Integrated Quantitative Assessment of Influence of Conditions and Intensity of Sports-Training Loadings on Body

Фотографии: 

ˑ: 

N.D. Ovchinnikov, professor, Dr.Med.
Yu.A. Matveev, associate professor, Ph.D.
V.I. Egozina, professor, Dr.Hab.
D.N. Ovchinnikov, postgraduate
Teacher training institute of physical culture and sport of Moscow City Teachers' Training University, Moscow

Key words: complex hygienic estimation of the conditions of sport activity in stress optimization.

The body of athletes, operating in adverse climatic conditions, in critical physical and mental stress, is forced to adapt constantly to simultaneous influence of different unfavorable factors of the environment, while the maintenance of homeostasis, one of the major physiological regularities, is only possible via full mobilization of all vital resources.

Sport activity experience indicates that it is often carried out under hygienic conditions beyond comfortable, optimal and allowable values. Quite often sport competitions are conducted under unfavorable (unusual for certain groups of people) climatic conditions, creating an additional stess on adaptive systems of the body and causing the phenomenon of physiological functions' desynchronosis. During certain types of sports, such as team games, combat sports, etc., athletes can experience significant emotional stress, which creates additional difficulties for  adaptive systems mobilization. It's important to define the rules for calculating the optimal loads on athletes involved in extreme sports, such as motor racing, parachuting, etc., in which they act under conditions with high risk to health and even life.

The deviation of hygienic indicators and training loads  from the optimal values creates the risk of significant overexertion of regulatory and homeostatic mechanisms, and in some cases exceeds permissible levels, which leads to development of various pathological processes [1,2,3 4].

The aim of this work is to develop techniques of complex hygienic estimation of the conditions  of sport activity, which  takes into account  the level of  training loads, the degree of mental, emotional and physical stress, the mode of training organization, as well as changes in physiological and psychophysiological body indicators of  sportsmen as a medical control.

This research is needed for the scientific substantiation of practical recommendations on sport activity optimization in children's and youth sport schools, professional colleges, summer sport camps during competitions.

Relevance of the problem is that the optimization of training process requires a complex quantitative estimation of the impact of conditions of learning environment and the nature of sport activity, followed by determination of the degree of adaptive exertion and functional capacities of the students.

The most important factors determining the degree of physiological adaptation mechanisms' exertion can be classified as follows:

- Firstly, the excess of hygienic parameters of living environment, set by state standards such as PDU[1] and PDK[2] [8];

- Secondly, the excess of physical stress on the body of children and adolescents, defined by age and gender standards [1,2];

- Thirdly, significant neuropsychiatric loads for some types of sport activity [6];

- Fourthly, the considerable strain on the biological rhythms regulation system [9].

The above circumstances in regulation of sport activity required a clear definition of indicators, characterizing different conditions, and divide them into four groups:

1) group indicates the hygienic parameters of sport activity environment,

2) group indicates the difficulty of physical activity,

3) group indicates the neuro-emotional stress of sport activity,

4) group indicates the modes of sport activity.

Brief explanations on the group of hygiene factors affecting sport activity indicators.

The most important factor is the air environment, which is characterized by following indicators: atmospheric pressure, temperature, air velocity, humidity and biologically aggressive dust. Normal atmospheric pressure is 1013.25 hPa (760 mm Hg. Art.).  A person doesn't usually feel it, since it corresponds to the pressure of gases and fluids in the body. The air temperature in the hottest period of the year, unusual for people residing in the middle climatic zone of the country,  can have a significant additional strain on the body thermoregulatory systems, which may affect the sporting results displayed. For example, the russians at the Beijing Olympics, with an air temperature of 30 degrees and, consequently, a higher level of heat during the marathon race, experienced a sharp decline in physical capabilities. Strong side or head wind can affect sporting results while running, archery, etc. High levels of humidity reduce the ability  to regulate the thermal state of the organism. High levels of biologically aggressive dust in the air may have negative effect on gas exchange. The   degree of ionization of the air has a significant influence on human condition: because of the accumulation  of a large number of positive aeroions in the atmosphere, some people may experience physiological function disorders [8]. Considerable differences in atmospheric pressure, emerging even in lowland areas by changing air masses (the passage of atmospheric fronts) with fluctuations to 15-20 hPa or more within a day , also disrupt normal activity [1,2].

Disorderly sound vibrations of different physical nature with changing amplitude and frequency - the noise, have a significant negative impact on human body. Data analysis on the harmful effects of noise leads to the conclusion that noise is a formidable risk factor, as smoking. Physical activity performance in the noise environment is reduced by 30%, for mental activity - by 60%. High noise levels is  the cause of functional disorders of the central nervous and cardiovascular systems, increasing the overall morbidity [2,3]. When exceeding the maximum permissible  value of sound pressure, the flow of sound energy (the noise) causes mechanical vibrations on the organ of Corti, which rests on a basal membrane and provides the perception of sound, and initiates chemical reactions  and electrical impulses in it, that can cause damage and, consequently, the decrease in hearing acuity [8]. The basis of  pathological effects of noise is also a prolonged excitation of the sound perceiving apparatus, which leads to metabolic processes disruption, microcirculation disorders and degenerative changes in the organ of Corti. Many studies have confirmed that the noise leads to chronic exhaustion, deafness, irritation of the autonomic nervous system, strong emotional depression [8]. Long-term effect of noise causes a change in the speed of physiological reactions, sleep disorders, mental and physical disorders, decreased performance and auditory perception [1,2,4,8].

Mechanical vibrations, such as jumping, running, jolts, collisions have a significant impact on the athlete's internal organs . Running and jolts cause the vibration transmitted through the whole body. Whole-body vibration may be Influenced, for example, by the motorcycle seat , race car, etc. Frequent and prolonged mechanical vibrations in the body can cause the phenomenon of functional maladjustment manifested in morphological and functional changes in neuromuscular and articular apparatus.  Body concussion can disturb the regulation of blood flow in the form of decreased level of cerebral circulation with clinical signs of cerebral angio-dystonic syndrome. Influenced by mechanical vibrations the production of physiologically active substances such as histamine, prostaglandins is disrupted,  developing dystrophic changes  of parenchymal organs[1,2,3,4,8].

The functional state of the athlete's body is affected by the increased intensity of solar ultraviolet radiation that penetrates the skin to a depth of a few millimeters and destructs immune defenses provided by specific proteins - immunoglobulins. Intense ultraviolet irradiation leads to increased biochemical reactions activity in cells and reduces the body's resistance to infectious and toxic agents in the early days. Excessive ultraviolet radiation can provoke an aggravation of some chronic diseases [8].

Changes in the natural geomagnetic field activity can cause unfavorable changes in various cellular structures, leading to intracellular metabolism malfunctions, adversely affecting the functioning of major physiological systems. Influence of heliometeotropic factors is particularly evident when moving to unusual climatogeographic zone. An effect of climatic  and heliophysical factors thus explained by the   interaction disorder of structurally different functional levels of the organism, from molecular and cellular levels  to systems in general. Geomagnetic disturbances in the northern regions of 3-4 times higher than those in the middle climatic zones of the country [8].

The state of  mental and emotional regulatory systems also have a significant influence on the sport performance. Positive emotions play an important role in sport success. Huge emotional stress can mobilize the body for effective activity or, alternatively, reduce the level of motivation in achieving victory. Because of emotional reactions the adaptive restructuring of functional systems occurs, encouraging the body to achieve a useful adaptive result. Negative emotional reactions, dissatisfaction, can generate uncertainty in solving the task, and prolonged continuous negative emotional state causing emotional stress, which is characterized by complex somatic and vegetative disorders, affecting behavioral mechanisms and autonomic functions [6, 9].

Hygienic studies suggest that the biological activity of the adverse environmental factors mentioned above is very difficult to reduce to simple cumulative effect on the body [8]. In this case, according to many leading researchers, combined strengthening of the mutual effect explains the fairly significant changes in the physiological and psycho-physiological functions in the athlete's body under the influence of a combination of several adverse factors [2,3,4,6, 9]. In other words, a combined mutual influence of acting factors need to be considered by a mathematical law of potentiation, that prompted the idea to use this method of mathematical analysis to define the integrated indicator, that would give an objective estimation of the impact of the hygiene factors, the level of physical and psycho-emotional stress and the mode and organization of sports.

The use of such complex quantitative integrated indicator in practice would equip coaching teams and doctors with new method for estimating the degree of adaptive exertion and functional capacities of the young athletes and all those involved, that aimed eventually on optimization of the learning process in general education and sport oriented schools and specialized colleges.

In the course of our research all parameters describing hygienic aspects of sports in the interests of further analysis are grouped into 4 groups and, depending on the severity of the factors, are divided into 4 categories.

First group includes hygiene indicators. According to qualitative  indicators of loads of adaptive-compensatory systems, hygiene environment conditions subdivided into optimal, allowable, harmful and extreme.

Optimal environmental conditions is those under which the impact of factors doesn't cause unpleasant subjective sensations or significant homeostatic mechanism stress, which allows to maintain the necessary level of functional activity for a long period of time.

Allowable includes such conditions that cause some regulatory and homeostatic  mechanism stress, but weren't accompanied by a significant decrease in physical performance surveyed.

Harmful category includes  conditions under which the severity of factors exceed the levels defined by the sanitary regulations, leading to deterioration of health, significant regulation and homeostatic mechanism stress , as well as possible pathological processes.

Extreme conditions under which the  maximum homeostatic mechanism stress is observed in combination with high threat to life and health.

Second group combined difficulty indicators. On this qualitative criterion the stress created mainly for musculoskeletal and vegetative life support systems is taken into account. They are also divided into light, average, hard and very hard.

The category of light physical activity is for the loads that didn't require a significant mobilization of physiological adaptation systems  and therefore performed at the optimal exertion.

Average difficulty is for the loads  with a significant  musculoskeletal and vegetative life support systems stress, but without the additional physiological resources mobilization.

The category of hard physical activity includes those loads under which the stress of the musculoskeletal and vegetative life support systems is closer to the physiological limits.

Very hard loads required exorbitant stress of the musculoskeletal  and vegetative life support systems with full mobilization of physiological resources of the body.

Third group is combined of psycho-emotional stress indicators. The stress of analyzer and higher mental functions of the central nervous system - attention, memory, emotional sphere was surveyed. By this criterion sports  are grouped into unstressful, low stress, stressful and very hard.

The category of unstressful activities is characterized by low stress of the analyzer and higher mental functions of the central nervous system.

Low stress activities  are characterized by a moderate loads of the analyzer CNS function with an  involvement of memory and attention.

Stressful activities are classified as those with a considerable loads of all the major mental and analyzer functions, as well as the involvement of emotional sphere.

To the category of very hard activities includes the considerable psycho-emotional stress, already associated with the threat to life and health, the increased personal responsibility and the strong negative emotions during sport events.

Group four consists of the mode indicators. On the criterion of intensity of physiological loads the conditions, integrated under the term "mode", are divided into optimal, allowable, unfavorable and very unfavorable.

Optimal operational mode didn’t require an adjustment of the natural rhythms of physiological functions and the efficiency level was provided by a moderate increase in functional activity.

Allowable mode required an average level of the adaptive-compensatory systems stress.

The category of unfavorable operational mode to achieve the established efficiency level required a significant adaptive-compensatory systems stress with the mobilization of functional reserves.

Very unfavorable mode, in which, the activity was accompanied by the physiological functions desynchronosis phenomena and incomplete recovery of functional reserves.

When developing the above integrated indicator, there were used the criteria, elaborated in the course of hygienic, physiological, psycho-physiological and ergonomic studies of various research organizations and published in a number of works [1, 2,4,5,6,9].

In accordance to principal gradations of hygienic conditions rationing of mentioned publications, the actual parameters, identified in our study, were assigned a specific ranking value.

Rough estimation of the significance of following hygiene factors may be carried out by the team doctor or a coach on their own subjective evaluations, during the training locations inspection (no special studies and measuring equipment are needed), and that in our opinion seems practically significant. According to subjective evaluation of the expected adaptive systems stress of the conditions and training modes, these professionals can independently relate them, to the following categories:

  • Category 1 - causing poorly marked adaptive stress of the physiological systems,
  • Category 2 - causing significant adaptive stress of the body systems,
  • Category 3 - causing severe adaptive stress of the body systems,
  • Category 4 - causing the maximum adaptive stress.

Criteria of the complex quantitative estimation of the hygienic conditions, the difficulty, the stress, and operation modes are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. The initial parameters for the complex quantitative characterization of the conditions of sports

1. The characteristics of living environment conditions

 

The indicators of living conditions

The categories of living conditions and rank significance of the parameters (in points)

1. Optimal

2.Allowable

3. Harmful

4. Extreme

 

1 point

2 points

3 points

4 points

1. Air temperature, deg. C.

Optimal acc. GOST

Allowable  acc. GOST

Unfavorable, deviation from permissible. val. <15%

Unfavorable, deviation from permissible. val. >15%

2. Air velocity, m / s

< 0,2

0,2 <  1,0

1,0 <  3,0

>  3,0

3. Relative humidity,%

60-70%

40-60%

<  40% 

<  25%

4. Aggressive biological dust pollution of the air

< PDK

An excess of PDK

An excess of PDK, less than 20%

An excess of PDK, more than 20%

5. Illumination in lux

Acc. sanitary code

Acc. sanitary code, less than 25%

Deviations from 25 to 50% of the sanitary code

Deviations more than 50% of the sanitary code

6. Acoustic vibrations (the noise) in dBA

 

-

Lower than PDU

An excess of PDU, less than 10 dBA

An excess of PDU, more than 10 dBA

7. Mechanical vibrations (Hz)

-

Lower than PDU

An excess of PDU, less than 3 Hz

An excess of PDU, more than 3 Hz

8. Thermal environment state

Optimal acc. sanitary code

Allowable acc. sanitary code

An excess of PDU, less than 10 times

An excess of PDU, more than 10 times

9. Geomagnetic disturbances in the region (Estredo)

-

Minor geomagnetic disturbances

Strong geomagnetic disturbances

Strong and frequent differences of geomagnetic disturbances

10. The need for the use of personal protection equipment

-

Light protection

Durable protection of individual body parts

(hockey, boxing)

Durable protection of all body parts

(motorcycle racing)

2. The characteristics of the difficulty of the physical effort

The difficulty indicators of the physical effort

The severity of physical effort and rank significance of the

parameters (in points)

Light effort

Average effort

Hard effort

Very hard effort

1 point

2 points

3 points

4 points

1. Maximum weight of the transported cargo, kg

< 5

5 - 15

15 - 40 

> 40

2. Location with movements acc. process

Stationary

Nonstationary with movements

less than 8 km

Nonstationary with movements from 8 to 15 km

Nonstationary with movements more than15 km

3. Required posture during sports

(hockey, motorcycle racing,

skeleton)

Loose

Forced, up to 25% of time without a significant effort

Forced, uncomfortable, with periodic physical efforts

Forced, physiologically uncomfortable, with significant physical exertion

3. The characteristics of psycho-emotional stress

The stress indicators

The level of stress and rank significance of the parameters (in points)

Unstressful

Low stress

Stressful

Very hard

1 point

2 points

3 points

4 points

1. The level of danger to life and health

Minimal

Low

Significant

High

2. Attention: the number of objects under observation

(team and combat sports)

1

(1 competitor)

2 – 7

(one team)

8 – 14

(two teams)

More than 15

(two teams)

3. Eyestrain (shooting)

Rough and inaccurate

Accurate

Highly precise shooting

Highly precise, with the optics

4. The use of long-term memory

Remember simple instruction

Remember complicated instruction

Remember 3-4 complicated instructions

Remember more than 5 complicated instructions

5.Intellectual stress

No necessary to make decisions

Solve simple alternative tasks

Solve complicated tasks with a lack of time

Heuristic activity in unique situations

4. The characteristics of operation modes and rest.

The indicators of the modes and training cycles

The level of stress and rank significance of the parameters (in points)

1. Optimal

2.Allowable

3. Unfavorable

4. Very unfavorable

 

1 point

2 points

3 points

4 points

1. The maximum duration of stress, hours

Less than 2

 

From 2 to 6

 

From 6 to 12

More than 12

 

2. Availability of rest

Unlimited

When feeling exhaustion

When feeling strong exhaustion

No rest

 

The calculation of the complex quantitative integrated indicator, taking into account the conditions , the nature of sports, the effects of combined impact and mutual potentiation, including physiological and psycho-physiological effects, were performeded in accordance to following rules [4,5,6]:

1. The calculation for each group of indicators: living conditions (S) , physical difficulty (T), neuro-emotional stress (H)  and operation mode (R) , were performed in points, according to rank significance  of the factors for the estimated sport, by the following formula:

S, T, H, R= (A1+A2+A3… AN)/n,                                                                                        (1)

A1, A2, A3...AN - rank significance of the indicators in points (determined by standard methods);

n - the number of counted indicators.

2. The complex quantitative integrated indicator (PN) were calculated from the formula:

PN = S2 + T2 + H2 + R2,                                                                                                     (2)

S - the hygiene conditions of the environment, conventional units.

T - indicators of the difficulty of physical activity, conventional units.

H - indicators of the neuro-emotional stress, conventional units.

R - indicators of the operation mode, conventional units.

The informativity of the indicators of suggested technique for the estimation of the hygienic conditions, the difficulty of physical activity, and the neuro-emotional stress of the athletes during training sessions in gyms and sport centers, is consistent with current hygiene regulations [8].

The verification of this technique is confirmed by highly informative data, obtained on the comparative evaluation of teaching process in educational and sport-oriented schools, specialized schools, sport bases and summer sport camps.

The results of our studies of the influence of sport conditions, the changes in functional state and health, the risk scale of any activity, including various sports, are divided into four zones, according to the values ​​of our proposed complex quantitative integrated indicator:

• Zone 1 - the allowable risk to health, as in everyday life (under normal life conditions) - with an integrated estimation of less than 1.8 conventional units;

• Zone 2 - acceptable (exceeding the allowable level) risk of deteriorating health (eg, skydiving, racing, etc.) - with integrated estimation of 1.8 to 2.4 conventional units;

• Zone 3 - maximum allowable risk of deteriorating health with a significant threat to personal safety (eg, boxing, combat sports) - with integrated estimation of 2.5 to 5.0 conventional units;

• Zone 4 - a high risk to personal health and safety (extreme sports) - with integrated estimation of more than 5.0 conventional units.

Thus, the proposed complex quantitative estimation technique takes into account the above conditions of sport activity, and enables to obtain the sufficient level of informativity as specific numerical values to identify risk to health of the students from minimal (1.8 conventional units), up to significantly high (5.0 conventional units).

The versatility of proposed complex quantitative estimation of hygienic conditions and modes of sports and training activity, as well as its informativity, allow us to recommend the use of integrated indicator in sports practice, in particular:

1) to verify the conditions of athletes’ adaptation abilities, when assigning the necessary level of training loads;

2) to justify the insurance payments in case of health loss, for the athletes, involved primarily in extreme sports;

3) to develop recommendations for the optimization of sports, recreational activities and physical culture.

References

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  2. Koval’, V.I. Hygiene of physical education and sport: textbook for students of institutions of higher prof. education / V.I. Koval’, T.A. Rodionova. – 2nd ed. rev. – Moscow: Academia, 2013. – 320 P. (In Russian)
  3. Lectures on sports medicine: study guide / Ed. by A.V. Smolensky. – Moscow: Fizicheskaya kul’tura. 2011. – 280 P. (In Russian)
  4. Ovchinnikov, N.D. Functional body loadings of rescuers in emergencies / N.D. Ovchinnikov // Complex security. New Horizons. Book of abstracts of internat. theor.-pract. conf. of EMERCOM. 2011. – P. 78-80. (In Russian)
  5. Ovchinnikov, N.D. Training activity skills of a lifeguard in cadets of higher educational institution EMERCOM / N.D. Ovchinnikov, V.I. Egozina // Collected researches “The problems and perspectives of development of students’ physical culture”. MSSU, October 2011. – P. 145-148. (In Russian)
  6. The basics of psychophysiology of extreme activity / Ed. by prof., Dr.Hab. A.N. Bleer. – Moscow: Anita Press, 2006, 380 P. (In Russian)
  7. Polievsky, S.A. General and specific hygiene: textbook / S.A. Polievsky, A.N. Shafranskaya. – Moscow: Academia, 2009. – 304 P. (In Russian)
  8. Psychophysiology. – St. Petersburg: Piter. 2007 – 464 P. (In Russian)


[1] PDU - maximum permissible conditions

[2] PDK - maximum permissible concentration (MPC)