Humanistic Approach to Sport and Exercise Studies (HASES)

Shooters typically make great efforts to strengthen their physical and motor abilities, but are often less aware of the cognitive and psychological factors that affect their performance and skill performance. Therefore, it seems that shooters, especially novice shooters, are not very familiar with the mental skills related to shooting and pay less attention to mental training. However, cognitive training has recently been recognized as one of the basic skills required in perceptual-motor activities. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of training cognitive imaging strategies versus training of motor representation strategies on the acquisition and retention of shooting skills. This randomized controlled clinical trial study was performed on 45 undergraduate military science students with an age limit of 18 to 25 years, studying in the second semester of 1997-98. Subjects were randomly selected from a university of military sciences in Tehran and randomly divided into three groups of mental imagery, motor representation and control using a table of random numbers. The intervention groups received a three-week mental imagery training program, motor representation along with shooting training (five sessions per week). The control group only participated in shooting training. In order to evaluate the performance of shooters in the pre-test, post-test and memorization stages, a SCAT machine was used. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS20 software and p value less than 0.05 was considered significant. The results of combined analysis of variance showed that both cognitive imaging and motor representation interventions had a significant effect on improving the record of novice military shooters (P≤0.05). The results showed that although there was no significant difference between motor representation and cognitive imaging groups in the post-test stage, however, a significant difference was observed between the motor representation and cognitive imaging groups (P = 0.006) in the retention stage. The results show that cognitive imagery and motor representation interventions can improve the performance of novice military shooters, although motor representation is more likely to be effective than cognitive imagery

Psychological variables that affect mental health are divided into useful and harmful variables. Useful variables are beneficial for improving mental health and quality of life, and increasing well-being, for instance, happiness, calmness, vigor, and mental toughness. Harmful variables reduce mental health, quality, and enjoyment of life, for example, negative mood states, anxiety, and burnout. This study aimed to predict psychological burnout based on mood states and mental toughness of elite athletes with physical disabilities. Participants have included 150 athletes with physical disabilities (77women; 73men) competing at national or international Paralympic sports teams (mean age=42.34 ±7.44y, mean experience=8.38 ± 3.19 y) that were selected in the random method. Participants accomplished the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire, the 32-item Brunel Mood Scale, and the Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis showed that happiness (moderate negative power, 51%), vigor (weak negative power, 28%), fatigue (weak positive power, 22%), mental toughness (medium negative power, 57%), and confidence (weak negative power, 29%) were able to predict the total burnout of the athletes with disabilities. These findings are essential for psychologists since developing and increasing the useful variables and inhibiting or decreasing the harmful variables for mental health can prevent sports burnout.

Emotional abuse is one of the most common types of abuse in sports. However, due to the lack of awareness of its harmful effects and the hiding of this abuse in the shadow of success, less attention has been paid to it. Objective: Emotional abuse is a repetitive pattern of intentional and non-contact behaviors that is performed to control a person and is detrimental to their emotional, cognitive, or physical health. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of emotional abuse among semi-professional adolescent male football players in Mazandaran province. Method: the present study is cross-sectional. A total of 59 football players (aged from 15 to 18 years old) participated in the study voluntarily. Semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data and descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation coefficient were utilized at a significance level of 0.05 to analyze them. Results: The results showed that 37.25% of the participants have experienced emotional abuse such as humiliation, insult, ignoring, ridicule, etc. by the coach during their sports career which resulted in outcomes such as depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Conclusion: Based on the findings, it can be concluded that significant ratios of athletes have experienced emotional abuse that has adverse consequences and, in some cases, has led to quitting sport. Therefore, teaching athletes appropriate coping techniques reduces the frequency of common emotional abuse and protects them from it harm in the future.

Loss of balance and postural control are the main reasons for falls among the elderly adults that are considered as serious elderly health challenges with high impacts on the quality of life. The cerebellum is involved in postural control as one of the key neural structures that receives many inputs from the sensory systems. Cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (ctDCS) is a popular noninvasive and safe method enabling the adjustment of cerebellar activity. Therefore, we investigated the effect of ctDCS on postural control variables among elderly population with a history of stroke. Thirty elderly individuals (60-75 years) participated in this study. After preliminary assessments of postural control strategies by post urography at six sensory conditions, they received five 20-min sessions of active ctDCS at 2mA (intervention, n = 15) or sham stimulation (control, n = 15) in a random manner. At the end of the stimulation process, postural control strategies were reassessed. After adjustment for pre-test values using the ANCOVA test, an improvement of the subjects' performance in the first four conditions was observed in the intervention group compared with the control group (P < 0.05). However, in the fifth (P = 0.24) and sixth (P = 0.58) conditions, there were no significant differences between the groups. The results of this study showed the significant effect of ctDCS on the postural control strategies. These improvements were reflected by normalization of strategy of postural control in elderly adults.

Football stadiums are the main infrastructures of this popular sport in the society. The purpose of this study is to provide a Pattern for cultural promotion in football fans in stadiums in Iran, which was done by qualitative research method and using grounded theory approach. Through snowball sampling and by conducting 21 semi-structured interviews with university professors and experts in football and culture theoretical saturation was achieved. The results of data analysis in 3 stages of open-coding, axial-coding and selective coding indicate 28 categories that these findings are within the framework of the final model including: Hooliganism, behavioral factors, media, managerial challenges, infrastructural factors and Juridical and legal as causal factors; the nature of football, advocacy and government actions and policy making as context factors; Celebrities, social contexts, economic conditions, Trends and interest, cultural and social and technology as an intervener; manpower, education and training, media, cyberspace, structural strategies and Infrastructural strategies as appropriate ways to promote the level of culture in football fans in stadiums as strategies. According to the proposed pattern, promoting the cultural level of the spectators, marketing development, Exercise promotion, financial development, social progress, the growth of moral security and growth of behavioral security in Iran can be mentioned as positive consequences of promoting cultural levels in football fan in stadiums.

In this research, we investigated the mediating role of emotion regulation within the relationship between neuroticism and participation motivation. In this cross-sectional study, a total of 261 employees (98 males agerange = 18-60 years) belonging to Iran Oil Company participated and completed questionnaires of big five factors of personality (Costa and McGree, 1989), cognitive emotion regulation (Garnowski and Craig, 2006) and participation motivation (Gill et al., 1983). Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling. The results indicate that neuroticism has indirect effects on participation motivation through adaptive emotion regulation and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. The results suggest that emotion regulation strategies may be a significant mediator in the neuroticism- participation motivation link. One’s difficulty in regulating emotions might be an underlying mechanism through which high neuroticism decreases the participation motivation and health behavior. The study implies that the assessment of emotion regulation strategies should be included in interventional programs aimed at achieving employees’ sport participation.

The present research aims to investigate the effect of massage on fatigue and mood in female rowers. Pre-test and post-test of quasi-experimental design with a control group was used for the experiment. Participants in the study were 30 female rowers from Tehran province who participated voluntarily. The volunteer sample was randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups (15 people in each group). Pre-test was carried out for both groups. The subjects in the experimental group then participated in 12 massage sessions under the supervision of a massage expert. Meanwhile, both groups also continued their normal rowing exercises. At the end of the intervention, post-test was carried out for both groups. Rating of perceived exertion and fatigue scale (Borg, 1982), mood questionnaire (Vaez Mousavi, 2007), and a researcher-made questionnaire were used to measure variables. Statistical analysis of variance with repeated measurements was used to test the hypotheses. The results suggested that perceived intensity and fatigue were significantly reduced in the massage group compared to the control group (P <0.05). Also, anger (P=0.002), confusion (P=0.02), depression (P=0.028), mood fatigue (P=0.015), and stress (P=0.039) significantly decreased in the massage group compared to the control group. Force increased significantly in the massage group compared to the control group (P=0.008). In general, the results showed that 12 massage sessions could be used to decrease fatigue and improve mood in female rowers.