Monthly Archive for December, 2022

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8 investments that work for physical activity

Karen Milton et al. Eight Investments that Work for Physical Activity, 2021. Journal of Physical Activity and Health 18, 6.

1. ‘Whole-of-School’ Programs

A whole-of-school approach is a multi-component approach committed to promoting physical activity to all members of the school community through supportive policies, environments, and sustainable opportunities. There is growing evidence to support the efficacy of a range of physical activity promotion strategies in schools, including physical education programs that develop confidence, competence, and motivation to be active; active classrooms; after school physical activity opportunities; activities during recess/break times; and the promotion of active transport to and from school.

2. Active Transport

Active transportation to and from places is a practical and sustainable way to increase daily physical activity for many people. Eight interventions have been identified that, when combined, have been shown to encourage walking, cycling, and public transport use, while reducing private motor vehicle use. These 8 interventions include improving destination accessibility; ensuring equitable distribution of employment across cities; managing demand by reducing availability and increasing the cost of parking; designing pedestrian-friendly and cycling-friendly infrastructure to support movement networks; achieving optimum levels of residential density; reducing distance to public transport; increasing the diversity of residential areas; and enhancing the desirability of active travel modes.

3. Active Urban Design

The way urban and suburban environments are built and designed influences many of our conscious and unconscious behavioral choices. Research from cities globally has shown that adults who live in the most activity-friendly neighborhoods engage in at least an hour (up to an hour and a half) more physical activity per week than those living in the least activity-friendly neighborhoods. The creation of neighborhoods that locate shops, schools, parks, recreational facilities, jobs, and other services near homes, and provide highly connected street networks that make it easy for people to walk and cycle to destinations, have been shown to increase physical activity while simultaneously providing many additional health and environmental benefits.

4. Health Care

Health care professionals come into contact with large proportions of the population and are a trusted source of health advice; therefore, they have a key role to play in promoting physical activity to their patients. Evidence indicates that primary care-based interventions that target physical activity alone, or in combination with interventions for other modifiable risk factors such as tobacco use, the harmful use of alcohol, and unhealthy diets, have shown they are effective and most are also cost-effective.27 There is strong evidence for providing brief advice and counseling, particularly when linked with community opportunities and support.

5. Public Education, Including Mass Media

Public education, including mass media, can involve print, audio and electronic media, digital and social media, outdoor billboards and posters, public relations, and point of decision prompts. It can increase knowledge, awareness, and intent to increase physical activity. National and community-based communication campaigns should follow best practice principles, including positive framing, tailoring and targeting, and the use of theory and formative research. Public education should be combined with supportive infrastructure and other opportunities for physical activity, including community-based programs.

6. Sport and Recreation for All

There is increasing evidence of the wide-ranging health, social and economic benefits of sport, and for many, playing and engaging in sport holds significant cultural meaning. Participation in sport and recreation can be encouraged through the provision of accessible and appropriate places and spaces, including both indoor and outdoor facilities and amenities, as well as opportunities through formal and informal clubs and programs. Mass events that engage whole communities can help to create a social norm for participation in sport and recreation.

7. Workplaces

The workplace is one of the most opportune settings for health promotion, which can benefit employers via reduced absenteeism and burnout among employees. Policies and programs include designing workplace environments that promote incidental physical activity; supporting active commuting; educational events to inform employees of the benefits of physical activity; encouraging an active working culture (such as walking meetings); providing employees with paid time and/or flexible time for physical activity; and encouraging self-monitoring via wearable devices or mobile phone apps.

8. Community-Wide Programs

Community-wide programs offer more than one approach to tackle physical inactivity in a population as they operate at multiple levels (individual, social network, neighborhood, and society) to impact behavior. These programs can use systems-based approaches to create supportive policies, environments, and programs to encourage whole communities to be more physically active. Community-wide programs can include a mix of components identified in the preceding 7 investment areas, with emphasis on multi-component programs and a broad community reach.Settings such as community centers, shopping malls, senior care centers, and faith-based settings might be particularly important for an inclusive community-wide approach.

Figure 1

Leo Messi is the GOAT

The beauty of the sports universe is that it consists of many different worlds. There are as many as there are sports disciplines. In recent weeks, we have watched as spectators what has happened in the soccer galaxy. Probably the most widely followed. Its top heroes reached the semifinals, playing two European teams France and Croatia, one South American, Argentina, and one African, Morocco. Audience and experts decreed that the best was Leo Messi, who had already won almost everything, he lacked the World Cup that he has now won with Argentina.

Soccer excites us and its understanding is immediate: you jump over the opponent or get blocked, you shoot at goal and score or get parried, you win a contrast or lose it, it only takes one goal to win. In reality, it is much more complex but the children who play it and we who watch it do not go much beyond these simple observations. In this context, the champion emerges, the one who in the decisive moments does not betray you, who often determines the result, the player the opponents fear the most and the one everyone goes after to limit his action with the knowledge that it will be very difficult to stop him from doing what he wants. This is what we love about soccer, and this is what every young person who plays with the jersey of his favorite champion identifies with.

Asking who is the all-time soccer number makes sense since soccer is experienced in this very emotional way. It is not just about talking about the emotions that a game arouses, but about the emotional bond, of love, that binds us to the champion. In this comparison, the one who plays in the present wins; we can all see him and witness his exploits, so the comparison is no longer between Pelé, the distant past, and Maradona, the near past, but between the latter and today’s dominator, Messi, who represents the present. Thus it is likely that in a few years the comparison will be between Messi and Mbappé. Now, however, the best ever is Leo Messi, who to be so had to win this title by overcoming an equally successful opponent of the present. The challenge of a decade between Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi, in Golden Ball and and achievements, represented this challenge. Ronaldo ultimately lost because, like Hector versus Achilles, he was abandoned by the gods, represented by his own narcissism, which prevented him from finding other solutions to the peremptory impact of age. He could not put himself at the service of the team, give up something of himself for the greater good, and he paid the highest price. The king is dead, long live Messi.

Read is meaningful

By @Poesiaitalia

How to manage the return from the World Cup

For many players, the World Cup in Qatar is over while others entered the final two decisive matches for the final victory or otherwise to confirm a prestigious result. All are returning or will return to play in their clubs. Many will be dissatisfied, while others will have achieved their dream. Everyone will have to catch up and get back into championship mood.

This period should be divided into a few phases.

The first one corresponds to a phase of physical and mental recovery from their experiences during the World Cup in Qatar. After almost a month lived just to be ready to play the matches now it is a matter of re-amplifying one’s focus on the outside world from the wider world outside the sport to the more personal world relative to one’s family and friend circle. Aware that one has had an exceptional experience now one must come out of the isolation achieved with one’s national team. These are days when one should relax and do activities for the sheer pleasure of doing them, outside the rigid schedules and rules of the footballer’s usual life. It is a necessary time to cool down and make sense of the emotions experienced during those days, highlighting what one has learned for the near future and reducing the burden of what one feels went wrong or below one’s expectations.

The next phase is that of rejoining the team and resuming one’s daily routine in preparation for the championship. If the previous phase of decompression has been carried out optimally, it will be easier to find oneself with the motivation required to maintain an effective game rhythm. The role of the coach will be indispensable in guiding his group of athletes to begin again with the enthusiasm and intensity needed to play at their best. The team atmosphere will be decisive in the first few games, and substitutions during the match will, in my opinion, be a useful yardstick for understanding how committed everyone is to the common goal.

Those who get out must understand and accept the reasons while those who come in must feel at that moment they are essential to the team and play.

Ethics in soccer

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italiano.

Juventus has to renew its values and social responsibility

The accusations against Juventus involve artificial capital gains, false salary news, false corporate communications, market manipulation and others. These charges, which obviously need to be proven, lead back to the concept of deception, which is the basis of fraud.
Deception is an action knowingly carried out for the purpose of keeping others from having true and relevant information of which they are unaware. It is an action that is characterized in terms of deliberately seeking deception strategies and ways to implement them.
In addition, deception and fraud are actions that make sense only within the social context in which they are implemented, represent a violation of rights, and take the form of aggressive acts, which in turn are aimed at gaining an unfair advantage over another entity in favor of one of an organization. Corporate fraud has always been a fairly widespread phenomenon that does not only affect the last 15 years of sports history, and those promoted by the management or ownership of the same company represent one of the most frequent types.
Thus, a deviant subculture is formed within the organization for the purpose of separating those who perpetrate it from other people in the company who instead follow the rules and regulations In the case of Juventus, the football players belong to this second category of employees. What they think is hard to imagine and in any case it is their private matter. Certainly there are many situations they face. They concern the future and social image of the club, the effects of the current situation on their contracts, how much their personal sense of ethics and social responsibility will weigh on their work, the possible damage to their public image for playing in a club accused of financial fraud.
It seems to me that I can say that, the team, having to continue the competitive season effectively in any case, can succeed if as a group it renews its values of cohesion and those of social responsibility it has toward other teams and the broader social context they represent.

The mental training for volleyball: it was 1984

“Women athletes must have a calm head. That is your goal.” Bu Quinxia of China, coach of the junior national volleyball team, made no other recommendations to the team of psychologists who have been following championship and international events for some time. Volleyball is a “situational” sport, requiring very rapid adaptations as the game changes. A sport that creates constant tension. “Playing volleyball,” says Pittera, national team coordinator, “is like playing a game of chess at 120 kilometers per hour. In soccer it is easier to breathe. This partly explains the massive intervention of psychologists. “However, we must clarify our role,” says Alberto Cei, “we did not work on the pathology of the ‘athlete. No one was sick…. In the formation of a team group, emotional control, concentration are fundamental and must be followed. Results? “Very good at the competitive level, but of course the credit is not ours. Italy finished second at the junior Europeans behind the USSR, but only by set difference. The two “under 17s” won important international tournaments. However, we are interested in delving into another issue: the introduction of relaxation techniques immediately before the match has had excellent effects. It’s a long job; these athletes need to be followed all the way to the national team. They grow up playing volleyball.” An almost Russian method… “Maybe so, if our work means following the ‘evolution of a boy step by step. There are, for example, as is clear, fundamental differences between men and women. Boys already start out more motivated to sporting success. Girls are more focused instead on interpersonal relationships. They talk to each other more, they defend themselves from an environment that is still too masculine: they certainly have a harder time feeling good.” What about the coaches? “The coaches,” says Davide Ceridono, “have received us well. The figure of the sole coach responsible for leading has now disappeared. Even among themselves they tend to complement each other. Not to mention that communication often does not go through words. Bu Quinxia will know in all thirty words of ‘Italian.” In general, is it possible to talk about discomfort for certain athletes? “These are athletes who have many gratifications. Apart from the financial ones, they are often little provincial heroes, traveling the world in their twenties.” How could your intervention be summarized? “There are four goals: 1) emotional control, 2) concentration; 3) energy recovery; 4) group intervention. Need to emphasize the ‘importance of cohesion: the team is made up of six who play and four who are on the bench. Motivating even those who stay out is not easy. Especially if you play thirty international matches in four months. After all, even Liedholm once said that Superchi had great merit in Roma’s Scudetto. Yet Superchi had never entered.” Ceridono and Cei also carried out, together with Prof. Scilligo, Chiara Bergerone and Franca Formica, research on the “relationships between intrapsychic and interpersonal processes and sports performance.” The behaviors of 255 athletes, belonging to 30 A/1 and A/2 teams, were studied. The results are interesting. “High-ranked players-for example-demonstrated a remarkable ability to protect themselves, look after their own interests, gather information and realistically examine themselves. A lower degree of neglect and self-rejection was identified in them. The same outlook on life comes out in their relationships with the team. Towards them it is liberal, welcoming, caring and directive.” In contrast, low and mid-ranking players most often perceive the team as punitive, hostile or absent.” One question: what if it is the results that influence such behaviors? “That is partly the case: however, the reaction in front of defeat changes. You are never first by accident.”

Sport is emotion: teach to live them well

Sports is an exciting activity for the guy who has to have his first competition after a period of preparation and is already wondering how it will go, putting his hands out wondering how it will turn out since it has been a while since the last one. It is also for Modici and Neymar, the symbols of two teams, Croatia and Brazil, that came down to penalties to decide who would pass the round. At the end, everyone cried some in joy and some in sorrow.

Sport easily generates emotions, so much so that the stress it brings about is considered a privilege. These are emotions that do not arise from wars, disasters or negative events but from feeling engaged in something that one enjoys doing. Sport is passion, which some manage to turn into a job, but without setting aside the emotions it determines in every person, planetary champion or young person who wants to have fun.

Sport is related to well-being, therefore, it enables the development of many psychological and social skills that should enrich a person’s daily life and not only his or her sports life. To achieve this, sports must be based on the universal values of respect for others and rules, otherwise it becomes cheating or seeking shortcuts to success.

Young people must be taught the value of emotions, explaining to them that they accompany our every thought and action. That it is not wrong to be disappointed or angry about a race gone wrong, indeed negative emotions are a demonstration of our interest in that activity. However, we must also teach them to experience their passions and disappointments constructively. Teach them that when we adults say that it is from mistakes that we learn, we also believe that and do not instead behave in the opposite node, humiliating them because they make mistakes.

Teachers who are parents, coaches and psychologists must provide them with ways to handle the difficulties they encounter and not leave them, instead, alone in understanding what happened and finding solutions.

The numbers of Italian sport for all

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italiano.

Psychological profile in the different stages of the youth football

James Barraclough, David Grecic & Damian Harper (2022) Examining the psychological characteristics of developing excellence profiles of male English youth soccer players: differences across ages and performance levels,International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 

The aim of this study was to investigate differences in PCDEs across different age groups (U13, U14, U15, U16 and youth team) and categories of participation (Categories 1, 2 and 3 at academy level, and grassroots) in male English youth soccer players (n = 375). Data were gathered using the PCDE questionnaire version 2 (PCDEQ2). Differences between age groups and categories of participation were analysed using the Kruskal–Wallis H test. Across age groups, highest differences were reported in perfectionistic tendencies (d = .57, p = <0.01) and adverse response to failure (d = .49, p = <0.01), with youth team players reporting the highest scores. Across categories of participation highest differences in PCDEs were observed in perfectionistic tendencies (d = .64, p = <0.01), self-directed control and management (d = .63, p = <0.01) and adverse response to failure (d = .58, p = <0.01), with Category 1 players reporting the highest scores. Youth team and Category 1 players also demonstrated the highest scores in the use of imagery and active preparation, with Category 1 players also demonstrating the highest and lowest score on the use of active coping strategies and presentation of clinical indicators, respectively. The findings of the current study have important implications for key stakeholders involved in the planning and monitoring of a player’s talent development environment. Careful consideration should be given to identifying and developing players’ psychological characteristics to ensure positive nurturing throughout their journey.