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Traumatic brain injury, concussion, and subconcussion are different clinical conditions associated with head injury. These conditions share a common origin, mechanical forces directly or indirectly transmitted to the head. In sports, modalities with high exposure to head traumas require further investigation, especially those in which strikes directly to the head are allowed and a determinant of success, such as combat sports. The causes and effects of brain injuries in combat sports such as Mixed Martial Arts, boxing, Muay Thai, and kickboxing are complex and require a comprehensive investigation of many factors. The objective of this dissertation was to explore the main causes that justify combat sports as the main sport sample when it comes to head injury and the effects of chronic exposure to head trauma in this population. Original studies were developed to assess the head injury risk in competition and in training, the level of knowledge of athletes and coaches, and the consequences of chronic exposure to head traumas in the balance function, brain activity, and spinal cord excitability. The risk of a fight ending due to head strikes in competition is directly related to the weight category, and the risk seems to be exacerbated in female athletes. Combat sports athletes are exposed to numerous strikes to the head in simulated fights on a weekly basis in training, when healthcare professionals are absent. During this time that makes up the bulk of exposures, therefore, athletes and coaches are the ones managing potential cases of concussion. However, coaches are not familiar with assessment tools and don’t often seek out concussion knowledge. Alarmingly, coaches, often prior athletes themselves, are the main source of concussion knowledge for their athletes. High exposure to head trauma both in competition and training in addition to iv poor knowledge and behavior are liable to cause consequences in the nervous system. Athletes chronically exposed to head trauma presented subtle deficits in static balance in the most basic human stance, which is the double-leg over a firm surface. Moreover, while the literature consistently shows impairments in brain function, our study expanded the association between head trauma and nervous system deficits to the least studied component of the nervous system, the spinal cord. While athletic training promotes neuroplastic benefits in spinal cord excitability, these were hindered in a sample of athletes chronically exposed to head traumas. The studies in this dissertation demonstrated that athletes in combat sports are chronically exposed to intentional and repetitive head traumas, and that this exposure is likely associated with long-term functional detriments in balance and spinal cord excitability. / Graduate

The thesis analyses representations of body and class, and their wider ideological meaning, in Swedish power sports from 1920 to 1960. Boxing and weightlifting – sports dominated by manual workers – are chosen as study objects. The sources used are magazines connected to the power sports, and autobiographies by four prominent athletes. The thesis relates to different areas of previous research. One concerns the body as such, from a social and cultural history perspective, another revolves around medial and autobiographical representations in relation to sports, and a third is about the relationships between body, class and sport. In the analysis, the Bourdieusian concepts capital and hexis are added to a discussion on the ways that value is attached to the body, linked to the notions of use value and exchange value. The content analysis of the source material makes ground for an analysis of more implicit ideological aspects, e.g. using Barthes’s theory on mythology. Manual labour and working life appear as central organising themes in the source material. Boxing and weightlifting were largely regarded and designated as professions, challenging ideals of amateurism. A physically demanding manual work was depicted as natural breeding grounds where sports practitioners became skilled. This masculine ideal united people from various manual working groups (not only from the working class in its socio-economic sense) where the emphasis was put on the physical strength and ability of the athlete to work hard. The body was used in a form of class polemics, preferably against middle and upper class people. Certain aspects of strength and style of athletic performance were related to particular levels of intelligence and education. Power athletes from the manual working groups were depicted as “natural”, with associations to rural areas, not least working in the forest. The ideas of naturalness in its most derogatory sense of being close to animals and lacking civilisation, was however mostly used in connections with black athletes. Success stories were common narratives about power sports as arenas of success. They included a powerful norm that success must be cultivated, where the responsibility was put upon the athlete himself. Successful athletes from manual working groups could transform their physical capital into economic capital, which was often depicted as short-lived because of aging and individual shortcomings. A commercial consumer culture became more explicit in the 1950s, when bodybuilding had its Swedish breakthrough within weightlifting. Sports training was rationalised and largely decoupled from its associations with manual work. This led to an increased reification of the body as pure surface, which was attributed a value itself. The body became an area of consumption, a commodity with an exchange value, when decoupled from its use value as labour or tool for sporting success. As to the ideological aspects of the development, it is shown that there was a widespread individualist norm. Only the individual himself had the possibility to rise up and achieve success. The ideal of manual work was more of a moral and cultural nature, than political. Although there were some collectivist features in that rhetoric, the manual worker idealisation fundamentally carried an individualistic tendency. It is argued that this idealisation, or workerism, is a fruitful object for further analyses.

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Juosmens skausmai – aktuali nūdienos sportininkų problema. Daugelyje sporto šakų yra aptartos šių skausmų priežastys ir išvengimo bei šalinimo problemos. Tačiau apie bokse patiriamus nugaros skausmus nėra plačiai išnagrinėta, bei atlikta pakankamai tyrimų. Skausmo priežasties bei prevencijos nagrinėjimas sportuojant boksą leistų sumažinti skausmų tikimybę ir pilnavertį sportininko ruošimąsi. Planuojant tyrimą buvo suformuluotas probleminis klausimas: ar taikant tempimo pratimus galima pagerinti boksininkų stuburo paslankumą ir išvengti ar sumažinti juosmeninės stuburo dalies skausmus. Darbo tikslas yra nustatyti tempimo pratimų poveikį boksininkų liemens raumenų ištvermei, skausmui ir stuburo paslankumui. Tyrimo tikslui pasiekti iškelti uždaviniai: 1. Įvertinti juosmeninės stuburo dalies skausmo pasireiškimą ir stiprumą tiriamojoje imtyje. 2. Įvertinti tiriamųjų, kurie jautė juosmeninės stuburo dalies skausmus, skausmo pokyčius, liemens raumenų statinę ištvermę, stuburo paslankumą ir pečių lanko simetriškumą, prieš ir po techninio pasiruošimo treniruočių ciklo, kuriame buvo taikyti tempimo pratimai. 3. Įvertinti tiriamųjų, kurie nejautė juosmeninės stuburo dalies skausmų, skausmo pokyčius, liemens raumenų statinę ištvermę, stuburo paslankumą ir pečių lanko simetriškumą, prieš ir po techninio pasiruošimo treniruočių ciklo, kuriame nebuvo taikyti tempimo pratimai. 4. Nustatyti koreliaciją tarp: nugaros raumenų ištvermės ir juosmens skausmo I ir II testavimo metu... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / A lumbar pain is a relevant problem of modern athletes. The causes of these pains and the ways of avoidance and prevention of them have been analysed in many sports branches. In boxing, however, not much has been done regarding spine pains. The study on the cause of pain and its prevention when exercising boxing would enable to reduce the possibility of pain and ensure full range preparation of an athlete. Before initiating the study, a problem question was formulated: is it possible to improve the mobility of the spine and avoid or, at least, diminish low back pains by applying stretching exercises in the boxing sport branch. The aim of the paper is to test stretching exercises effect, of boxers trunk muscles endurance, low back pain prevention and spine mobility. The following objectives have been set to achieve the aim of the study: 1. To asses the lumbar pain and pain power of investigatives. 2. To assess investigatives, who felt low back pain, pain alteration, back muscle endurance, spine mobility and shoulders symmetry, before and after technical readiness of training, whereat was applied streching exercises. 3. To asses investigatives, who didn‘t felt low back pain, pain alteration, back muscle endurance, spine mobility and shoulders symmetry, before and after technical readiness of training, whereat the streching exercises was not applied. 4. To evaluate the correlation between: back muscle endurance with lumbar pains, on I and II testing, side mobility... [to full text]

Ayant la boxe comme objet d’étude, le présent mémoire de maîtrise cherche à mettre en lumière le processus par lequel le boxeur fait l’acquisition de l’habitus pugilistique sous l’angle abordé par Loïc Wacquant, où la boxe est envisagée comme un sport individuel, mais qui s’acquiert sous un mode collectif. Dans une étude combinant observation participante, notes de terrain et entrevues, le mémoire a pour objectif de se pencher sur l’apprentissage de ce sport à travers les relations nouées dans les murs du gymnase de boxe, élaboré sous les notions d’habitus, d’esprit de corps, de sens pratique et de capital agonistique. En effet, c’est sur la base de l’entraînement collectif que se développera un « esprit de corps », sous la forme d’habitus susceptibles de gouverner le corps comme les représentations des boxeurs et, par-delà, de fonder une communauté solidaire en vertu duquel le corps « sauvage » se mue en un corps « habitué ». / The subject of this master’s thesis being boxing, it seeks to shine a light on the process through which the boxer acquires the pugilistic habitus, from Loïc Wacquant’s viewpoint. Wacquant sees boxing as an individual sport even while it is acquired collectively. The thesis aims to analyse the learning of this sports discipline in a study that combines participant observation, notes from the field and interviews, through the relationships fostered within the boxing gymnasium, developed through the notions of habitus, esprit de corps, sens pratique and capital agonistique. It is in fact based upon collective training that the “esprit de corps” is developed, in the shape of habitus likely to govern the body as well as the representation of the boxers, and further to create a united community through which the “wild body” becomes a “habituated body”.

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The aim of this bachelor thesis was to examine how Swedish tabloids portrayed Sweden’s greatest female boxers Mikaela Laurén and Klara Svensson the time before and the time after their great meeting at Hovet the 10th of September. We examined the following questions: Which gender roles are given to Sweden’s greatest female boxers Mikaela Laurén and Klara Svensson in Swedish tabloids and how is the interplay between media and the figures in the text described in the Swedish tabloids?   We used narrative analysis to investigate 14 texts from Aftonbladet and Expressen which were related to the match at Hovet. We found that the two boxers were portrayed differently. Laurén was portrayed as the bad girl who had to fight hard to get to where she is. She is tough and she is the one that comes with mean comments and gives media the real intrigues and she likes to use props. She believes she has a greater purpose, to get female boxing acknowledged on the media agenda. Svensson is portrayed as the good girl, she is more girly and is portrayed as if she seems to think that she is a better person than Laurén and therefore pity her when Laurén creates drama in the media. Svensson tries to convince the media that she is a tough girl but is still portrayed as more girly. Both Laurén and Svensson were also portrayed with their roles outside of boxing, as girlfriends which is common for female athletes. The meeting seems to be perfect for both the media and the boxers team. The meeting is portrayed as the final battle between good and evil.

Trots att det har utvecklats skyddsutrustning som skyddar hjärnan mot farlig roterande kinematik inom flera områden, finns ännu ingen utrustning som skyddar boxare mot den typen av våld. Syftet med arbetet var att göra olympisk boxning och träning säkrare. Målet var att utveckla en handske som reducerar töjningen i hjärnan med minst 20 %. I det här arbetet utvecklades och testades ett antal boxningshandskar med implementerade glidskikt som skulle reducera töjningen i hjärnan som uppstår när huvudet utsätts för roterande kinematik. Testerna genomfördes med en linear impactor som slog handskarna mot ett testhuvud. Testhuvudet samlade mätdata med hjälp av nio accelerometrar. Två av prototyperna reducerade töjningen med mer än 20 % vid ett eller flera tester men de hade brister i användningsbarhet. Ingen av prototyperna uppfyllde alla mål och därför kan ingen prototyp rekommenderas för vidareutveckling men det kan konstateras att det finns potential i grundidén. / Although protective equipment has been developed that protects the brain against dangerous rotating kinematics in several areas, no equipment is yet available to protect boxers against this type of violence. The purpose of this work was to make Olympic boxing and training safer. The goal was to develop a glove that reduces the strain in the brain by at least 20 %. In this work, a number of boxing gloves with implemented sliding layers were developed and tested, which would reduce the strain in the brain that occurs when the head is subjected to rotational kinematics. In the tests a linear impactor was used, which hit the gloves against a test head. The test head collected data using nine accelerometers. Two of the prototypes reduced the strain by more than 20% in one or more tests, but they lacked in usability. None of the prototypes met all objectives and therefore no prototype can be recommended for further development, but it can be stated that there is potential in the basic idea. / <p>Betyg 2020-07-11</p>