The Relationship Between Playing Formations, Team Ranking, and Physical Performance in the Serie A Soccer League.

The influence of playing formations and team ranking on the physical performance of professional soccer players is an open question that needs to be explored. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of these factors on the physical exertion of Serie A soccer players. We analyzed match data from 375 players, categorizing teams based on their final ranking and comparing performance across different playing formations.

Pressing, pressure and re-aggressing as tactical movement of anterior cruciate ligament injuries in women's soccer.

Introduction: A better understanding of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury mechanisms in female soccer can guide better research on both prevention programs and late-stage rehabilitation for the return-to-sport process. This narrative review investigates the technical and tactical game situations in female soccer linked to ACL injury mechanisms.

Evidence Acquisition: Through a literature search, we reviewed scientific literature to identify soccer-specific technical movements and tactical patterns that increase the risk of ACL injuries in female players.

Dreaming while awake: The beneficial effects of yoga Nidra on mental and physical recovery in two elite karate athletes.

Yoga Nidra (YN) naturally stimulates a hypnagogic state wherein an individual is physiologically asleep yet maintains a certain awareness to follow a guide's instructions. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of this aware sleep state on recovery-stress balance in two elite karate athletes adopting an idiosyncratic and multimodal approach. One male and one female athlete underwent a YN intervention.

Special Issue: Sport Psychology Interventions for Athletes' Performance and Well-Being.

Scientific evidence highlights that sport psychology interventions adopted by professionals are crucial for making a difference in athlete performance [...

Are COMT Val158Met (rs4680), DRD2 TaqIA (rs1800497), and BDNF Val66Met (rs6265) polymorphisms associated with executive functions performance at rest and during physical exercise?

Executive functions (EFs) encompass a wide array of cognitive processes, which appear to be influenced by genetic variants of the COMT, DRD2/ANKK1, and BDNF polymorphisms. The present study aimed to investigate whether COMT Val158Met (rs4680), DRD2/ANKK1 (rs1800497), and BDNF Val66Met (rs6265) polymorphisms were associated with EFs assessed at rest and during moderate acute physical exercise. Sixty physically active individuals underwent four laboratory visits.

The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Strategies on Perceived Stress and Psychobiosocial States in Athletes and Recreationally Active People.

The mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme is gaining increasing attention in sport and physical activity domains. This programme comprises three meditation practices: mindful yoga, body scan, and sitting meditation. In this study, we aimed to examine the effects of a dynamic (mindful yoga) strategy and a static (a combination of body scan/sitting meditation) strategy on participants’ psychobiosocial states (PBS), perceived stress (PS) and mindfulness levels in athletes and recreationally active (RA) people.

Age-Related Differential Effects of School-Based Sitting and Movement Meditation on Creativity and Spatial Cognition: A Pilot Study.

Psychophysical well-being can be supported during development by the integration of extra-curricular activities in scholastic settings. These activities can be implemented in different forms, ranging from physical activities to sitting meditation practices. Considering that both such activities are thought to affect children's psychophysical development, a movement-based meditation that combines the two approaches-in the form of a short daily activity-could represent a powerful tool to promote healthy physical and mental development.

Neural Oscillation During Mental Imagery in Sport: An Olympic Sailor Case Study.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the cortical correlates of imagery depending on instructional modality (guided vs. self-produced) using various sports-related scripts. According to the expert-performance approach, we took an idiosyncratic perspective analyzing the mental imagery of an experienced two-time Olympic athlete to verify whether different instructional modalities of imagery (i.

How Does a Sport Psychological Intervention Help Professional Cyclists to Cope With Their Mental Health During the COVID-19 Lockdown?

All around the world in March, due to COVID-19, competitive sport calendars were suddenly canceled, jeopardizing the training programs of athletes. Moreover, in Italy, the government banned all non-essential travel across the entire country from the beginning of March. Consequently, Italian cyclists were banned from leaving their homes and therefore unable to perform their ordinary training activities.

The influence of core affect on cyclo-ergometer endurance performance: Effects on performance outcomes and perceived exertion.

Background: Core affect is defined as the most general affective construct consciously accessible that is experienced constantly. It can be experienced as free-floating (mood) or related to prototypical emotional episodes. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of pleasant and unpleasant core affect on cyclo-ergometer endurance performance.

Correlates of Silence: Enhanced Microstructural Changes in the Uncinate Fasciculus.

Silence is an important aspect of various meditation practices, but little work has focused specifically on the underlying neurophysiology of silence-related meditative practice, and on how it relates to the self-reported experiences of practitioners. To expand current knowledge regarding the neurophenomenology of silence in meditation, we directly investigated first-person reports of silence-related experiences during the practice of Quadrato Motor Training (QMT) and their association with changes in fractional anisotropy (FA). Participants recorded their cognitive, emotional, and physical experiences upon beginning QMT and again after 6 weeks of QMT practice.

Athletes and adversities: athletic identity and emotional regulation in time of COVID-19.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted on the sporting field, with athletes constrained in home isolation without the possibility to train and compete in their usual environments. This situation has been investigated within the theoretical frameworks of athletic identity and cognitive emotion regulation.

Objectives: The objectives of our investigation were to: (a) validate the athletic identity measurement scale (AIMS) for use in Italian language; and (b) explore differences by gender, typology of sport (individual vs.

Influence of gestational age on the effectiveness of spatial and temporal methods for the reconstruction of the fetal magnetocardiogram.

Fetal magnetocardiography (fMCG) has been shown to augment fetal ultrasound evaluation for high-risk conditions, but the clinical utility of fMCG depends on the reliability of the cardiac traces reconstructed. We performed a methodological study to examine the influence of gestational age on the properties of the fetal magnetocardiograms extracted with two methods of signal reconstruction: the template matching technique (TMT), which extracts the maternal components from the signal using only temporal information, and independent component analysis (ICA), which separates the fetal signals by using information on the spatial distribution of the mixed source signals in addition to higher order temporal statistics. Efficiency and accuracy were evaluated in terms of fetal beat detection, signal characteristics, and duration of cardiac time intervals (CTIs) on the averaged traces.