The Beijing Olympics will begin in August 2008 and athletes will face an unpredictable challenge. Based on present data, Beijing is one of the most polluted megacities in the world; the air concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO), ozone, nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and particulate matter approach or exceed the current limits established by U. S. Environmental Protection A...

Sports Medicine Open provides an online, open access journal for the publication of research in the field of sport and exercise medicine. Like Springer’s flagship journal in the area, Sports Medicine, Sports Medicine Open bridges the gap between science and practice in the promotion of exercise and health, and in the scientific assessment, study and understanding of sports performance. Sports M...

This research investigated stereotype threat effects on women's performance in sports and examined the mediation of this effect by achievement goals. The influence of two stereotypes-relative to the poor athletic ability and the poor technical soccer ability of women-were studied. Fifty-one female soccer players were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, introducing the task as diagnost...

Numerous studies have shown that ingesting carbohydrate in the form of a drink can improve exercise performance by maintaining blood glucose levels and sparing endogenous glycogen stores. The effectiveness of carbohydrate gels or jellybeans in improving endurance performance has not been examined. On 4 separate days and 1-2 hr after a standardized meal, 16 male (8; 35.8 +/- 2.5 yr) and female (...

The recent study by Vašíčová et al. (2017) described novel findings that respiratory muscle training (RMT) improved respiratory muscle strength and swimming performance in an apnea-max swim test in young finswimmers. These positive findings are largely compatible with established literature demonstrating increases in respiratory muscle strength following RMT (HajGhanbari et al., 2013; Illi et a...

One of the major concerns of sports scientists is the assessment of maximum performance ability and the prediction of maximum performance potential. The intention in the present paper is to examine these objectives, the level of success presently being achieved and the underlying concepts that today describe knowledge of such human performance. The topic examines the degree of commonalty at pre...

Today's overall grasp and prediction of the trend changes in sports scores, led this study to carry out the discussion that the athletes’ obtaining reasonable suggestion is particularly important to fundamentally improve the comprehensive quality of track and field athletes performance. The Olympic Games is the big games, and the ‘stand or fall’ of achievements is the only measure of players pe...

Team sports are increasingly popular, with millions of participants worldwide. Athletes engaged in these sports are required to repeatedly produce skilful actions and maximal or near-maximal efforts (eg, accelerations, changes in pace and direction, sprints, jumps and kicks), interspersed with brief recovery intervals (consisting of rest or low-intensity to moderate-intensity activity), over an...

This is the third in a series of six articles to discuss the major classes of dietary supplements (vitamins; minerals; amino acids; herbs or botanicals; metabolites, constituents/extracts, or combinations). The major focus is on efficacy of such dietary supplements to enhance exercise or sport performance.

Athletes are among the groups of people who are interested in the effects of caffeine on endurance and exercise capacity. Although many studies have investigated the effect of caffeine ingestion on exercise, not all are suited to draw conclusions regarding caffeine and sports performance. Characteristics of studies that can better explore the issues of athletes include the use of well-trained s...