Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 May 24;8(6):438.
doi: 10.3390/children8060438.

Different Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Exercise Indexes and Mood States Based on Sport Types, Exercise Dependency and Individual Characteristics

Alireza Aghababa  1 , Georgian Badicu  2 , Zahra Fathirezaie  3 , Hadi Rohani  4 , Maghsoud Nabilpour  5 , Seyed Hojjat Zamani Sani  3 , Elham Khodadadeh  3
Affiliations

Different Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Exercise Indexes and Mood States Based on Sport Types, Exercise Dependency and Individual Characteristics

Alireza Aghababa et al. Children (Basel). .

Abstract

Exercise indexes have been affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and its related restrictions among athletes. In the present study, we investigated the exercise frequency and intensity before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also current exercise dependency and mood state among non-contact individual, contact individual, and team sports athletes. A total of 1353 athletes from non-contact individual sports athletes (NCISA), contact individual sports athletes (CISA) and team sport athletes (TSA) participated; 45.4% of them were females that completed a series of self-rating questionnaires covering sociodemographic information, former and current exercise patterns, exercise dependency and mood states. NCISA had less exercise frequency than CISA, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and NCISA had less exercise frequency than TSA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding exercise intensity, CISA had higher scores than NCISA and TSA before the COVID-19 pandemic, and CISA had more exercise intensity than TSA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frequency and intensity were reduced from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic in the three groups, except for TSA intensity. In addition, positive and negative mood states were correlated with exercise dependency. CISA were more discouraged and vigorous than NCISA and TSA, respectively. For NCISA, CISA, and TSA, ordinal regressions separately showed that adherence to quarantine and exercise dependency were better predictors of exercise indexes. Finally, exercise dependency subscales were different among sports, but it was not in exercise dependency itself. Although the decrease in exercise indexes was noticeable, there was no consistent pattern of change in exercise behavior in all sports. Additionally, during the COVID-19 pandemic, negative moods were predominant among all athletes. The results discussed are based on exercise nonparticipating, sport type, and affect regulation hypothesis.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; exercise dependency; exercise indexes; individual sports; team sports.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mood states of different groups of athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Pieh C., Budimir S., Probst T. The effect of age, gender, income, work, and physical activity on mental health during coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown in Austria. J. Psychosom. Res. 2020;136:110186. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110186. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Qiu J., Shen B., Zhao M., Wang Z., Xie B., Xu Y. A nationwide survey of psychological distress among Chinese people in the COVID-19 epidemic: Implications and policy recommendations. Gen. Psychiatry. 2020;33:e100213. doi: 10.1136/gpsych-2020-100213. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mehrsafar A.H., Gazerani P., Zadeh A.M., Sánchez J.C.J. Addressing potential impact of COVID-19 pandemic on physical and mental health of elite athletes. Brain Behav. Immun. 2020;87:147–148. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.05.011. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jiao W.Y., Wang L.N., Liu J., Fang S.F., Jiao F.Y., Pettoello-Mantovani M., Somekh E. Behavioral and emotional disorders in children during the COVID-19 epidemic. J. Pediatr. 2020;221:264–266. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.03.013. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ammar A., Brach M., Trabelsi K., Chtourou H., Boukhris O., Masmoudi L., Bouaziz B., Bentlage E., How D., Ahmed M., et al. Effects of COVID-19 Home Confinement on Eating Behavior and Physical Activity: Results of the ECLB-COVID19 International Online Survey. Nutrients. 2020;12:1583. doi: 10.3390/nu12061583. - DOI - PMC - PubMed