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This study sought to describe head impact exposure in women's collegiate club lacrosse. Eleven women's collegiate club lacrosse players wore head impact sensors during eight intercollegiate competitions. Video recordings of competitions were used to verify impact data. Athletes completed questionnaires detailing their concussion history and perceived head impact exposure. During the monitored games, no diagnosed concussions were sustained. Three athletes reported sustaining head impacts (median = 0; range: 0-3 impacts per game). Six impacts registered by the sensors were verified on video across a total of 81 athlete-game exposures. Verified impacts had a median peak linear acceleration of 21.0 g (range: 18.3 g - 48.3 g) and peak rotational acceleration of 1.1 krad/s

Recent findings support positive effects of acute aerobic exercise on worry, state anxiety, and feelings of energy and fatigue among young adult women with subclinical, or analogue, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, exercise effects among young adult men with analogue GAD are unstudied. PURPOSE: This study replicated initial findings of positive effects of acute vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise on worry, state anxiety, and feelings of energy and fatigue among young adult women with analogue GAD, examined responses among young adult men with analogue GAD, and explored sex-related differences and moderation by physical activity level, trait anxiety, depression, and poor sleep status. METHODS: Thirty-five young adults (21.4 ± 2.3 yr; 19 males; 16 females) with Penn State Worry Questionnaire scores ≥45 (60 ± 8) completed two counterbalanced 30-min conditions: treadmill running at ~71.2% ± 0.04% HR reserve and seated quiet rest. Outcomes included worry, worry engagement, absence of worry, state anxiety, and feelings of energy and fatigue. RESULTS: No outcome or moderator differed at baseline between sexes. Exercise significantly improved state anxiety (P < 0.04; d = 0.27) and feelings of energy (P < 0.001; d = 1.09). Small nonsignificant improvements were found for worry (d = 0.22), worry engagement (d = 0.18), and feelings of fatigue (d = 0.21). The magnitude of improvements in worry, worry engagement, absence of worry, and feelings of energy were stronger among females. Significant large, potentially clinically meaningful increases in feelings of energy were found among women (d = 1.35) and men (d = 0.92). A nonsignificant, but potentially clinically meaningful, moderate reduction in worry (d = 0.53) was found among women. High-trait anxiety and poor sleep quality were supported as moderators. CONCLUSIONS: Findings replicated positive effects of acute aerobic exercise among young adult women with analogue GAD, and extended to support for positive effects among young adult men with analogue GAD

Exposure to head impacts is common in soccer and, in some cases, has been associated with neurocognitive and physiological consequences in soccer players. Ball-to-head impacts are particularly frequent, as soccer players regularly use their heads to pass, clear, and shoot the ball during game play and practice. The attenuation of head accelerations resulting from impact is of interest to promoting athlete brain health and numerical models have suggested that reducing soccer ball inflation pressure can lower head accelerations from ball-to-head impacts. The present study sought to test the effect of ball inflation pressure on peak linear acceleration and peak rotational acceleration of the head in a biomechanical reconstruction of ball-to-head impacts using an anthropomorphic testing device head and neck. Adult-sized soccer balls were inflated to five different pressures (34, 48, 55, 62, and 76 kPa), a range that spanned the lower bound on inflation pressure regulated by Federation Internationale de Football Association and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (60 kPa). Balls were then thrown via a ball launcher at the forehead of the anthropomorphic testing device at three different velocities (17.3, 19.7, and 22.2 m/s). Repeated-measures analyses of variance, with pressure and velocity as repeated measures, revealed an increase in peak linear acceleration (p = 0.001) and peak rotational acceleration (p = 0.002) with higher ball velocities, and a decrease in peak linear acceleration (p

Objectives Recent reports have demonstrated a risk of concussion and subconcussive head impacts in collegiate varsity and international elite water polo. We sought to characterize patterns of head impact exposure at the collegiate club level of water polo. Design Prospective cohort study. Methods Head impact sensors (SIM-G, Triax Technologies) were worn by men’s (n = 16) and women’s (n = 15) collegiate club water polo players during 11 games. Peak linear acceleration (PLA) and peak rotational acceleration (PRA) of head impacts were recorded by the sensors. Two streams of competition video were used to verify and describe the nature of head impacts. Results Men’s players sustained 52 verified head impacts of magnitude 39.7 ± 16.3 g PLA and 5.2 ± 3.2 krad/s2 PRA, and women’s players sustained 43 verified head impacts of magnitude 33.7 ± 12.6 g PLA and 4.0 ± 2.8 krad/s2 PRA. Impacts sustained by men had greater PLA than those sustained by women (p = .045). Athletes were impacted most frequently at the offensive center position, to the back of the head, and by an opponent’s torso or limb. Conclusions Our cohort of male and female athletes sustained relatively infrequent head impacts during water polo competitions played at the collegiate club level. The amount of head impact exposure in our cohort was dependent on player position, with offensive centers prone to sustaining the most impacts. Head impact sensors are subject to large amounts of false positives and should be used in conjunction with video recordings to verify the validity of impact data.

Concussive and subconcussive sports-related head impacts are common in the United States, particularly in American football. Football helmets are constantly improving upon their predecessors and are proven to reduce head impact kinematics and the risk of sports-related head injury. All football helmets are required to pass certification testing overseen by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) before they are permitted for use. A new advance in protective equipment involves coupling a helmet and shoulder pads as one connected piece of protective equipment. These protective gears cannot be tested using the standard NOCSAE method as they are worn over a user’s head, neck, and upper torso. We aimed to test the effectiveness of a prototype of a coupled, one-piece design, relative to a standard football helmet, using a custom drop tower method of testing. Relative to the standard football helmet, the coupled design reduced measures of peak linear acceleration at front, side, and rear impacts (p

Feelings of fatigue are reduced after a session of continuous exercise of low-to-moderate intensity lasting 20 min or more, but only when feelings of energy are increased. Feelings of fatigue and energy have not been described after fatiguing, high-intensity interval exercise. Cerebral oxygenation has been implicated as a central correlate of fatigability, but it has not been studied concurrent with perceived fatigue during or after exercise.Fifteen recreationally active participants (8 women, 7 men) completed bouts of sprint interval cycling (four, 30-s all-out sprints each followed by 4 min of active recovery) and a time- and work-matched bout of constant resistance cycling. Oxygenation (oxygenated hemoglobin [HbO2]) and deoxygenation (deoxygenated hemoglobin [HHb]) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were measured using near-infrared spectroscopy. Fatigue ratings during each sprint and feelings of fatigue and energy during recovery were assessed.Increases in HbO2 and HHb in frontal cortex were greater during sprint cycling than during constant resistance cycling (P = 0.001). Fatigability (decreased power output) increased over successive sprints (P = 0.001). About 95% of the increase in fatigue ratings across sprints (P0.001) was accounted for by fatigability and cortical HbO2. Feelings of fatigue were decreased (P0.001) and feelings of energy were increased (P0.05) across sprint recovery periods but were unchanged during constant resistance cycling. About 85% of the changes in feelings of fatigue or energy during recovery were explained by fatigue ratings across sprints and maximum HbO2 in the cortex during recovery.Repeated, high-intensity sprints were fatiguing, but paradoxical reductions in feelings of fatigue and increases in feelings of energy occurred during recovery that were accounted for by ratings of fatigue during exercise and oxygenation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during recovery.