Player's performance in competitive matches is partly determined by the systematic training programmes that they complete. The differences in the organisation of training may result in differences in the physiological stress placed on players. This study aimed to investigate the influence of training organisation on the physiological, metabolic and molecular responses to soccer-specific intermittent exercise in skeletal muscles. In Chapter 3, the physical demands of professional soccer training were examined by quantifying the physiological loads and work-rate profiles of elite players throughout the programmed pre-season and in-season training for a one week period. The physiological loads in pre-season were significantly higher than those in the in-season period (p < 0.05). Similar activity profiles were, however, observed during each training period irrespective of the time of the year. These findings demonstrate that pre- season training was more intensive than in-season training though these differences were not linked to changes in the activity patterns during sessions. Technical/tactical training seems to be an important component in increasing the physiological strain observed in pre-season training. This study also indicates that soccer training seems to elicit different demands to those associated with match-play. In Chapter 4, a laboratory-based soccer-specific training simulation (LSSTS) was devised on a motorized treadmill. Attempts were made to re-create both similar overall exercise intensities and patterns of discrete activity observed in training. The validity of this protocol was evaluated by comparing the physiological responses of professional players with those of healthy subjects who completed the LSSTS. Physiological measurements such as mean HR and % of HRmax associated with the simulation were similar to those obtained in the actual training session. These data suggest that the protocol is suitable in re-creating a soccer-specific training session in the laboratory. This protocol is, therefore, sufficient to use in investigations to study the physiological responses and the molecular adaptations of skeletal muscle to soccer-specific intermittent exercise. In Chapter 5, the effect of a single bout of soccer-specific intermittent exercise on metabolic stress and acute molecular responses associated with mitochondrial biogenesis was investigated in human skeletal muscle. The LSSTS was utilised as the sports-specific exercise protocol. The levels of blood metabolites and muscle glycogen were significantly altered during and after exercise (p < 0.05). Simulated soccer-specific training also acutely activated the expression of PGG-1a mRNA in human skeletal muscle (p < 0.05). There was, however, no significant change in the phosphorylation of AMPK and p38MAPK. This would suggest that the global effect of soccer-specific intermittent exercise on aerobic performance may be partly mediated by adaptations associated with mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle. ' In Chapter 6, the effect of prior soccer-specific training on the physiological, metabolic and molecular responses to a subsequent bout of soccer-specific intermittent exercise was evaluated. Two experimental trials (BETWEEN DA Y trial, one bout of soccer-specific intermittent exercise in a day Vs WITHIN DA Y trial, two consecutive bouts of soccer-specific intermittent exercise performed in a day) were completed on two separate occasions. There were significant increases in physiological responses during the second bout of exercise in the WITHIN DAY trial, compared to those obtained in the, BETWEEN DAY trial (p < 0.05). A more pronounced increase in NEFA and glycerol was observed in the WITHIN DAY trial compared with the BETWEEN DAY trial post-exercise following the second bout of exercise (p < 0.05). The expression of PGC-1a mRNA significantly increased following exercise compared to pre- and post-exercise values. There was, however, no difference in phosphorylation of AMPK and p38MAPK and the expression of PGC-1a mRNA between either trial. Based on these findings, it would seem that different approaches to training organisation may be more important for the acute physiotoqlca: responses to soccer-specific intermittent exercise than the molecular changes underpinning chronic adaptations.

The promotion of physical activity is a public health priority, and school Physical Education (PE) has been highlighted as an influential setting that can engage young people in physical activity. PE has a number of aims which include striving to produce physically educated and active youth (i.e., the 'PE product'), which can be described in terms of young people who engage in recommended levels of habitual physical activity, and who have competent levels of physical activity ability, knowledge, and understanding. The overall aim of this thesis was therefore to establish how PE influences the outcomes representing the `PE product. ' Key objectives were to: a) develop and test a scale to assess students' Perceived PE Worth and Perceived PE Ability, to explore how these two constructs are related, and to investigate age and sex differences (Study 1); b) investigate which secondary school PE factors most strongly correlate with outcomes representing the 'PE product, ' (Study 2) and; c) qualitatively explore the views of PE students to help understand the development of physically educated and active young people, and clarify the results from the second study (Study 3). Study 1 developed and tested the Physical Education Predisposition Scale (PEPS). Predisposing items including perceptions of competence, self-efficacy, enjoyment and attitude in relation to PE were incorporated into the PEPS. Initially Year 8 and 9 students from four schools in the North West of England were invited to participate. Three hundred and fifteen completed PEPS were returned, students then completed the PEPS 14 days later to enable the assessment of test-retest reliability. The PEPS included 11 of the original items,six Perceived PE Worth items and five Perceived PE Ability items and demonstrated an acceptable level of internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Consequently, the PEPS has potential as a concise and straightforward measurement tool for teachers and researchers to use in the PE setting. Results demonstrated that there was a strong positive association between Perceived PE Worth and Perceived PE Ability (r = 0.69). Furthermore, boys reported significantly higher values on both variables, than girls, and Year 8 students scored significantly higher than their Year 9 counterparts. Within Study 2,146 schools were initially invited to participate in the study and the Heads of each PE department were sent a PE environment audit. The response rate was 27.4%, with 17 schools demonstrating a willingness to take further part in the research. The main outcome variables from the PE environment audit were then used as the basis of school selection, with-three schools being chosen. All Year 8 and 9 students from these schools were invited to participate in the research; the response rate was 28.9% (90 boys, 209 girls). Predictor variables representing predisposing (e. g., Perceived PE Worth and PE Ability), enabling (school PE environment), and personal demographic factors (e. g., socio-economic status), as described in Welk's (1999) Youth Physical Activity Promotion Model (YPAPM) were measured. Outcome variables involved physical activity (assessed by accelerometry and the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children), knowledge and understanding of health-related exercise, and PE ability (teachers' ratings). A number of factors including, sex, year group, BMI, deprivation score, Perceived PE Ability, Perceived PE Worth, number of students on roll, and number of indoor spaces, most strongly correlated with outcomes relating to the 'PE product. ' The final study involved a sub-sample of students from Study 2. These were selected to take part in focus group interviews based on their teachers' normative ratings of their PE ability. Focus groups topics were developed based on Welk's (1999) YPAPM and results from Study 2. The detailed focus group data suggest that girls' negative perception's of PE Worth and PE Ability, learned helplessness beliefs, sex issues in PE, and perceived barriers to physical activity, may partly explain the observed sex differences in physical activity. The students highlighted numerous sources of Perceived PE Ability and PE Worth that could also potentially clarify the relationship between perceptions of competence, enjoyment and physical activity. The enhanced Health Related Exercise (HRE) messages from female PE teachers may account for girls' superior knowledge and understanding of HRE and students who perceive PE to be fun and enjoyable may be positively engaged and more motivated to learn and exert effort. Finally, both students' perceptions of progression in PE over time and PE teachers' positive feedback clarifies why teachers' rating of their students improves with increasing year group. The overall findings of this thesis suggest that PE teachers should provide students with enjoyable, successful experiences, positive feedback, choice and as much variety as is feasible. In addition, a classroom climate that fosters learning and improvement, rather than competition and winning is required. This study highlighted the need for interventions targeting girls and their perceptions of barriers to physical activity. Finally, a number of physical activity issues and themes were raised in this study, and reinforcing variables of parents, family and peers were highlighted as central to the students' physical activity interests and participation (Welk, 1999). Therefore, future work is needed to unravel the complex interrelationships of reinforcing factors on students' thoughts and feelings on school PE.

During the 9th lunar month of each year around 1 billion Muslims adhere to the religious 4- week festival of Ramadan, which is considered as a time for empathy for those less fortunate, a time for restraint, and goodwill. The main focus of the religious intervention of Ramadan is the intermittent fast whereby, each day between dawn and sunset nutritional abstinence is practiced. Empirical evidence from experienced soccer coaches in Qatar has indicated that the 4-week intermittent fast during Ramadan impedes the quality and quantity of training, as well as match play. However, there has been lack of attention directed to the consequences associated with Ramadan and football (soccer) players. Greater understanding of the consequences of Islamic soccer players adhering to lifestyle changes and intermittent fasting would facilitate soccer coaches in a systematic approach to addressing potential negative performance effects associated with Ramadan in future soccer-seasons. In order to address the research problem, a soccer-specific battery of tests was required; as there is no established gold standard battery of soccer-specific field tests preliminary technical and methodological studies were required. In Study-1 a soccer-specific anaerobic capacity field test (Liverpool Anaerobic Speed Test or LAST) was piloted for validity, reliability, and practicality since, the choice for suitable soccer-specific anaerobic capacity tests were inadequate. It was found that two familiarisation sessions are necessary to reduce systematic bias markedly and habituate players with procedures of the LAST. The total measurement error (ratio of Limits of Agreement) of the LAST was 2.5% (± 18 m), and peak blood lactate values produced were 17.6 mmol.l⁻¹, which were greater than the 14.7 mmol.l⁻¹ criteria set for maximal anaerobic effort before the pilot study. The test set-up and administration proved to be practical, facilitating large numbers of subjects to be evaluated relatively quickly ( < 20 min). Therefore, the LAST was included in the soccer-specific battery of field tests, which then provided a comprehensive analysis of the separate components soccer performance. The available facility to conduct this investigation was the soccer-field at Al-Ahli Sports Club Doha, Qatar and therefore, further methodological investigations were necessary; temperatures within Qatar can vary during different times of the season, and at times are quite severe with respect to heat and humidity. The purpose of Study-2 was to examine how robust the discrete soccer-specific field tests were which, would be used during the intervention of Ramadan, using a repeated measures counter-balanced design of indoor and outdoor conditions. It was found that during the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test (YYIRT) (Krustrup et al., 2003) outdoor assessment maximal performance was reduced by 19% in contrast to the YYIRT conducted indoors, despite the subjects attaining similar maximal heart rates. Consequently, the YYIRT to volitional exhaustion was excluded from the battery of tests to be used during the intervention of Ramadan; all other soccer-specific field tests were found to be robust for use in the heat. The aim of Study-3 was a qualitative investigation to observe current soccer-practice and related factors surrounding training; this brief included bedtime, wake-up time, sleep duration, environmental conditions, pre-training dehydration, body fluids lost during training, body-core temperature, and relative training intensity. During Ramadan it was found that bedtime and wake-up time were significantly delayed and sleep duration lengthened compared to normal. Post-Ramadan was found to be akin to eastward time travel with advancement in bedtime, wake-up and return to normal sleep duration. Dehydration was significantly greater pre-training during Ramadan in comparison to non- Ramadan training weeks, and body fluid loss during training in both Ramadan and non- Ramadan periods was considerable. Relative training workload was also quantified during this time and highlighted important practical problems.

The development and maintenance of healthy physical activity behaviours from an early age is a priority for public health in the UK. Schools provide a number of different opportunities (time inside and outside of the curriculum) and resources in the form of space, equipment and staff for children to learn and develop healthy behaviours, at a time when they are most receptive to behaviour change. The overall aim of the thesis was to identify the different opportunities within the school context whereby children could be physically active and use theoretically driven, whole school interventions to optimise and subsequently increase healthful physical activity. Study 1 demonstrated that primary schools wishing to use pedometers within their curricula can be confident that the EZ-V model is sufficiently accurate to measure physical activity in the form of steps taken (r=0.897). Using the EZ-V pedometer, Study 2 demonstrated that feedback from pedometers along with information on how children can be physically active during the school day, can significantly increase children's mean daily steps-min"' compared to feedback alone or control groups over the course of a school week. Furthermore, boys were significantly more active than girls across each treatment group. Study 3 explored the affect of the primary school travel plan (TP) on the moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) of 7-11 year olds during the winter and summer season. In order to examine the impact of the TP, schools were separated into schools deemed to have an Established TP (implemented for at least 2 years) or `New' schools (i. e., had just drafted their TP and were in the first year of its implementation). Children in the New TP schools accumulated 7.24 (winter) and 24.11 (summer) more minutes of MVPA (5.2% and 15.66% respectively) throughout the day compared with those in the Established TP school children (F(1,35=) 0.955, p=0.207, d=0.33). Overall, children were more active during the summer by 7.81 minutes (F(I, 35) = 0.089, p=0.768, d=0.1). The final study examined the affect of a 12 week, multi-component, whole school intervention which aimed to increase children's school day MVPA. Following baseline physical activity measures via accelerometry, intervention components consisting of a Health Week, Playtime Pals and a Pedometer Challenge were delivered sequentially over the first 6 weeks. Subsequent accelerometer data were collected after each intervention was delivered at 2,4,6 and 12 weeks. Results showed that from baseline to follow-up, children increased their MVPA by 6.57 minutes during the school day, which according to the Q statistic was likely to be beneficial. Results from the Pedometer Challenge found that boy s' mean pedometer steps"day-' were significantly higher than girls' (F(I, 95)= 9.987, p=0.002, d=0.65) and overall, mean pedometer steps-day"' significantly increased from week one to week five (F(,, 93)= 5.845, p=0.018, d=0.24). When the lowest and highest active 50% groups were compared, children in the lowest active 50% group significantly increased their steps from week one to week five (F(l, 47)= 20.847, p=0.000, d=0.93), while the highest active 50% did not (F(1,47)= 0.000, p=0.990, d=0). Furthermore, boys in the highest active 50% group were found to accumulate significantly more steps than the girls, in the highest active 50% group (F(I, 46)= 14.701, p=0.000, d=0.81), while there was no significant difference between the boys' and girls' pedometer steps in the lowest 50% group (F(l, 46)= 0.456, p=0.503, d=0.14). The overall findings of the thesis suggest that schools can successfully optimise the different opportunities during the school day in order to increase children's physical activity, but that larger, controlled and longitudinally designed studies are needed to confirm cause and effect. Most importantly, these changes may have most impact in the least active boys and girls. Interventions such as this should therefore be targeted at the least active children to ensure that they benefit as much as possible from the opportunity to increase their daily physical activity.

As natural environments have been identified as places for mental restoration and social development there is the potential to address a number of bio-psychosocial health inequalities by encouraging urban park use. The current research explores the link between people and nature within the urban context of Liverpool across 3 phases of research. The reconnaissance phase explored health inequalities, physical activity levels and park access in Liverpool. Analysis showed that Liverpool is one of the most socially and economically deprived areas within England, with less than 70% of the survey population not meeting recommended physical activity levels. Although Liverpool has an abundance of parks and urban green spaces, the high health inequalities and lack of physical activity correlation with environment features suggests residents might not access parks and urban green spaces for health benefits. The exploratory study adopted a multi-method approach to investigate bio-psychosocial responses to urban city and park environments. Using repeated measures, 18 participants walked on a treadmill for 20 minutes whilst viewing and listening to either a Liverpool urban park or city centre scene. A two-way ANOVA was conducted to compare means between data collection time points within each condition for heart rate and blood pressure. Analysis for mean arterial pressure found a significant reduction for the park condition post physical activity [F(2,18) 6.83, p=.02] with the same effect on systolic blood . pressure [F(2, 18)=8.61, p=.OO] in comparison to the city scene. Semi-structured interviews conducted after testing found that cultural and social experiences influenced how participants interact with the urban environment. In particular, opportunities to access parks and natural environments during childhood was attributed to a lifespan connection. Participants reported psychological benefits of stress reduction and attention restoration and social benefits including providing a place for family and friend interaction in a park setting. Social barriers included fear from crime and harassment from teenagers. While the city was associated with traffic, congestion and noise that could evoke negative emotions, the history and diversity of Liverpool aroused pride and enjoyment that could also promote psychosocial benefits. The intervention study adopted ethnographic principles to explore cultural and individual beliefs of a group of eleven teenagers engaged in a park based physical activity programme. Observations during the programme indicated that the practitioner's role and skill base was paramount to park and activity engagement. Changes to participants across the programme impacted negatively on group dynamics, with external pressures from family and friends contributing to low attendance rates, poor time keeping and low concentration during activities. The social intervention highlighted the need to fully engage participants in the planning process and provide an agreed structure and policy for behaviour. The research highlighted a number of organisational, cultural and social issues that need to be tackled before benefits from green spaces can be fully realised. Overall research findings suggest that potential bio-psychosocial benefits of physical activity in parks and urban green spaces may be influenced by complex social issues surrounding values, culture and tradition. Further investigation into the interrelationships between neighbourhood residents, parks and urban green spaces, activities of users, and potential restorative effects could provide beneficial insights for policy makers and practitioners who would look to use these spaces for bio-psychosocial wellbeing.