Health care professionals (HCPs) play an important role promoting healthy habits to patients, yet they lack knowledge, training and self-efficacy to effectively prescribe physical activity (PA).
In 2011, the “Exercise is Medicine” Latin American Regional Center developed a one-day (8 hours) in-person course on PA and exercise prescription for HCPs, with theoretical and practical components. Contents include evidence-based health benefits of PA, screening for major risk factors, key behavioral change strategies, basic exercise testing, and prescription and referrals principles.
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Noncommunicable diseases, mainly cardiovascular diseases and cancers, and external causes account for more than 80% of mortality in Russia. The leading causes of death and disability are directly associated with behavioural risk factors, physical inactivity being one of them. Until a few years ago, a clear standard recommendation on physical activity (PA) counselling for general practitioners did not exist in Russia. In 2010, the guidelines on physical activity counselling for primary health care providers were developed. On the basis of these guidelines the national recommendations on PA were developed in 2011.
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In Slovenia, the role of general practitioners in counselling physical activity for prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is well recognized. The role of general practitioners in advising healthy lifestyle for individuals who are at risk of developing CVD is formally defined in the National Program for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, which has been running since 2001. Part of the program is counselling on healthy lifestyle including physical activity, performed in all health centres across the country. First a screening and medical examination is performed. In case of higher risk for CVD (>20%) the physician should give advice on the particular risk factor and direct patients to health-education centres, where they can participate in healthy lifestyle workshops lead by health professionals.
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Primary care physicians in Germany are potentially in a pivotal position to provide physical activity counselling and exercise referral for their patients. The preventative prescription scheme dates back to the late 1970s. This scheme called “green prescription” (Grünes Rezept), however, could not be established as exercise referral scheme in primary care on a regular and systematic basis. After the German Medical Association (Bundesärztekammer), the German Association for Sports Medicine and Prevention (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sportmedizin und Prävention) and the German Olympic Sports Federation (Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund) had developed the standardized national quality criteria of Physical Activity on Prescription in a joint effort, the German Medical Association has adopted them in 2011 and now recommends them to the Medical Associations of the Federal States for implementation.
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In addition to the delivery of primary care services, recent changes to the NHS in the United Kingdom have placed increasing responsibility on GPs for the commissioning of the full range of health services from prevention through to clinical interventions and rehabilitation. Whilst historically there has always been an expectation that primary care professionals were ideally placed to provide support for prevention as well as treatment, their active engagement in the promotion of physical activity has remained largely superficial.
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The role of regular physical activity for population health has been clearly documented. Improvements in population levels of physical activity require long-term implementation of a combination of measures, including the evidence based approaches described in the “seven best investments for physical activity” (www.globalpa.org.uk): whole-of-school programmes, transport, urban planning, integration of physical activity promotion into primary health care systems, public education, community-wide programmes, sport for all. The health care setting has a particular role in this context, particularly in its access to physically inactive individuals.
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Objectives: Growing interest in physical activity has led to the development of a number of organizations, networks and associations, including grass-root, professional and academic institutions. To maximize relevance and effectiveness of work undertaken in this field, we aimed at developing a systematic overview of institutions active in health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA).
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HEPA Europe, the European network for the promotion of health-enhancing physical activity, will have its 10th annual meeting in 2014. Membership of the network has grown to 129 institutions from 32 countries. Collaborations have been established with the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union (EU), Agita Mundo, the global network for physical activity promotion, other regional networks, and the International Society for Physical Activity and Health. Physical activity has moved up on the public agenda; in 2013 the EU Council adopted its first ever Council Recommendation in sport, notably on promoting health-enhancing physical activity, and in 2014 WHO has begun the development of a Physical Activity Strategy for the European region.
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There are different devices on the market for assessing strength and power in vertical jumping as a fundamental requisite of an athlete’s performance. The purpose of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of two instruments measuring force, power, velocity, and jump height in squat jumps. Myotest® (MYO) (Myotest SA, Switzerland) was compared with force plate measurements (Quattro Jump® [QUATTRO], Kistler, Switzerland & SPSport Software, Trins, Austria). Forty-three frontier-guards (age range 25–58 years) performed twice a series of five squat jumps (SJ) simultaneously using MYO device along with QUATTRO force plate. Reliability was analysed using ICC, CV and RMSE. Results for reliability for both devices show good results with ICCs ranging from 0.910 to 0.955, and CVs ranging from 2.33% to 6.59% for discrete outcome variables.
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There is a substantial lack of research comparing the effects of game console-based activities against conventional activities (aerobic, bicycle ergometer) within therapeutic and rehabilitative settings and the results are inconsistent. The aim of the study was to investigate if training with exergames (Nintendo Wii vs. Xbox 360) compared with conventional activities (bicycle ergometer) would have different effects on physiological and psychological parameters.
Method: A quantitative three-armed, randomised, not-blinded study design was used. The test persons were randomly assigned to one of three activities: 1) Bicycle ergometer (n = 6); 2. Nintendo Wii game (n = 16); 3. Xbox 360 game (n = 17).
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Quantifying actual individual training intensity in resistance training is essential for athletes and trainers, but is at present only possible with methodological problems. Thus, the purpose of this article is to examine the relationship of different types of RPE (rating of perceived exertion) with blood lactate concentrations in hypertrophy training. Hereby it is possible, to deduce conclusions about the validity of the RPE-scale and different times of monitoring. In this article two studies with male subjects are presented (study 1: n=10, 23.7 ± 2.8 years; study 2: n=16, 24.9 ± 2.0 years). In both surveys, subjects had to complete 3 sets with 3 minutes of rest between sets in every exercise. Blood lactate was measured before each exercise and two minutes after the completion of each set.
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The aim of the study was the evaluation of the correlation between maximal strength and muscle mass depending on the kind of analysis which was used. Two different methods of strength evaluation and several morphological parameters were used. 77 male participants (age: 27,2 ± 6,6 years; body height: 179,9 ± 4,0 cm; body weight: 82,5 ± 10,4 kg) joined the study. Maximal strength was tested by measuring the isometric force (MIF) and analysing the one repetition maximum (1RM). The morphological data was captured by magnetic resonance imaging. The volume of the muscle (VOL), the biggest cross sectional area (QSMAX), the cross sectional area of the upper (QS30), middle (QS60) and lower (QS90) third of the scanned area of the arm flexors were examined.
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Strength training guidelines tend to be based on stress factors such as relative weight, repetitions, sets, rest inbetween sets, muscle action velocity and number of sessions per week. Based on the stress-strain-concept, empirical results and training experience require additional parameters related to the molecular and cellular adaptations for an effective strength training concept. In contrast to what has generally been assumed, it is notable that the individual percentage of 1-Repetition-Maximum (1 RM) is not the intensity but only a relative training load and therefore a stress factor. Intensity is referred to here as a strain factor, operationalized as the level of effort applied to a given load.
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In the science and practice of strength training it is sometimes suggested that the deep squat entails an increased injury risk of the lumbar spine and the knee joint. Avoiding deep flexion is believed to minimize the magnitude of knee joint forces. Because within the first 50° of knee flexion calculated retropatellar compressive stress is lower, execution of quarter or half squats is recommended when overuse injuries and degenerative changes of the patella-tendon-complex exist.
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Problems: Correlations between the occlusal situation and
the movement apparatus are currently controversially discussed in literature. However, studies with athletes are missing in this area. Therefore the question arises, whether a systematic block of the occlusion by a silicone panel shows effects on the postural control in athletes.
Methods: In this study 16 male volunteers of a team of 1.
Handball league were investigated. With the help of 1 or 2 mm thick silicon panel their occlusion was blocked symmetrical and asymmetrical. The effects in terms of their postural control were recorded on a force plate (GP Multisens, GeBioM, Münster/Germany).
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The instrumented gait analysis is used in orthopaedics and rehabilitation either to evaluate and to quantify the functional result of various treatments or to analyse the individual motion pattern of patients. For that purpose a number of methods have been developed and parameters have been defined which are presented in this paper. In part one, «easy-to-use» and more complex methods are compared and discussed.
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