Validity and reproducibility of a food frequency questionnaire to determine dietary intakes among Lebanese athletes.

Background And Objective: Nutrition is a basic need for athletes; thus, adequate dietary intake is crucial for maintaining overall health, facilitating training adaptations and boosting athletic performance. Accurate dietary assessment tools are required to minimize the challenges faced by athletes. This study verifies the validity and reproducibility of a 157 item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) among Lebanese athletes.

Physical Activity Levels and Predictors during COVID-19 Lockdown among Lebanese Adults: The Impacts of Sociodemographic Factors, Type of Physical Activity and Work Location.

Background: Although effective against COVID-19, national lockdowns have several deleterious behavioral and health effects, including physical inactivity. The objective of this study is to assess physical activity (PA) levels during lockdown and the predictors of PA among Lebanese adults, while comparing classical statistics to machine learning models.

Methods: Data were collected using an online questionnaire, with PA being evaluated through the "International Physical Activity Questionnaire" (IPAQ)-long form.

Pregnancy physical activity questionnaire (PPAQ): Translation and cross cultural adaption of an Arabic version.

Introduction: Physical activity level during pregnancy is unknown in Middle Eastern and North African countries, since no valid tools assessing it exist in Arabic. The aim of this study is to culturally adapt and translate to Arabic an internationally validated instrument, the Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ), and to measure the physical activity of pregnant women using the adapted PPAQ, Arabic version. This tool is time-sparing, self-administered and is the only one taking into account childcare and household chores.

Validity and reliability of an adapted arabic version of the long international physical activity questionnaire.

Background: The International Physical Actvity Questionnaire (IPAQ) is a validated tool for physical activity assessment used in many countries however no Arabic version of the long-form of this questionnaire exists to this date. Hence, the aim of this study was to cross-culturally adapt and validate an Arabic version of the long International Physical Activity Questionnaire (AIPAQ) equivalent to the French version (F-IPAQ) in a Lebanese population.

Methods: The guidelines for cross-cultural adaptation provided by the World Health Organization and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire committee were followed.

Mortality of French participants in the Tour de France (1947-2012).

Aims: In the context of recent concerns regarding performance enhancing techniques and potential negative health effects of high-level physical activity, data on the long-term outcomes and causes of death in elite endurance cyclists are of particular interest.

Methods And Results: Characteristics and vital status of all French participants in the Tour de France were collected for the 1947-2012 period. Causes of death were obtained from 1968.

Impact of environmental parameters on marathon running performance.

Purpose: The objectives of this study were to describe the distribution of all runners' performances in the largest marathons worldwide and to determine which environmental parameters have the maximal impact.

Methods: We analysed the results of six European (Paris, London, Berlin) and American (Boston, Chicago, New York) marathon races from 2001 to 2010 through 1,791,972 participants' performances (all finishers per year and race). Four environmental factors were gathered for each of the 60 races: temperature (°C), humidity (%), dew point (°C), and the atmospheric pressure at sea level (hPA); as well as the concentrations of four atmospheric pollutants: NO(2)-SO(2)-O(3) and PM(10) (μg x m(-3)).

Psychological balance in high level athletes: gender-based differences and sport-specific patterns.

Objectives: Few epidemiological studies have focused on the psychological health of high level athletes. This study aimed to identify the principal psychological problems encountered within French high level athletes, and the variations in their prevalence based on sex and the sport practiced.

Methods: Multivariate analyses were conducted on nationwide data obtained from the athletes' yearly psychological evaluations.

Tour de France, Giro, Vuelta, and classic European races show a unique progression of road cycling speed in the last 20 years.

Road cycling ranks among the most intense endurance exercises. Previous studies and mathematical models describing road cycling have not analysed performances per se. We describe the evolution of road cycling performance over the past 116 years.

Athlete atypicity on the edge of human achievement: performances stagnate after the last peak, in 1988.

The growth law for the development of top athletes performances remains unknown in quantifiable sport events. Here we present a growth model for 41351 best performers from 70 track and field (T&F) and swimming events and detail their characteristics over the modern Olympic era. We show that 64% of T&F events no longer improved since 1993, while 47% of swimming events stagnated after 1990, prior to a second progression step starting in 2000.

Women and Men in Sport Performance: The Gender Gap has not Evolved since 1983.

Sex is a major factor influencing best performances and world records. Here the evolution of the difference between men and women's best performances is characterized through the analysis of 82 quantifiable events since the beginning of the Olympic era. For each event in swimming, athletics, track cycling, weightlifting and speed skating the gender gap is fitted to compare male and female records.

Success in developing regions: world records evolution through a geopolitical prism.

A previous analysis of World Records (WR) has revealed the potential limits of human physiology through athletes' personal commitment. The impact of political factors on sports has only been studied through Olympic medals and results. Here we studied 2876 WR from 63 nations in four summer disciplines.

From Oxford to Hawaii ecophysiological barriers limit human progression in ten sport monuments.

In order to understand the determinants and trends of human performance evolution, we analyzed ten outdoor events among the oldest and most popular in sports history. Best performances of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race (since 1836), the channel crossing in swimming (1875), the hour cycling record (1893), the Elfstedentocht speed skating race (1909), the cross country ski Vasaloppet (1922), the speed ski record (1930), the Streif down-hill in Kitzbühel (1947), the eastward and westward sailing transatlantic records (1960) and the triathlon Hawaii ironman (1978) all follow a similar evolutive pattern, best described through a piecewise exponential decaying model (r(2) = 0.95+/-0.

The citius end: world records progression announces the completion of a brief ultra-physiological quest.

World records (WR) in sports illustrate the ultimate expression of human integrated muscle biology, through speed or strength performances. Analysis and prediction of man's physiological boundaries in sports and impact of external (historical or environmental) conditions on WR occurrence are subject to scientific controversy. Based on the analysis of 3263 WR established for all quantifiable official contests since the first Olympic Games, we show here that WR progression rate follows a piecewise exponential decaying pattern with very high accuracy (mean adjusted r(2) values = 0.