Objective: To identify the most salient medical issues that may be associated with mixed martial arts competition by determining the types and proportions of match stoppages. Methods: Publicly ...available video footage of 1284 men competing in 642 consecutive televised matches from November 1993 to November 2003 was reviewed to determine the reasons for which matches were stopped. Matches were sanctioned by either a United States or Japan based mixed martial arts organisation. Results: Of the 642 matches, 182 (28.3±3.4%) were stopped because of head impact, 106 (16.5±2.9%) because of musculoskeletal stress, 91 (14.1±2.7%) because of neck choke, 83 (12.9±2.6%) because of miscellaneous trauma, 173 (27.0±3.4%) because of expiration of match time, and seven (1.0±0.8%) because of disqualification, where the values in parentheses are percentages±95% confidence interval. Conclusions: Blunt force to the head resulted in the highest proportion of match stoppages. Further research is warranted to delineate the morbidity associated with participation in mixed martial arts.
This study assessed the relative age effect (RAE) in judo athletes who participated in the Olympic Games from 1964 to 2012. The names and birth-dates of the Olympic judo athletes were collected from ...open-access websites. Data from male (n = 1,762) and female (n = 665) competitors were analyzed separately. Chi-squared tests were performed to investigate REA in medalists, and by weight categories and sexes. When the analyses used semesters to divide the period when the athletes were born, a RAE was found in male heavyweight athletes and male medallists. Thus, in a selected group of judo athletes who had participated at the highest competitive level, RAEs were present in both athletes who won Olympic medals and heavyweight athletes in the male group.
The purpose of this study was to compare biochemical and hormonal responses between mixed martial arts (MMA) competitors with minimal prefight weight loss and those undergoing rapid weight loss ...(RWL). Blood samples were taken from 17 MMA athletes (Mean± SD; age: 27.4 ±5.3yr; body mass: 76.2 ± 12.4kg; height: 1.71 ± 0.05m and training experience: 39.4 ± 25 months) before and after each match, according to the official events rules. The no rapid weight loss (NWL, n = 12) group weighed in on the day of the event (~30 min prior fight) and athletes declared not having used RWL strategies, while the RWL group (n = 5) weighed in 24 hr before the event and the athletes claimed to have lost 7.4 ± 1.1kg, approximately 10% of their body mass in the week preceding the event. Results showed significant (p < .05) increases following fights, regardless of group, in lactate, glucose, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatinine, and cortisol for all athletes. With regard to group differences, NWL had significantly (p < .05) greater creatinine levels (Mean± SD; pre to post) (NWL= 101.6 ± 15-142.3 ± 22.9μmol/L and RWL= 68.9 ± 10.6-79.5 ± 15.9μmol/L), while RWL had higher LDH (median interquartile range; pre to post) (NWL= 211.5183-236 to 231203-258U/L and RWL= 390370.5-443.5 to 488463.5-540.5U/L) and AST (NWL= 3022-37 to 3222-41U/L and 3932.5-76.5 to 7238.5-112.5 U/L) values (NWL versus RWL, p < .05). Post hoc analysis showed that AST significantly increased in only the RWL group, while creatinine increased in only the NWL group. The practice of rapid weight loss showed a negative impact on energy availability and increased both muscle damage markers and catabolic expression in MMA fighters.
In this study, we investigated the effects of rapid weight loss followed by a 4-h recovery on judo-related performance. Seven weight-cycler athletes were assigned to a weight loss group (5% body ...weight reduction by self-selected regime) and seven non-weight-cyclers to a control group (no weight reduction). Body composition, performance, glucose, and lactate were assessed before and after weight reduction (5-7 days apart; control group kept weight stable). The weight loss group had 4 h to re-feed and rehydrate after the weigh-in. Food intake was recorded during the weight loss period and recovery after the weigh-in. Performance was evaluated through a specific judo exercise, followed by a 5-min judo combat and by three bouts of the Wingate test. Both groups significantly improved performance after the weight loss period. No interaction effects were observed. The energy and macronutrient intake of the weight loss group were significantly lower than for the control group. The weight loss group consumed large amounts of food and carbohydrate during the 4-h recovery period. No changes were observed in lactate concentration, but a significant decrease in glucose during rest was observed in the weight loss group. In conclusion, rapid weight loss did not affect judo-related performance in experienced weight-cyclers when the athletes had 4 h to recover. These results should not be extrapolated to inexperienced weight-cyclers.
Tai Chi for Risk of Falls. A Meta‐analysis Lomas‐Vega, Rafael; Obrero‐Gaitán, Esteban; Molina‐Ortega, Francisco J. ...
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS),
September 2017, 2017-Sep, 2017-09-00, 20170901, Volume:
65, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Objectives
To analyze the effectiveness of tai chi for falls prevention.
Design
Systematic review and meta‐analysis.
Setting
Pubmed, Scopus, CINHAL, and Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) were ...searched to May 26, 2016.
Participants
Older adult population and at‐risk adults.
Intervention
Randomized controlled trials analyzing the effect of tai chi versus other treatments on risk of falls.
Measurements
The incidence rate ratio (IRR) for falls incidence and hazard ratio (HR) for time to first fall.
Results
The search strategy identified 891 potentially eligible studies, of which 10 met the inclusion criteria. There was high‐quality evidence of a medium protective effect for fall incidence over the short term (IRR = 0.57; 95% CI = 0.46, 0.70) and a small protective effect over the long term (IRR = 0.87; 95% CI = 0.77, 0.98). Regarding injurious falls, we found very low‐quality evidence of a medium protective effect over the short term (IRR = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.33, 0.74) and a small effect over the long term (IRR = 0.72; 95% CI = 0.54, 0.95). There was no effect on time to first fall, with moderate quality of evidence (HR = 0.98; 95% CI = 0.69, 1.37).
Conclusion
In at‐risk adults and older adults, tai chi practice may reduce the rate of falls and injury‐related falls over the short term (<12 months) by approximately 43% and 50%, respectively. Tai chi practice may not influence time to first fall in these populations. Due to the low quality of evidence, more studies investigating the effects of tai chi on injurious falls and time to first fall are required.
This study aimed to meta-analyze the relationship between self-management and exercise self-confidence, satisfaction, and commitment in both modern and traditional martial arts among Korean ...practitioners. We examined the level of sports participation and different martial arts sports as potential moderating variables. In total, 22 studies yielded 299 individual effect sizes and were included in the final meta-analytic pool. The analyses revealed a moderate effect of self-management on exercise satisfaction and self-confidence; and a large effect self-management on exercise commitment. Especially, the effect of the training dimension of self-management was large on exercise commitment and satisfaction, while that of the mental dimension was large on exercise self-confidence. The effects of self-management on exercise satisfaction, commitment, and self-confidence were large in judo, Ssireum, and wrestling, respectively. Finally, the use of self-management was relatively more effective for non-elite participants than for elite practitioners. Our results highlight the effectiveness of self-management to enhance Korean martial arts practitioners’ exercise self-confidence, commitment, and satisfaction, findings that may potentially be extended internationally and to other types of sports; further, they showcase the importance of the promotion of interventions and educational programs on how to incorporate/employ self-management in athletes’ sports training.
Assessment is an essential procedure for any professional intervention, including in physical education and sports contexts. It concerns a process of collecting information that allows accessing the ...state of practitioners in relation to desired teaching-learning or training behaviors. Recently, the focus on assessment instruments has been extended to the martial arts contexts, whose studies have shown that the assessment instruments have been recognized by experts of different martial arts not only in relation to access of specific performances, but also as a means of promoting the practitioner's knowledge and motivation. The present study sought to develop and validate a checklist for an aikido’s motor skill: the choku tsuki. For content validation, the evaluators were 17 aikido experts, with at least 7 years of experience, all black belts (n = 6 (6th dan); n = 2 (5th dan); n = 3 (3rd dan); n = 5 (2nd dan); n = 2 (1st dan)). And, for the reliability test, there were four participants (n = 1 (5th dan); n = 2 (2nd dan); n = 1 (1st dan)). Ten adolescents, all inexperienced in the practice of jo, male (n = 7) and female (n = 3), whose ages ranged from 14 to 16 years old also participated as performers. At least 70% of the aikido experts evaluated the items as clear, adequate and technically viable for application in research contexts. The intra and inter-rater correlation indexes reached at least 0.90. It can be concluded that the choku tsuki assessment instrument is reliable, since it reached significant values in the reliability and objectivity indices.
Most competitions in combat sports are divided into weight classes, theoretically allowing for fairer and more evenly contested disputes between athletes of similar body size, strength and agility. ...It has been well documented that most athletes, regardless of the combat sports discipline, reduce significant amounts of body weight in the days prior to competition to qualify for lighter weight classes. Rapid weight loss is characterised by the reduction of a significant amount of body weight (typically 2-10 %, although larger reductions are often seen) in a few days prior to weigh-in (mostly in the last 2-3 days) achieved by a combination of methods that include starvation, severe restriction of fluid intake and intentional sweating. In doing so, athletes try to gain a competitive advantage against lighter, smaller and weaker opponents. Such a drastic and rapid weight reduction is only achievable via a combination of aggressive strategies that lead to hypohydration and starvation. The negative impact of these procedures on health is well described in the literature. Although the impact of rapid weight loss on performance is debated, there remains robust evidence showing that rapid weight loss may not impair performance, and translates into an actual competitive advantage. In addition to the health and performance implications, rapid weight loss clearly breaches fair play and stands against the spirit of the sport because an athlete unwilling to compete having rapidly reduced weight would face unfair contests against opponents who are 'artificially' bigger and stronger. The World Anti-Doping Agency Code states that a prohibited method must meet at least two of the following criteria: (1) enhances performance; (2) endangers an athlete's health; and (3) violates the spirit of the sport. We herein argue that rapid weight loss clearly meets all three criteria and, therefore, should be banned from the sport. To quote the World Anti-Doping Agency Code, this would "protect the athletes' fundamental right to participate in a doping-free sport and thus promote health, fairness and equality".
To assess injury rates in all mixed martial arts (MMA) studies.
Six online databases were searched until November 2017 including MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, PubMed, Google/Google Scholar ...and conference proceedings. All included studies were entered in Pub Med Single Citation Matcher and all citation chains followed. Abstracts and titles were assessed for relevance, data independently abstracted and risk of bias for all competition studies evaluated independently by two reviewers.
There are data for 5,374 male and 108 female MMA fighters. For 2407 males the weighted average injury rate/1000Athletic Encounters (AE) was 246.4 and for one study of 108 females 101.9. One study provided data by professional status: professionals 135.5/1000AE and amateurs 71.0/1000AE. Reasons for stopping matches were knockout/technical knockout 173.9/1000AE for males and 175.9/1000AE for females, submission 228.6/1000AE, and referee's decision 98.2/1000AE. Losers can experience large amounts of trauma especially head trauma as matches terminate. Two studies of competitions provided personally conducted ringside assessments and both pre- and post-match examination results. The other studies reported retrospective assessments of fight records or videos or videos and scorecards. There are no studies of training injuries of professionals or injuries of amateurs or long-term follow-up of musculoskeletal injuries or neurological damage. Studies are limited to the US and Canada. There are no systematic reviews of newspaper or media accounts of fights to assess rates and numbers of injuries or mortality. The few published surveys and case reports markedly understate the worldwide situation.
There are high rates of trauma in MMA. The authorities who regulate MMA and referees and physicians who monitor MMA fighters have an inadequate database to guide their work. Researchers need to adopt the same set of complete definitions of all possible injuries and measure the high and early rate of neurological damage.
This study sought to determine the relationship between the subjective evaluation of the low back pain scale and Modified Oswestry Disability Index (MODI) and the objective evaluation of muscle ...function and recovery period for elite Taekwondo players with back pain injuries.
The study included 57 elite Taekwondo athletes who participated in advanced competitions at a training camp for the year 2022. An independent-sample t-test was performed to compare the sex-specific measure of back pain, the MODI, muscle function, and recovery period. Pearson's correlation was used to investigate the relationship between variables, and simple linear regression analysis was performed to identify factors affecting variables. Statistical significance was set to α=0.05, and all statistical analyses were performed with SPSS version 27.0 for Windows.
Male athletes had a lower pain scale (3.41 vs. 4.86; P=0.006) and MODI (14.03 vs. 20.75; P=0.004) than female athletes but longer recovery period (8.66 vs. 6.21; P=0.033). Additionally, for all athletes, the pain scale and MODI affected the left/right rotation ratio (P<0.001, P=0.005, respectively) and the recovery period (P<0.001, P=0.001, respectively), and, as the pain score and MODI increased, the left/right rotation ratio and recovery period also increased.
For all Taekwondo athletes, the pain score and MODI affected the ratio of the left/right rotation and recovery period. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an exercise program to alleviate the left/right rotation imbalance of Taekwondo athletes.
Cette étude visait à déterminer la relation entre l’évaluation subjective de l’échelle de la lombalgie et l’indice d’incapacité d’Oswestry modifié (MODI) et l’évaluation objective de la fonction musculaire et de la période de récupération pour les joueurs d’élite de taekwondo souffrant de douleurs dorsales.
L’étude a inclus 57 athlètes de taekwondo d’élite qui ont participé à des compétitions avancées lors d’un camp d’entraînement pour l’année 2022. Un test t pour échantillon indépendant a été effectué pour comparer la mesure spécifique au sexe des maux de dos, le MODI, la fonction musculaire et Période de récupération. La corrélation de Pearson a été utilisée pour étudier la relation entre les variables, et une simple analyse de régression linéaire a été effectuée pour identifier les facteurs affectant les variables. La signification statistique a été définie sur α=0,05 et toutes les analyses statistiques ont été effectuées avec SPSS version 27.0 pour Windows.
Les athlètes masculins avaient une échelle de douleur (3,41 contre 4,86 ; p=0,006) et un MODI (14,03 contre 20,75 ; p=0,004) inférieurs à ceux des athlètes féminines, mais une période de récupération plus longue (8,66 contre 6,21 ; p=0,033). De plus, pour tous les athlètes, l’échelle de la douleur et le MODI ont affecté le rapport de rotation gauche/droite (p<0,001, p=0,005, respectivement) et la période de récupération (p<0,001, p=0,001, respectivement), et, comme la douleur le score et le MODI ont augmenté, le rapport de rotation gauche/droite et la période de récupération ont également augmenté.
Pour tous les athlètes de taekwondo, le score de douleur et le MODI ont affecté le rapport entre la rotation gauche/droite et la période de récupération. Par conséquent, il est nécessaire de développer un programme d’exercices pour atténuer le déséquilibre de rotation gauche/droite des athlètes de taekwondo.
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