The relationship between recovery and fatigue and its impact on performance has attracted the interest of sports science for many years. An adequate balance between stress (training and competition load, other life demands) and recovery is essential for athletes to achieve continuous high-level performance. Research has focused on the examination of physiological and psychological recovery strategies to compensate external and internal training and competition loads. A systematic monitoring of recovery and the subsequent implementation of recovery routines aims at maximizing performance and preventing negative developments such as underrecovery, non-functional overreaching, the overtraining syndrome, injuries, or illnesses. Due to the inter- and intra-individual variability of responses to training, competition, and recovery strategies, a diverse set of expertise is required to address the multifaceted phenomena of recovery, performance and their interactions to transfer knowledge from sports science to s...

The aim of this study was to determine how elite team athletes perceive the importance of various recovery modalities. Differences between men and women, players from various team sports and different levels of participation were determined. A total of 890 athletes who volunteered to participate in the study were team players from field hockey (n=213; mean age 21.8±3.3 years), netball (n=215; mean age 22.0±4.0 years), rugby union (n=317; mean age 23.2±3 years) and soccer (n=145; mean age 21.3±2.2 years). The total group of players consisted of 507 (57%) men and 383 (43%) women. At the time of the study, players who participated in the study competed at the highest level of the major competitions and tournaments in their sport, both locally and internationally. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire specifically designed for the study. A one‐page, alphabetical list consisted of 32 words or phrases relating to physiological, psychological, social as well as complimentary and alternative strategies, which could be used for the recovery of athletes. Recovery modalities that were rated as important by all players, regardless of gender, type of sport or level of participation, were sleep, fluid replacement and socialise with friends. Gender differences could play a role in how the importance of recovery modalities was perceived. Men rated an ice bath and supplements as significantly more important (P<0.001) than women. Women rated discussions with their teammates and coaches after training and matches as significantly more important (P<0.001) than men. Significant differences were also found between the different sport codes and levels of participation in regard to the perceived importance of various modalities that could affect recovery of team sport players.

The development of the human foot is crucial for motor learning in children and adolescents as it ensures the basic requirements for bipedal locomotion and stable standing. Although there is an ongoing debate of the advantages and disadvantages of early and permanent footwear use, the influence of regular barefootness on foot characteristics in different stages of child development has not been extensively evaluated. A multicenter epidemiological study was conducted to compare the foot morphology between habitually barefoot children and adolescents (N = 810) to age-, sex- and ethnicity-matched counterparts that are used to wearing shoes. While controlling for confounders, we found that habitual footwear use has significant effects on foot-related outcomes in all age groups, such as a reduction in foot arch and hallux angles. The results indicate an impact of habitual footwear use on the development of the feet of children and adolescents. Therefore, growing up barefoot or shod may play an important role for childhood foot development, implying long-term consequences for motor learning and health later in life.

Small wireless trunk accelerometers have become a popular approach to unobtrusively quantify human locomotion and provide insights into both gait rehabilitation and sports performance. However, limited evidence exists as to which trunk accelerometry measures are suitable for the purpose of detecting movement compensations while running, and specifically in response to fatigue. The aim of this study was therefore to detect deviations in the dynamic center of mass (CoM) motion due to running-induced fatigue using tri-axial trunk accelerometry. Twenty runners aged 18–25 years completed an indoor treadmill running protocol to volitional exhaustion at speeds equivalent to their 3.2 km time trial performance. The following dependent measures were extracted from tri-axial trunk accelerations of 20 running steps before and after the treadmill fatigue protocol: the tri-axial ratio of acceleration root mean square (RMS) to the resultant vector RMS, step and stride regularity (autocorrelation procedure), and sample entropy. Running-induced fatigue increased mediolateral and anteroposterior ratios of acceleration RMS (p < .05), decreased the anteroposterior step regularity (p < .05), and increased the anteroposterior sample entropy (p < .05) of trunk accelerometry patterns. Our findings indicate that treadmill running-induced fatigue might reveal itself in a greater contribution of variability in horizontal plane trunk accelerations, with anteroposterior trunk accelerations that are less regular from step-to-step and are less predictable. It appears that trunk accelerometry parameters can be used to detect deviations in dynamic CoM motion induced by treadmill running fatigue, yet it is unknown how robust or generalizable these parameters are to outdoor running environments.

The body of research that reports the relevance of sleep in high-performance sports is growing steadily. While the identification of sleep cycles and diagnosis of sleep disorders is limited to lab-based assessment via polysomnography, the development of activity-based devices estimating sleep patterns provides greater insight into the sleep behaviour of athletes in ecological settings. Overall, small sleep quantity and/or poor quality appears to exist in many athletic populations, though this may be related to training and competition context. Typical sleep-affecting factors are the scheduling of training sessions and competitions as well as impaired sleep-onset as a result of increased arousal prior to competition or due to the use of electronic devices before bedtime. Further challenges are travel demands which may be accompanied by jet-lag symptoms and disruption of sleep habits. Promotion of sleep may be approached via behavioural strategies, such as sleep hygiene, extending night-time sleep or daytim...