Training During the COVID-19 Lockdown: Knowledge, Beliefs, and Practices of 12,526 Athletes from 142 Countries and Six Continents.
Jad Adrian WashifAbdulaziz FarooqIsabel KrugDavid B PyneEvert A L M VerhagenLee TaylorDel P WongIñigo MujikaCristina CortisMonoem HaddadOmid AhmadianMahmood Al JufailiRamzi Ahmad Al-HoraniAbdulla Saeed Al-MohannadiSebastian SchulzAchraf AmmarFitim ArifiAbdul Rashid AzizMikhail BatuevChristopher Martyn BeavenRalph BenekeArben BiciPallawi BishnoiLone BogwasiDaniel BokOmar BoukhrisDaniel A BoullosaNicola Luigi BragazziJoão BritoRoxana Paola Palacios CartagenaAnis ChaouachiStephen S CheungHamdi ChtourouGermina CosmaTadej DebevecMatthew D DeLangAlexandre DellalGürhan DönmezTarak DrissJuan David Peña DuqueCristiano EiraleMohamed ElloumiCarl FosterJoão Paulo Lopes-SilvaAndrea FuscoOlivier GalyPaul B GastinNicholas GillOlivier GirardCvita GregovShona L HalsonOmar HammoudaIvana HanzlíkováBahar HassanmirzaieThomas HaugenKim Hébert-LosierHussein Muñoz HelúTomás Herrera-ValenzuelaFlorentina Johanna HettingaLouis HoltzhausenOlivier HueAntonio Dello IaconoJohanna K IhalainenCarl A JamesDina Christina Christa Janse van RensburgSaju JosephKarim KamounMehdi KhaledKarim KhalladiKwang Joon KimLian-Yee KokLewis MacMillanLeonardo José Mataruna-Dos-SantosRyo MatsunagaShpresa MemishiGrégoire P MilletImen Moussa-ChamariDanladi Ibrahim MusaHoang Minh Thuan NguyenPantelis Theodoros NikolaidisAdam OwenJohnny PaduloJeffrey Cayaban PagaduanNirmala Kanthi Panagodage PereraJorge Pérez-GómezLervasen PillayArporn PopaAvishkar PudasainiAlireza RabbaniTandiyo RahayuMohamed RomdhaniPaul SalamhAbu-Sufian SarkarAndy SchillingerStephen SeilerHeny SetyawatiNavina ShresthaFatona SurayaMontassar TabbenKhaled TrabelsiAxel UrhausenMaarit ValtonenJohanna WeberRodney WhiteleyAdel ZraneYacine ZerguiniPiotr ZmijewskiØyvind B SandbakkHelmi Ben SaadKarim ChamariPublished in: Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) (2021)
COVID-19-related lockdowns saw marked reductions in athletic training specificity, intensity, frequency, and duration, with notable within-sample differences (by athlete classification). Higher classification athletes had the strongest desire to "maintain" training and the greatest opposition to "not training" during lockdowns. These higher classification athletes retained training specificity to a greater degree than others, probably because of preferential access to limited training resources. More higher classification athletes considered "coaching by correspondence" as sufficient than did lower classification athletes. These lockdown-mediated changes in training were not conducive to maintenance or progression of athletes' physical capacities and were also likely detrimental to athletes' mental health. These data can be used by policy makers, athletes, and their multidisciplinary teams to modulate their practice, with a degree of individualization, in the current and continued pandemic-related scenario. Furthermore, the data may drive training-related educational resources for athletes and their multidisciplinary teams. Such upskilling would provide athletes with evidence to inform their training modifications in response to germane situations (e.g., COVID related, injury, and illness).