group differences measures the same feature in subgroups. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we investigated whether the differences between the groups were due to the measurement tool by examining the psychometric properties of the leisure satisfaction scale. METHODS: The study sample comprised 2344 exercising individuals, including 1228 (52.3%) women and 1116 (47.6%) men. The structural invariance of the leisure satisfaction scale, developed by Beard and Ragheb (Journal of Leisure Research 12:20-33, 1980) and adapted into Turkish by Gökçe and Orhan (Spor Bilimleri Dergisi 22:139-145, 2011), was tested through multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis. RESULTS: The results indicated that the structural and metric invariance conditions were fulfilled across gender, marital status, and age in all subscales of the leisure satisfaction scale. Scalar invariance was obtained in educational and social satisfaction subscales across gender and in physical satisfaction subscale across marital status. CONCLUSION: The study provides evidence for the future comparisons according to these three variables, indicating that the differences obtained will result from the real differences between groups rather than the measurement tool properties.

Global trends and future prospects of COVID-19 and physical activity: Bibliometric analysis.

BACKGROUND: Containment measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to drastic changes in daily life and effects on health behaviors such as decrease in physical activity (PA) levels. This study aims to present a general framework to researchers on COVID-19 and PA research in relation with changes in studies within years, current trend topics, gaps in the research field and possible future trends. METHODS: A total of 1819 articles indexed in the WoS core collection database were analyzed according to publication year, citation, country and institution collaborations, coword, co-citation networks, concept-topic trends and topic clusters using bibliometric analysis. RESULTS: The most productive country was the USA(n = 335), and the most productive institution was University of London in UK (n = 38). The most cited publication was the study by Ammar et al, (2020) (n = 188). In 2020, the most popular topics were PA and health meanwhile in 2021 behavior, lifestyle, social media and in 2022 habits, long COVID, sleep quality topics were in the foreground. Studies in 2023 focus on how COVID-19 affects PA habits and the associations between COVID-19-based anxiety and sleep patterns. These studies focused especially on effects of sport participation on life quality, diet, depression, mental health on young athletes, children, adolescent persons, older adult groups. CONCLUSIONS: An important gap in the study area is research on effect of changing lifestyle due to pandemic on individuals and the society during the Post COVID-19 period. If benefits of PA will not be limited to only physical benefits and psychological emotional, cognitive and social benefits are also taken into consideration, it is important that researchers conduct long-term and widescale observations.

The Effect of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback on Basketball Performance Tests.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of 10-week heart rate variability biofeedback training on basketball skills, free throws, and heart rate variability parameters. Twenty-four basketball players (experimental, n = 12 and control, n = 12) aged 18-24 years volunteered to participate in this study. The experimental group participated in a 10-week heart rate variability biofeedback and basketball training program, while the control group only participated in the 10-week basketball training session. Basketball free-throw performance, basketball skills, and heart rate variability tests were conducted on the experimental and control groups before and after the 10-week intervention. Consequently, we discovered that basketball free-throw performance, breathing frequency, and heart rate variability parameters, which reflect vagal modulation of parasympathetic activity, improved in participants who underwent the 10-week heart rate variability biofeedback and basketball training, and not in those who took basketball training only. Our findings propose that heart rate variability biofeedback, alongside basketball workouts, can contribute to better basketball free-throw performance potentially through improved autonomic nervous system functioning.

Vitamin E and aerobic exercise: effects on physical performance in older adults.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Aerobic endurance exercise enhances antioxidant defenses and improves the physical performance of older adults. However, the combined effect on physical performance of exercise and an antioxidant such as vitamin E has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of six months of vitamin E supplementation and supervised aerobic training on physical performance and body composition in sedentary older adults. METHODS: Fifty-seven adults, whose average age was 71.5+/-7.5 years, were randomly assigned to an exercise (E), exercise-vitamin (EV), control (C) or vitamin (V) group, and were evaluated before, halfway through, and after training. The dose of vitamin E was 900 IU/day. The training program comprised three sessions of walking exercise per week, at an intensity of 70% of heart rate reserve. RESULTS: In the E and EV groups, the training program significantly reduced (p<0.016 for each) body weight and body mass index (BMI), and improved performance in the 6- min walk, chair stand, arm curl, and back scratch tests. Performance on the 6-min walk test improved in E and EV, but decreased in the V group. Performance on the chair stand test increased in the EV and E groups, but decreased in the V and C groups. Body weight and BMI decreased more in the EV group than in the C and V groups (p<0.016). CONCLUSIONS: Six months of vitamin E supplementation has no additive effect beyond that of aerobic training on indices of physical performance and body composition in older sedentary adults.