Activity

Resistance exercise has numerous, well-documented benefits on the health and functional performance of older adults. However, little information exists on the affective responses to resistance exercise in this population. As affective responses can predict continued exercise behavior, examining if and how they differ between resistance exercise intensities and frequencies in older adults may provide important data to improve resistance exercise prescription.

We monitored the affective responses of older adults when performing high-velocity, low-load (HVLL) or low-velocity, high-load (LVHL) resistance exercise once or twice weekly. A total of 40 moderately to highly active, but resistance-exercise naïve, older adults (60-79 years) completed 1 of 4 randomly assigned progressive resistance exercise conditions HVLL once weekly (HVLL1 n = 10), HVLL twice weekly (HVLL2 n = 10), LVHL once weekly (LVHL1 n = 10), or LVHL twice weekly (LVHL2 n = 10). The Physical Activity Affect Scale, Felt Arousal Scale, Feeling SHowever, the role that supervision and social interaction played in shaping the participants’ responses is unclear.

To examine the impact of a 6-week endurance training on red blood cell (RBC) aging and deformability of healthy participants to detect possible improved hemorheological and performance-related adaptations.

A total of 31 participants (17 females and 14 males) performed a 6-week moderate training protocol (three 1-h running sessions per week at 70% of maximal heart rate). Blood was sampled before and after the training. RBCs from each participant were fractioned according to density and age into 4 RBC subfractions. Subfractions were examined for changes of RBC properties, including aging distribution, RBC deformability, RBC microparticles, and phosphatidylserine concentrations. RBC and plasma nitrite levels were measured as indicators of nitric oxide metabolism.

Aerobic performance, peak oxygen consumption, ventilatory thresholds, velocity at the aerobic-anaerobic threshold, and lactate at exhaustion improved after training. The relative amount of both young RBCs and old RBCs increased, and the amount of duced, which might support oxygen supply in the microcirculation.

Athletes tend to have better visuo-motor performance than do sedentary individuals. However, several basic visual-function and perceptual parameters remain unexplored to date. In this study, we investigated whether differences exist in visual function, performance, and processing between basketball players and individuals without a sport-involvement background.

A total of 33 healthy men with no visual impairment or pathology were divided into 2 groups, depending on the involvement in sport (semi-professional basketball players and sedentary individuals). We tested their baseline heart-rate variability in the resting position apart from subjective questionnaires to determine their physical fitness level, and we checked their visual function, performance, and processing through an extended battery of optometric tests.

The 2 groups differed in resting heart-rate variability parameters (p < 0.001), confirming their dissimilarities in regular time practising sports per week. The basketball players showed a closer breakpoint and recovery nearpoint of convergence, a higher fusional-vergence rate, better discriminability halos, and better eye-hand coordination (all p values < 0.05).

These results show evidence that athletes, basketball players in this case, exhibit better performance in several visual abilities in comparison to a group of individuals without sporting backgrounds, suggesting an improvement due to the systematic involvement of those skills during basketball practice.

These results show evidence that athletes, basketball players in this case, exhibit better performance in several visual abilities in comparison to a group of individuals without sporting backgrounds, suggesting an improvement due to the systematic involvement of those skills during basketball practice.

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. Specifically, we considered the influence of pleasant and unpleasant core affect on performance outcomes (i.e., time to task completion) and rate of perceived exertion (RPE; Borg Scale, category ratio-10) collected during the task.

Thirty-one participants aged 20-28 years were recruited. Core affect was randomly elicited by 2 sets of pleasant and unpleasant pictures chosen from the international affective picture system. ZVADFMK Pictures were displayed to participants during a cyclo-ergometer performance in 2 days in a counterbalanced order. RPE was collected every minute to detect volunteers’ exhaustion.

The study sample was split into 2 groups. Group 1 comprised participannpleasant core affect.

Findings suggest differential effects of pleasant and unpleasant core affect on performance. Moreover, core affect was found to influence perceived exertion and performance according to participants’ preferences for pleasant or unpleasant core affect.

Citrulline is one of the non-essential amino acids that is thought to improve exercise performance and reduce post-exercise muscle soreness. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the effect of citrulline supplements on the post-exercise rating of perceived exertion (RPE), muscle soreness, and blood lactate levels.

A random effects model was used to calculate the effect sizes due to the high variability in the study design and study populations of the articles included. A systematic search of PubMed, Web of Science, and ClinicalTrials.gov was performed. Eligibility for study inclusion was limited to studies that were randomized controlled trials involving healthy individuals and that investigated the acute effect of citrulline supplements on RPE, muscle soreness, and blood lactate levels. The supplementation time frame was limited to 2 h before exercise. The types and number of participants, types of exercise tests performed, supplementation protocols for L-citrulline or citrulline malate, and primary (RPE and muscle soreness) and secondary (blood lactate level) study outcomes were extracted from the identified studies.