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Those interested in the psychology of sports injury can consult this website, which contains videos and news on this topic proposed by a group of experts.
An interdisciplinary community devoted to disseminating evidence-based research into user-friendly resources that aim to prevent sport injury and nurture various pathways to recovery.
The president of the Italian Football Medicine Association, Enrico Castellacci, confirms what Pep Gurdiola said about the health of footballers: “”We talk about the welfare of players, but ours is the only league that does not accept the five substitutions. We only have three. How come? It would be much better for everyone, given the number of games we play. But the Premier League and some clubs have decided not to do it”. And Castellacci reiterates that “in this way, the players’ physique does not hold up and injuries increase. Either the mentality changes or the roses increase, but we know that coaches always make the strongest players play”.
To these correct observations I would like to add that playing too many games does not only cause physical wear and tear, but also mental wear and tear. It is obvious but it is remembered much less, perhaps because the body’s warnings are more immediately evident (injury and consequent inability to play) while the mental ones are less so, except when they manifest themselves in the form of psychopathology.
Samuele Marcora and colleagues in an article of 2009 reminded us that even the sports sciences have not dealt with this issue until recent years.
“Mental fatigue is a psychobiological state caused by prolonged periods of demanding cognitive activity and characterized by subjective feelings of “tiredness” and “lack of energy”. The effects of mental fatigue on cognitive performance and the skilled performance of drivers and air pilots have been extensively investigated. An increasing number of studies are also revealing the neural alterations caused by prolonged periods of demanding cognitive activity in both health and disease. On the contrary, the impact of mental fatigue on subsequent physical performance remains largely unknown. To the best of our knowledge, the only published observations date back to 1891 when Angelo Mosso reported in his seminal book on fatigue that muscle endurance was reduced in two fellow professors of physiology after long lectures and oral examinations.
Pain makes you more human and aware of limits. Everyone knows, but when you feel it on yourself it becomes a terrifying experience. To read the interview to the “cannibal” Marc Marquez, he used to devour his opponents, now he exploits their wake: “It is the law of sport: when one suffers, he tries to survive. The weakest takes advantage of the strongest, and in qualifying I chose Vinales, the best: they used to follow me. Now it’s my turn”.
The interview talks about his pain of realizing how difficult it is to do normal activities like shaving or playing with dogs. He has learned that his head tells him things, which then his body still can’t. It’s like putting old software on a different machine, it doesn’t work.
You understand what it’s like to have a fixed idea, how you go in an instant from the joy of progress to the sadness of realizing how far away you still are from how you were. In an instant your life has changed, and you keep trying to think like you did before the accident, it’s depressive, you’re no longer able to do what you want to do.
Marquez’s struggle is to learn to live with this new awareness of his limits and to continue the treatment to reach a complete rehabilitation, he must also learn to believe in it knowing that all this is not certain.
Will he be able to become the cannibal even of his shadow, which continually puts doubts in his mind?
According to a new national poll released by the espnW: Women + Sports Summit this weekend, two-thirds of parents think there is “too much emphasis on winning over having fun,” and 87% of parents said they were worried about the risk of injury in sports.
Parents are most concerned about concussions on the high school football field, which increasingly have been in the headlines lately (including on TIME’s cover). Just in the past week, three high school football players in Alabama, North Carolina and New York have died, possibly due to football injuries.
Parental concerns could explain the drop in participation in youth sports in the last several years. In 2008, 44.5% of children ages 6-12 participated in some type of sports organization. Only 40% of children did so in 2013, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. Football, basketball, baseball and soccer have all seen double-digit declines in participation (though lacrosse and hockey have not).”
(Source: Time)
