Gianmarco Ciocca

On Earth, physical activity plays a tremendous role to preserve and improve the physical, psychological, and social well-being of people. The enjoyability, the appreciation, and the variability of the exercises are fundamental factors for the production of lifestyle benefits. Currently, exercise countermeasures for astronauts during long-duration missions focus more on the physiological side, frequently overlooking the relevant psychosocial one. Exergames are a form of physical activity that have taken hold in the last decades on Earth and has been widely accepted as a more enjoyable and engaging rehabilitation, reconditioning, and training tool compared to the previous conventional ones. After a review of the current needs of astronauts and of the positive effects of exergames on people on Earth, we suggest that exergaming should be implemented in space missions to improve physical, psychological, and social well-being of astronauts. We also propose practical methods on how exergames can be effectively implemented.

Agility and change of direction speed are two different abilities, but no study has investigated if this difference exists also in fatigued conditions, and whether fatigue develops in a different way in a repeated-trial scenario. Fourteen soccer players (age: 17.0 ± 0.4 yrs; height: 176.9 ± 6.5 cm; body mass: 69.2 ± 6.4 kg) competing in a national-level youth league completed in a randomized counter-balanced crossover design a repeated agility protocol (RA) and a repeated change-of-direction one (RCOD), both consisting in performing 20 consecutive repetitions (work:rest ratio 1:5). The 20 repetitions were divided into 4 blocks (each block containing 5 repetitions) for the analysis. Results show that agility and COD are two different abilities both in rest and fatigue conditions: block 1 RA vs 1 RCOD (p < 0.001; ES = 2.02 huge; r = 0.17 poor; r² = 0.03), 2 RA vs 2 RCOD (p < 0.001; ES = 2.3 huge; r = 0.51 fair; r² = 0.26), 3 RA vs 3 RCOD (p < 0.001; ES = 2.38 huge; r = 0.54 fair; r² = 0.29), and 4 RA vs 4 RCOD (p < 0.001; ES = 2.7 huge; r = 0.41 fair; r² = 0.17). However, the fatigue development in both conditions was similar, with a percentage decrement score (S_dec) of 7.5% for RA, and 7.3% for RCOD. Ratings of perceived exertions (RPE) were similar too (7.3 ± 1.7, and 6.6 ± 1.9, for RA and RCOD, respectively). However, a significant fatigue-related performance impairment arose earlier in RA (block 2) than in RCOD (block 3). Total RA and total RCOD times were significantly different (p < 0.001; ES = 2.65 huge; r = 0.41 fair; r² = 0.17), suggesting that they are two different and independent abilities.

Mental fatigue can impair physical, technical, and tactical performance in sports. Since most previous research used general cognitive tasks to elicit mental fatigue, the aim of this study was to investigate whether a more sport-specific task could induce the effects of mental fatigue and impair the subsequent physical and technical performance in a soccer small-sided game. Ten soccer players performed two small-sided games on two different days in a crossover design. Before each small-sided game, they performed a video-based tactical task (30 min) and a control task (documentary watching, 30 min) in a randomized and counterbalanced order. Mental effort was measured through a visual analog scale after the tactical and control tasks. Subjective ratings of perceived exertion were assessed through the RPE questionnaire after the end of the SSG. Physical performance was assessed during the SSG through GPS technology. Results showed no differences (p > 0.05) in physical performance between the two conditions. None of the technical variables were negatively affected by the video-based tactical condition, with the number of total passes (p = 0.003; ES = 0.72 medium) and successful passes (p = 0.003; ES = 0.82 large) results even improved by the video-based tactical task. The mental effort required by the video-tactical task was significantly higher than the control task (p = 0.002; ES = 2.09 huge). However, overall RPE did not differ between conditions. The video-based tactical task did not elicit mental fatigue and did not impair subsequent physical and technical performance. The higher ecological validity of the task and the higher motivation of the participants might have contributed to the results.

Post-Activation Potentiation (PAP) is a phenomenon which can improve power performance executed after a previous conditioning activity. PAP is usually evoked through heavy resistance or plyometric exercise. It has been suggested to refer to as Postactivation Performance Enhancement (PAPE) when research is field-based on explosive activities. To our best knowledge, no studies have investigated the effects of PAPE on deceleration performance, which is a key factor in sports involving change of directions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of a plyometric exercise protocol on a subsequent deceleration running performance. University soccer players (n = 18) performed seven deceleration trials and were assessed at baseline and after ~15 s, 2, 4, 8, 12 and 16 min either following a walking control condition (C) or three sets of ten repetitions of alternate-leg bounding (plyometric, P). Results showed no significant differences at any of the trials under the control condition (C) in comparison to the relative baseline. Under the plyometric condition (P), deceleration performance executed two minutes after the plyometric activity resulted in significantly faster results compared to the baseline values (p = 0.042; ES = 0.86, large effect; % of improvement = 4.13 %). The main findings are that plyometric exercise improves a subsequent running deceleration performance, 2 min after its execution. Future investigations should focus on more complex actions such as changes of direction and agility.

Post-Activation Potentiation is a phenomenon by which muscular performance characteristics are acutely enhanced as a result of their previous contractile actions. It has been shown how Post-Activation Potentiation, which is usually evoked through heavy resistance exercise, has the potential to improve many different power performances, such as sprinting and jumping. Due to an easier applicability, some studies explored the potential of plyometric muscular actions to evoke the effects of Post-Activation Potentiation. Despite some findings on acceleration running performance, to the authors’ best knowledge, no studies investigated the effects of Post-Activation Potentiation on deceleration performance, which is a key factor in sports involving change of directions. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the influence of a plyometric exercise protocol to a subsequent deceleration running performance. University soccer players (n = 18) performed 7 deceleration trials: at baseline and after ∼ 15 seconds, 2, 4, 8, 12 and 16 minutes a walking control condition (C) or 3 sets of 10 repetitions of alternate-leg bounding (plyometric, P). Results show that no significant differences were found at any of the trials of the control condition (C) in comparison to the relative baseline. In the plyometric condition (P), the deceleration performance executed 2 minutes after the plyometric activity resulted significantly faster compared to the relative baseline (p = 0.042; ES = 0.86, large effect; % of improvement = 4.13 %). Therefore, the main findings of this study showed that a plyometric exercise has the potential to improve a subsequent running deceleration performance in soccer players, if an adequate recovery between these activities is provided to the players. These findings encourage further future investigations about the possible potentiating effects of plyometric activities on more complex actions like changes of direction and agility.