Relationships Between Aerobic and Anaerobic Parameters With Game Technical Performance in Elite Goalball Athletes

“The show must go on”: How Paralympic athletes safeguarded their mental well-being and motivation to train for the postponed Tokyo 2020 games

Introduction

After the decision to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, athletes had to adjust to a novel situation with feelings of uncertainty and insecurity. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, this study was the first to examine whether different motivational profiles among Paralympic athletes can be identified, and to link these profiles with the athletes’ emotional, cognitive, and performance-related outcomes in times of a pandemic.

Methods

Five months before the start of the Paralympic Games, the participants (N = 32; mean age = 33.2 ± 6.8 years) completed an online questionnaire measuring their demographics, basic psychological needs, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, general well-being, and motivational self-regulation strategies. Two months after the Games, they completed a second online questionnaire measuring their actual and perceived performance at the past Games.

Results

Through K-means cluster analysis, three distinct clusters were identified based on the athletes’ dominant type of motivation, these are, dominantly amotivated (n = 11), autonomously motivated (n = 12), and controlled motivated (n = 9). Comparisons of athletes’ emotional, cognitive, and performance-related outcomes depending on their motivational profile revealed that the athletes with a dominantly amotivated profile had the least adaptive outcomes (i.e., low need satisfaction, high need frustration, and more depressive symptoms). Athletes with a dominantly autonomously motivated profile made less use of controlling self-motivating strategies compared to the other two profiles. Moreover, their actual performance at the Paralympic Games was better.

Discussion

Although none of the athletes were at severe risk for depression or showed extremely high levels of stress, these results confirm that improving the quality of athletes’ motivation can safeguard their well-being and enhance performance in Paralympic Sports.

Three Simulated Goalball Games in the Same Day Cause Central Fatigue and Can Impair Game Technical Performance

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of three simulated goalball games on neuromuscular, physiological, perceptual, and technical parameters. Ten male players underwent assessments before and immediately after each game. Heart rate was recorded at rest and during all games that were entirely filmed for further technical performance analysis. Exercise significantly decreased knee extensor muscles peak force and percentage of voluntary activation after the second and third games, indicating the presence of central fatigue. Heart rate responses remained predominantly in a range equivalent to moderate activity intensity in all games. In addition, perceptual parameters were associated with reduced frequency of throws and density of actions. These findings suggest significant implications for the management of physical training, game strategy during a competition, and fixture change from three to two games per day.

Psychometric Suitability of Adaptations to the Special Judo Fitness Test for Athletes With Visual Impairment

This study aimed to test the reliability, sensitivity, construct and logical validity of an adapted Special Judo Fitness Test (SJFT) for judo athletes with visual impairment . Twenty judo athletes with visual impairments performed both the adapted SJFT with tactile and sonorous stimuli (experimental conditions) and the typically administered SJFT (standard condition). We used analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with repeated-measures to compare the groups' SJFT performances, and one-way ANOVAs to compare different visual ability classes of athletes (B1, B2 and B3). We used t-tests to compare SJFT variables between elite and sub-elite groups. We set statistical significance for all tests at p < 0.05. The standard SJFT showed excellent test-retest reliability for number of throws and overall index (ICC = 0.91-0.95), and both sonorous and tactile sensitivity adaptations of the SJFT showed medium sensitivity for detecting performance changes. The number of throws and SJFT index were higher with the sonorous adaptation of the test, compared to the tactile and standard versions (p < 0.001). Athletes who were blind (B1) presented similar performances to athletes who were partially sighted (B2 and B3) only on the SJFT with the sonorous stimulus. Moreover, only the sonorous SJFT adaptation discriminated between the performances of elite and sub-elite athletes (p < 0.001). In conclusion, both SJFT adaptations showed excellent reliability and medium sensitivity on test-retest, but, only the SJFT with the sonorous stimulus seemed valid for assessing judo athletes with varying degrees of visual impairment, and only the sonorous stimulus SJFT discriminated elite from sub-elite athletes.

Physical fitness assessment in Goalball: A scoping review of the literature

BACKGROUND

Goalball is a Paralympic sport for visually impaired athletes. Although it is widely practiced, a great variety of tests are adopted to evaluate athletes' physical fitness. Therefore, the objective was to identify the physical fitness tests adopted in this sport to find the common aspects between them and, eventually, to propose a standard operating procedure.

METHODS

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines were adopted. The studies were extracted from PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. A selection process by title, abstract, and full-text, according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, was performed. The results were discussed with narrative synthesis.

RESULTS

A total of 7 papers and 222 participants were included. A wide variety of tests were adopted and the Brockport Physical Fitness Test (BPFT) was the only battery included to evaluate general athletes' well-being.

CONCLUSIONS

Although few literature exists on Goalball, the BPFT could be the battery for evaluating Goalball athletes though the test battery should be standardized to the characteristics of this sport.

Relationships between Different Field Test Performance Measures in Elite Goalball Players

Goalball is a Paralympic sport involving people with visual impairment. Little is known about the physical fitness of elite players of this sport, as previous studies only evaluated body composition and aerobic capacity. Thus, the aim of this study was to describe the performance of elite goalball players in different physical tests and to look for relationships between them. Eleven elite Brazilian goalball players, seven males and four females, were evaluated for body composition, maximal handgrip isometric force (MHGF), countermovement jump (CMJ), throwing velocity (TV) and the Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test level 1 (Yo-Yo IR1). Players produced 41.54 ± 8.41 kgf in MHGF, 34.81 ± 7.2 cm in CMJ, 14.21 ± 1.89 m∙s⁻¹ in TV, and 505 ± 313 m in Yo-Yo IR1, with an estimated maximum oxygen consumption (VO₂max) of 40.64 ± 2.63 mL∙kg⁻¹∙min⁻¹. Most performance tests exhibited moderate to high correlations among them, while the percentage of body fat correlated with both the CMJ and Yo-Yo IR1 results. The current study reveals that CMJ could be a valuable monitoring tool as it was correlated with all other performance tests. The highest correlation observed was with TV (r = 0.754; p < 0.05), which is a key capacity in goalball. Moreover, high levels of body fat could be detrimental to anaerobic performance.