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Since the 1980s, research on relative age effects (RAEs) consistently shows that relatively older individuals are advantaged in sport and other contexts. With the recent proliferation of studies on RAEs, periodic knowledge synthesis becomes imperative. Our purpose was to conduct a cross-disciplinary citation network analysis of RAEs literature to enhance our knowledge of RAEs citation structures and the interconnectivity of RAEs studies. We analysed 484 RAEs articles found in Web of Science that were published before 2022. Descriptive results revealed a 12.6% annual growth rate for total RAEs articles published since 1980. The articles appeared in 151 journals, had 1,180 unique authors, and averaged 23.9 citations received. Three theoretical/review papers had the most substantial influence on the field. For the conceptual structure of the field, it was apparent that RAEs research focused mainly on sport performance, maturity, and competition. Regarding intellectual structure, three distinct clusters of articles were cited together, and 13 authorship clusters were detected with few between-cluster connections. The results describe a field with productivity but little interconnectivity among authors and papers. We offer insights into this trend and the role that influential authors/articles have in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the Composite Rating Method (CRM), a novel approach for the integrated evaluation of basketball player and team performances across multiple leagues. Utilizing data from Euroleague, EuroCup, and Basketball Champions League, the presented method provides comprehensive and accurate rankings, including accounting for actions not included in personal statistics. Drawing inspiration from established methodologies such as ELO, PER, Offensive and Defensive ratings, CRM offers a balanced assessment of player and team capabilities. The paper delineates the data collection and preprocessing procedures, details the algorithmic framework of CRM, and showcases its predictive capacity. By presenting a well-rounded approach to ranking, this paper aims to contribute to the advancement of performance evaluation methods in basketball and sports in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, the concept Playful Sport Design (PSD) is introduced, based on play and proactivity theories. PSD is defined as a proactive cognitive-behavioral orientation that makes athletes incorporate fun and self-oriented challenges into training sessions. Second, we develop and test an instrument to assess PSD. In phase 1 (N = 562), the PSD instrument is tested on its reliability, factorial validity, and construct validity. In phase 2 (N = 131), the test-retest reliability and predictive validity of the PSD instrument is considered. Additionally, the nomological network of PSD is expanded. In phase 3 (N = 212), the predictive validity of PSD is further assessed. As hypothesized, the results of factor analyses show that PSD is best represented by two dimensions: designing fun and designing competition. The psychometric properties of the scale were shown to be satisfactory. Providing evidence for convergent validity, PSD was positively related to playfulness, competitiveness, fantasy proneness, personal initiative, openness to experience, achievement striving, and fun seeking. Specifically, designing fun showed more robust relations with fun-focused personality traits, while designing competition showed stronger relations with competition-focused traits. Providing evidence for divergent validity, PSD did not share variance with negative affect, procrastination, and perfectionism. Finally, in support of predictive validity, athletes who playfully designed their training sessions reported better subjective and objective sports performance. Lay summary: We introduce the concept Playful Sport Design (PSD), which refers to athletes' proactive addition of play elements to their sports training. We present a scale that reliably and validly measures PSD. Further, we show that PSD is positively associated with immersion in sports training and sports performance. Results of this paper could result in more awareness among adult athletes that play during sports training has beneficial sports outcomes. Athletes can use PSD to increase flow experiences during training sessions and enhance sports performance. The results of this paper open the door for practitioners to develop PSD interventions, through which athletes are taught how they can approach their training sessions in a more playful manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant-based diets have gained popularity among athletes in recent years. Some believe that plant-based diets will improve performance owing to higher intakes of carbohydrates and antioxidants. Some believe it that will harm performance due to lower intakes of complete protein and creatine. This systemic review was conducted using Covidence software. A literature search of PubMed, Embase (Elsevier), CINAHL Plus (EBSCO), and Web of Science was completed on 22 March 2022. Following the development of clear objectives and a research question that identified the population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes, initial search criteria and keywords were identified. Extracted results totaled 2249, including 797 duplicates. The initial screening resulted in 1437 articles being excluded. The remaining 15 articles proceeded to full-text screening. A final 8 articles were included in the review, with 7 excluded. This paper will review the impact plant-based diets have on athletic performance and body composition in healthy young adults aged 18 to 45 years. KEY TEACHING POINTS: Following a plant-based diet does not harm athletic performance. Plant-based diets may improve maximal oxygen consumption, vertical countermovement jumps, and relative strength. There is no evidence that plant-based diets are detrimental to athletic performance or body composition. The long-term implications and the affect following a plant-based diet has on athletic performance in professional athletes are still unknown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objectives of our study were 1) to examine whether the force-velocity-power (FvP) outcomes in the concentric and eccentric phases of flywheel (FW) squats differ among sports disciplines and 2) to investigate the association between FvP outcome variables and two key sport-performance indicators: countermovement jump height (CMJ) and change of direction (CoD) time involving 90° or 180° turns. Tests were performed by 469 athletes from five different sport disciplines and physical education students. Our results showed that FvP outcomes, when measured during the eccentric phase of the FW squat, effectively differed between athletes from different sports. However, during the concentric phase of the squat, only for the slope variable differences between sports were found. Contrary to our hypothesis, there were no statistically significant correlations between FW squat FvP outcomes and CMJ or CoD test results. These results suggest that FvP outcomes derived from FW squats may lack external validity and cannot be reliably used as a predictor of athletes' jumping and agility performance. The paper discusses possible reasons for the larger differences between sports in eccentric FvP outcomes, as well as the absence of correlations between FvP outcomes and functional tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now ample evidence that motor imagery contributes to improve motor performance and promote motor learning and recovery. During the last decades, a large number of experimental studies and imagery frameworks were designed to determine the critical key components for effective imagery interventions. The extent to which athletes often move slightly during motor imagery has spawned specific interest in imagery research from a conceptual perspective, hence challenging the traditional idea that imagery requires to remain motionless. While a wealth of research has extensively decoupled motor imagery from action, more recent imagery theories specifically considered that athletes can perform a dynamic form of imagery, by adopting a congruent body position and embodying spatial and/or temporal features of the movement without entirely performing it. Spurred by the wide use of this form of imagery by athletes and the promising related experimental research, the present paper aims at reviewing the impact and predictive positive effects of dynamic motor imagery on motor performance. Direct implications for applied work, including specific instructions that dynamic motor imagery might have during different stages of the coaching process of athletes, are further considered. A framework for the appropriate timing for delivering dynamic imagery interventions is finally proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the intensity characteristics of specific soccer drills (matches, small-side game, and match-based exercises) could help practitioners to plan training sessions by providing the optimal stimulus for every player. In this paper, we propose a data analytics framework to assess the neuromuscular or metabolic characteristics of a soccer-specific exercise in relation with the expected match intensity. GPS data describing the physical tasks' external intensity during an entire season of twenty-eight semi-professional soccer players competing at the fourth Italian division were used in this study. A supervised machine-learning approach was tested in order to detect difference in playing positions in different sport-specific drills. Moreover, a non-supervised machine-learning model was used to profile the match neuromuscular and metabolic characteristics. Players' playing positions during matches and match-based exercises are characterised by specific metabolic and neuromuscular characteristics related to tactical demands, while in the small-side game these differences are not detected. Additionally, our framework permits to evaluate if the match performance request is mirrored during training drills. Practitioners could evaluate the type of stimulus performed by a player in a specific training drill in order to assess if they reflect the matches characteristics of their specific playing position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spirulina species are photosynthetic and filamentous bacteria, commonly called 'blue-green microalgae'. Spirulina has a high nutrient content. It contains 60–70% protein with all essential amino acids present, and is rich in several vitamins, minerals, and bioactive compounds. Spirulina is also rich in essential fatty acids, and antioxidants. This rich nutritional content provides to Spirulina several health benefits including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulation, and insulin-sensitizing properties as well as positive effects in various diseases which could be also interesting for athletes. This paper mainly aims to review the interest and effects of Spirulina supplementation in athletes at rest, and in relation to exercise/training. Spirulina's biochemical composition, health properties/effects in humans, and effects in athletes including nutritional status, body composition, physical performance and intense exercise-related disorders were discussed in this review. Literature data showed that Spirulina seems to have positive effects on body composition especially in overweight and obese subjects which could not be the case in other pathologies and athletes. Spirulina appears to be also effective in improving aerobic fitness especially in untrained and moderately trained subjects. Results reported in the literature suggest that Spirulina may improve strength and power performance despite the minor or no significant effects in highly trained subjects. Most studies have shown that Spirulina improves antioxidant status, prevents and accelerates the recovery of exercise-induced lipid peroxidation, muscle damage and inflammation in trained and untrained subjects. Taken together, the results from these studies are encouraging and may demonstrate the potential benefits of Spirulina supplementation in athletes despite methodological differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a method for analysing badminton matches based on the concept of perturbations. We transfer this principle to a badminton rally and describe the decisive shot, which turns a balanced situation into an advantage for one team or one player. Our paper proposes an observational system, which models the decisive shots by using four consecutive actions: impulse (the perturbation), follow-up, survival, and convert. To test the objectivity of the operationalization, independent raters analysed six matches in the singles disciplines of the 2022 World Championships. To evaluate rater agreement, Jaccard coefficient and Cohen's kappa were used. Results show an agreement in identifying impulses of J(R1, R2) =.80, while the agreement in classifying the impulse type (positive/negative) reached κ =.70. A comparison of this perturbation-based analysis and last shot analyses shows significantly different results. Direct errors usually occur in the midcourt (56.4%), whereas most negative perturbations originate from the backcourt (40.0%). In contrast to direct winners, mostly originating from a smash (45.5%), most positive perturbations are created by net shots (30.1%). We argue that our method can be complementary to common last shot analyses and provides a possibility to describe players' strengths and weaknesses in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social factors and psychological characteristics can influence selection and development in talent pathways. However, the interaction between these two factors is relatively unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the implications of socioeconomic status and psychological characteristics in English academy soccer players (n = 58; aged 11 to 16 years). To assess socioeconomic status, participants' home postcodes were coded according to each individual's social classification and credit rating, applying the UK General Registrar Classification system and CameoTM geodemographic database, respectively. Participants also completed the six factor Psychological Characteristics for Developing Excellence Questionnaire (PCDEQ). A classification of 'higher-potentials' (n = 19) and 'lower-potentials' (n = 19) were applied through coach potential rankings. Data were standardised using z-scores to eliminate age bias and data were analysed using independent sample t-tests. Results showed that higher-potentials derived from families with significantly lower social classifications (p = 0.014) and reported higher levels for PCDEQ Factor 3 (coping with performance and developmental pressures) (p = 0.007) compared to lower-potentials. This study can be used to support the impetus for researchers and practitioners to consider the role of social factors and psychological characteristics when selecting and developing sporting talent. For example, facilitating player-centred development within an academy and, where necessary, providing individuals with additional support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of consideration for contextual nuances in the transfer of practices in sport has led to the uncritical adoption of successful models as 'best practice' in different settings without proper assessment of their effectiveness in the new context. The aim of this scoping review was to examine the talent identification (TID) peer-reviewed research from 2002 to 2022 to (a) gain a comprehensive understanding of the research attention; (b) investigate whether the published research accounts for contextual variables such as the geographical location, type of sports, and age of participants; (c) investigate the methodological approaches and study design; (d) examine the specific focus of the research. A comprehensive analysis was conducted on peer-reviewed articles written in English, meeting specific inclusion criteria. A total of 229 articles were identified for the study. The findings show that TID research, (a) dramatically increased in the past twenty years, (b) is focused on a small group of countries, (c) primarily examines team sports and adolescent samples, (d) employs retrospective study designs, quantitative data collection and rarely consider environmental factors within the findings or discussion. To improve TID practices, global collaboration, and innovation are crucial. Context-specific tailoring is essential, as TID research may not transfer uniformly. Evidence-informed decision-making, focusing on research quality, is vital for coaches and sport's governing bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research into the use of reflective techniques, in applied sports environments, has tended to focus on the experiences of coaches. However, with the increasing professionalization of sports, coaches no longer stand alone as the focus for research into the professional development experiences of individuals. Yet, there is only limited research into the professional development of performance analysts. Consequently, this research sought to understand how a performance analyst could use reflective conversations with coaches, players, and expert analysts as a tool for professional development. The research adopted an autoethnographic approach to investigate the use of reflective conversations as a tool for professional development for a performance analyst. The data collection and analysis process followed three stages for Martin, the performance analyst the heart of the research: living the story, telling the story, and retelling the story. Through this process, two vignettes were written about Martin's experience engaging in reflective conversations; 'Delving Deeper' and 'A mirror conversation'. These vignettes highlighted the importance of Martin engaging in reflective conversations in order to develop strategies to manage professional issues as well as being beneficial in helping him to understand the opportunities for professional growth available within his role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Banister impulse-response (IR) model was designed to predict an athlete's performance ability from their past training. Despite its long history, the model's usefulness remains limited due to difficulties in obtaining precise parameter estimates and performance predictions. To help address these challenges, we developed a Bayesian implementation of the IR model, which formalises the combined use of prior knowledge and data. We report the following methodological contributions: 1) we reformulated the model to facilitate the specification of informative priors, 2) we derived the IR model in Bayesian terms, and 3) we developed a method that enabled the JAGS software to be used while enforcing parameter constraints. To demonstrate proof-of-principle, we applied the model to the data of a national-class middle-distance runner. We specified the priors from published values of IR model parameters, followed by estimating the posterior distributions from the priors and the athlete's data. The Bayesian approach led to more precise and plausible parameter estimates than nonlinear least squares. We conclude that the Bayesian implementation of the IR model shows promise in addressing a primary challenge to its usefulness for athlete monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]