Monthly Archive for July, 2020

Marathon runners’ motivation

Carbonaro, G., Cei, A., Ruscello, B, e Quagliarotti, C. (2020). La maratona di Roma: caratteristiche motivazionali e strutturali dei partecipanti. Atletica Studi, 2, 39-52.

A year later, the research report on the participation in the 2019 Rome Marathon, thanks to the organization of the event by Italian Track and Field Federation, is published. The research has investigated the motivational profiles, and some references on the training habits of marathon runners, according to the various age groups. The world of runners is still largely unexplored and this is a stimulus to deepen its characteristics from different points of view.

First sports games for athletes with disabilities

On 28 July 1948 the first sports games for athletes with disabilities were held, organised by neurologist Ludwig Guttmann.

My books

Marathon runner motivation and coaching

In the next issue of the Journal of Italian Track and Filed Federation.

Sarri’s thoughts right after winning Serie A

“This group has been winning for years, with different coaches, so the credit is yours, assisted by the club. Like all children when I grew up, I dreamed of winning the championship. I didn’t win it when I grew up, I won it when I was old, but I won it.” Sarri said at a press conference.

In these few words there is everything: the realization of the child’s dream and the recognition of the value of the organization.

How many coaches, if any, have this awareness? And they want to show it and share it in public?

Holidays in movement

Summer vacation’s coming and we all want to move more… We feel the need to do something different, to overcome laziness, to get out of the fear of getting sick being in the middle of nature, breathing cleaner air and feeling the body and mind.

So what are the needs to which this need to be physically active provides an answer:

  • Movement - We live in a society that forces us to lead a sedentary life, walking to work or playing in the street are almost unthinkable activities and we must make up for this reduction in spontaneous movement by institutionalizing moments of the day to be dedicated exclusively to physical/sports activities.
  • Educating own body – The best example is given by children in their first years of life, observing them is enough to understand how much effort they put in learning to walk and run or in acquiring those processes of self-regulation that allow them to learn and reduce the risk of injury.
  • Self-realization - A modality linked to sport for all consists in maintaining a condition of satisfactory psychophysical well-being. Those who use substances that are harmful to health or abuse drugs to improve their physical appearance or sports performance are not acceptable as forms of positive enhancement.
  • Belonging - For many people, the search for social contact through sports practice is one of the main motivation. Sport becomes synonymous with group activity. One activity above all: running; an individual sport that takes place in a group, because the need to be together is a fundamental psychological dimension.
  • Game and adventure - Sport for all means sport for everyone, in which the subjectivity and needs of the individual prevail over the rule of the traditional competitive model. Adventure is that of the sedentary person who decides to overcome his or her mental resistance to follow a program of physical activity in the gym.
  • Living in a natural environment - Doing physical activity immersed in nature does not arise solely from the pleasure of breathing cleaner air or smelling scents that we are no longer used to in the city. It’s a deepneed coming from our soul.

Role and effects of the experience

 

Learn from experience

Digital gym online is better

I primi a reagire con un nuovo modello di utilizzo dei servizi offerti dalle palestre a seguito del coronavirus sono i giovani sino a 20 (Generazione Z).

“… l’industria dello sport affronta la fase 3 completamente trasformata dalla digitalizzazione: per 8 giovani su 10 sotto i 20 anni (la cosiddetta Generazione Z), l’uso di piattaforme per accedere a strutture e corsi ha migliorato notevolmente la fruizione di sport e oltre la metà di loro (53%) si trova meglio nel proprio club da quando è possibile pagare da mobile. A rivelare questo trend è una ricerca dell’Osservatorio Sportclubby, piattaforma per prenotare corsi, campi e servizi dedicati a qualsiasi tipo di sport, che monitora più di 650 strutture e trainer e oltre 250.000 utenti attivi in Italia”.

Lo sport in palestra è sempre più digitale.

“Nell’ultimo mese, per esempio, è raddoppiato rispetto al 2019 (+95%) il numero di realtà che hanno digitalizzato i propri servizi e pagamenti grazie a Sportclubby e le prenotazioni nei singoli centri sportivi sono cresciute del 70% rispetto allo stesso periodo dell’anno scorso”.

I benefici di questa evoluzione digitale secondo una ricerca condotta dal’ Osservatorio Sportclubby su 680 sportivi italiani attivi:

  • Per 2 persone su 3 è notevolmente migliorata la comunicazione da parte dei club, per cui è più facile rimanere sempre aggiornati su quello che succede nella propria palestra.
  • Ad apprezzare il nuovo approccio sono soprattutto i giovani tra i 20 e 35 anni (71%), da sempre abituati a informarsi prevalentemente online.
  • Anche l’accesso ai corsi, alle attività e alla prenotazione dei campi è migliorata rispetto a prima che il club utilizzasse l’app: ad affermarlo sono il 66% degli intervistati, tra cui pesa soprattutto il cluster degli under 20 (80%).
  • Oltre la metà degli sportivi (53%) si trova molto meglio ora che abbonamenti e tesseramenti presso il proprio circolo sono gestibili da mobile e questa soluzione piace abbastanza anche a un ulteriore 30% di utenti.
  • Ad apprezzare di più le tessere digitali sono i giovani nella fascia 20-35 (59%), mentre dai Gen Z potrebbe arrivare un segnale per un cambio di rotta riguardo ai programmi di loyalty. Se tra i poco soddisfatti si registra soltanto un 17% di risposte, la concentrazione sale infatti decisamente tra i più giovani (25%).
  •  La quarantena ha restituito tempo per lo sport ai più impegnati, offerto forme di workout online (anche gratuite o a prezzo contenuto), con l’opportunità di raggiungere nuovi utenti rispetto ai soli tesserati. Con il ritorno alla normalità, però, molti hanno messo l’allenamento in secondo piano.
  • Secondo i dati rilevati dall’Osservatorio Sportclubby su oltre 650 centri sportivi italiani, tra chi faceva sport regolarmente durante l’ultimo mese del lockdown, collegandosi a video corsi in streaming, più di un terzo (36%) oggi ha smesso di allenarsi. Questa fetta di utenti pesa , come detto, per un 29% di prenotazioni in meno registrate nei singoli club rispetto a prima, ma costituisce anche un bacino “dormiente” che sarà possibile fidelizzare e recuperare con operazioni in chiave big data.

The long march of the affirmation of Sports psychology at the Olympics

On the occasion of the 50st Anniversary of the International Journal of Sport Psychology and

the publication of next special issue dedicated to the history of sport psychology from the 70′s up today by Sidonio Serpa, Fabio Lucidi and Alberto Cei.

We want to highlight how at the beginning of the 70s, the affirmation of this discipline in the world of absolute sport performance was very limited. To a large extent athletes did not follow psychological preparation programs and psychologists did not attend in the most important events such as the Olympics.

At the end of the Olympic Games in Munich -1972, Ferruccio Antonelli addressed many psychologists asking “to write some short observations under psychological point of view“. Nine sent a short commentary and were published in No. 2, 1972 of the Journal.

The historical value of this initiative by Antonelli and of remembering it today, consists in documenting how the affirmation of the sport psychology applied to high-level sport has been a long and slow process. And it took about 15 years to have at Los Angeles – 1984 Olympic Games a significant number of sports psychologists on the Olympic teams.

In general, the comments denounce the lack of attention to psychology by sports organizations and sports medicine.

J. Cratty (USA), p.99:

“During the Pre-Olympic Scientific Conference, I was questioning daily why there were no psychologists accompanying the American Team. A question which I couldn’t answer, and which proved personally unsettling, particularly, when viewed in the light of subsequent performance and incidences… it is hoped that in future games trained professionals to offer emotional support for athletes will be as common as are the presently available personnel for their physical health.”

J. Ferrer-Hombravella (Spain), p.100:

“Beaucoup d’observations a Munich nous prouvent que les bases de la psychologie du sport sont ignorées par beaucoup de personnes et beaucoup des médecins sportifs inclus.”

H. Rieder (German Fed. Rep.), p.103:

“Sport continues to regard psychology exclusively as a spectacular means of improvising performance without showing any interest in an unconditional and willing cooperation as far as the rather troublesome work of conducting tests and evaluating empirical data is concerned.”

M. Vane (Czechoslovakia), p. 105-106:

We need “Individualization in the care of the competitor (guidance) starting with his education and self-education and ending with intentional psycho-prophylactic, psychoigienic and psycho therapeutic means … it is necessary to point out the development of individualized techniques of cool-up and warm-up directed to an optimization of activation level of the athlete. Th advantage of a cooperation between coach, physician, psychologist and masseur is the evident.”