<p> Almost every athlete will experience at least one sport related injury (SRI) during his or her career in sport. Because of these injuries, there is often a period of time that the athlete is removed from play and forced to complete a rehabilitation program. In order to enhance this rehabilitation process, researchers have investigated various mental skills used by athletes to enhance their recovery process. Two of the areas that research has reviewed in terms of injury rehabilitation have been imagery and self-efficacy. However, there is a lack of research in which an imagery education intervention has been implemented to see how athletes in a rehabilitation program respond in terms of their imagery use, levels of self-efficacy, and speed of recovery. Therefore, this study investigated the use of an imagery education program, and its effect on athletes' imagery use, self-efficacy and rehabilitation time. This was done through the use of the Athletic Injury Imagery Questionnaire-2 (AIIQ-2) and the Athletic Injury Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (AISEQ). Due to a high attrition rate in participation, inferential statistics were not able to be conducted in order to truly assess the effectiveness of the imagery education program. However, other conclusions were drawn based on the completion rates and various variables that may have affected those rates. The study found that female, freshman were most likely to complete the entire study, while male juniors were least likely to complete the requirements of the study. </p>

<p> This study compared the acute cardiopulmonary and metabolic effects of four high-intensity interval training (HIIT) protocols using varying intensities during the work and recovery periods. Eleven participants (5 males, 6 females) performed four, 20- minute HIIT protocols at a 1:1 "work:recovery" ratio on a cycle ergometer in random order. The work:recovery relative intensities, based upon previously determined maximum work rates, were: 80%:0%, 80%:50%, 100%:0%, and 100%:50%. Oxygen uptake, heart rate, blood lactate, and rating of perceived exertion were measured. Data were analyzed using a two-way, repeated measures ANOV A (p &le; 0.05). Oxygen uptake and heart rate were expressed as a percentage of the peak values established during a prior graded exercise test. There were clear differences in physiological response between protocols. The 80:50 and 100:0 may produce the best combination of effects. The 100:50 produced the greatest physiological response, however, it may not be practical for the general population.</p>

<p> The conditions and mechanisms that produce decrements in exercise performance have been an important area of research for decades. However, the sensation of fatigue that may persist for hours or days after exercise has received less attention. This long-lasting fatigue sensation is common in clinical populations. In chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), moderate physical activity can produce increased fatigue sensations that last for several days. A recent study of CFS patients demonstrated significant increases in fatigue and pain sensations that were closely related to gene expression changes in metabolite-detecting, adrenergic, and immune markers following 25 minutes of moderate, whole body exercise. This exercise stimulus did not produce long-lasting fatigue or changes in gene expression in healthy age and gender-matched controls. </p><p> The graded exercise test (GXT) is commonly applied in CFS research. Although intense, the GXT rarely produces long-lasting fatigue in healthy individuals and its effect on CFS patients' postexertional fatigue is unclear. Thus, the goals of these studies were to examine gene expression and fatigue sensations in healthy, trained individuals during and after three different exercise stressors: a GXT, a 40k time trial in ambient conditions (AT), and the same time trial in adverse, hot conditions (HT). It was hypothesized that there would be larger changes in gene expression following both AT and HT, compared to GXT. The first study explored the differences in gene expression following GXT and AT. Following AT, there were larger decreases in metabolite-detecting mRNA, larger increases in adrenergic, immunologic, and serotonin mRNA as compared to GXT. Further, these gene expression changes were different from postexercise responses of CFS patients. The goal of the second study was to add an additional stressor to the 40k time trial &ndash; heat. Because TRPV receptors are sensitive to heat, it was thought that the heat stress would cause larger increases in TRPV mRNA. However, because exercise power was reduced during HT, there were no differences in gene expression between the two trials except that IL6 mRNA decreased significantly more following AT compared to HT. Collectively, these results show that gene expression in healthy individuals is affected by the intensity and length of the exercise. The decreases in metabolite-detecting mRNA are thought to be an attempt to restore homeostasis in the fatigue and pain detecting receptors. The fact that there was no difference between AT and HT suggests that heat is an additional metabolite that activates the metabolite-detecting receptors, helping to regulate the intensity of exercise and the amount of fatigue during exercise. Adrenergic receptors increased, possibly causing a decrease in blood flow following exercise and increasing the resting levels of metabolites and subsequently increasing the resting fatigue signal. The change in the ratio of serotonin/dopamine may also contribute to the increased fatigue sensation following exercise.</p>

<p> Over 2 million Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries occur annually worldwide resulting in considerable economic and health burdens (e.g., suffering, surgery, loss of function, risk for re-injury, and osteoarthritis). Current screening methods are effective but they generally rely on expensive and time-consuming biomechanical movement analysis, and thus are impractical solutions. In this dissertation, I report on a series of studies that begins to investigate one potentially efficient alternative to biomechanical screening, namely skilled observational risk assessment (e.g., having experts estimate risk based on observations of athletes movements). Specifically, in Study 1 I discovered that ACL injury risk can be accurately and reliably estimated with nearly instantaneous visual inspection when observed by skilled and knowledgeable professionals. Modern psychometric optimization techniques were then used to develop a robust and efficient 5-item test of ACL injury risk prediction skill&mdash;i.e., the ACL Injury-Risk-Estimation Quiz or ACL-IQ. Study 2 cross-validated the results from Study 1 in a larger representative sample of both skilled (Exercise Science/Sports Medicine) and un-skilled (General Population) groups. In accord with research on human expertise, quantitative structural and process modeling of risk estimation indicated that superior performance was largely mediated by specific strategies and skills (e.g., ignoring irrelevant information), independent of domain general cognitive abilities (e.g., metal rotation, general decision skill). These cognitive models suggest that ACL-IQ is a trainable skill, providing a foundation for future research and applications in training, decision support, and ultimately clinical screening investigations. Overall, I present the first evidence that observational ACL injury risk prediction is possible including a robust technology for fast, accurate and reliable measurement&mdash;i.e., the ACL-IQ. Discussion focuses on applications and outreach including a web platform that was developed to house the test, provide a repository for further data collection, and increase public and professional awareness and outreach (www.ACL-IQ.org). Future directions and general applications of the skilled movement analysis approach are also discussed.</p>

<p> This study evaluated the use of video self-evaluation and video feedback procedures to enhance the accuracy of yoga poses. In the self-evaluation intervention participants watched their behaviors via video and scored task analyses for feedback for each pose. In the video feedback intervention, the participants and the researcher together scored the task analyses for the behaviors along with practice during video recordings. The interventions were assessed in a multiple baseline across behaviors design. Results showed that both video self-evaluation increased the accuracy of all poses and video feedback further increased the accuracy on one pose for one participant</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Kinesiology, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: B, page: 5895. Adviser: Lawrence W. Fielding. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 12, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: B, page: 4315. Adviser: Janet P. Wallace. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 15, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: B, page: 6743. Adviser: Edward McAuley. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-93) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Fairleigh Dickinson University, 2005. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-11, Section: B, page: 6086. Chair: Christopher A. Capuano. Available also in print.

The central nervous system employs control mechanisms in response to both external perturbations and self-perturbations in order to maintain stable upright stance. Previous studies on self-perturbation tasks involving arm movements have examined postural patterns and the relationship between arm movement and the body's center of pressure: however, the coupling within and between the components of the lower limb have yet to be investigated. To examine these issues ten healthy subjects swung their arms inphase and antiphase in the anterior-posterior direction to a metronome at frequencies of 0.67, 0.75, 1.0 and 1.5 Hz. Our results show differences in the phase relationships, joint amplitudes and sway patterns between inphase and antiphase swinging. These findings provide insight into the existence of separate control mechanisms for the two swinging modes, and therefore highlight task-specific control mechanisms for the lower limbs during self-perturbations.