Sports have received little attention from evolutionary biologists. I argue that sport began as a way for men to develop the skills needed in primitive hunting and warfare, then developed to act primarily as a lek where athletes display and male spectators evaluate the qualities of potential allies and rivals. This hypothesis predicts that (1) the most popular modern male sports require the ski...

Currently in the literature, there is a dearth of empirical research that confirms whether international junior success is a reliable predictor for future international senior success. Despite the uncertainty of the junior-senior relationship, federations and coaches still tend to use junior success as a predictor for long-term senior success. A range of former investigations utilising a retros...

In most combat sports and martial arts, athletes compete within weight categories. Disordered eating behaviors and intentional pre-competition rapid weight loss are commonly seen in this population, attributed to weight categorization. We examined if height categories can be used as an alternative to weight categories for competition, in order to protect the health of athletes. Height and weigh...

MuayThai is a combat sport with a growing international profile but limited research conducted into judging practices and processes. Problems with judging of other subjectively judged combat sports have caused controversy at major international tournaments that have resulted in changes to scoring methods. Nationalistic bias has been central to these problems and has been identified across a ran...

This study compared a light meal combat ration (LMCR) to specific commercial sport drinks (CSD) and the effect of their ingestion on time to exhaustion during simulated combat maneuvers (SCM). The SCM consisted of three activities: a 2-hour march at 50% of maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max); a subsequent 1-hour run at 70% VO2max; and a run to exhaustion at 80% VO2max. During SCM, the subjects co...

In order to improve the physical quality of soldiers and civilians in border areas, cultivate athletes on battlefield, combat power army, Border Region Party Government actively organized a series sports practices for areas during Yan’an period, including mass sports, army school activities. It played very important role defense red regime at that time. Now reviewing practice period is great si...

BACKGROUND In Olympic combat sports, weight cutting is a common practice aimed to take advantage of competing in weight divisions below the athlete's normal weight. Fluid and food restriction in combination with dehydration (sauna and/or exercise induced profuse sweating) are common weight cut methods. However, the resultant hypohydration could adversely affect health and performance outcomes. ...

Longo, A.F., Siffredi, C.R., Cardey, M.L., Aquilino, G.D., & Lentini, N.A. (2016). Age of peak performance in Olympic sports: A comparative research among disciplines. J. Hum. Sport Exerc., 11(1), 31-41. This research aimed to study the ages of peak performance in Olympic sport disciplines, and to distinguish age groups among them. The ages (in decimal years) of athletes with the best performan...

The ability to perform an explosive movement is of a great interest for athlete’s performance and success in sport. Developing qualities such as strength, power and rate of force development appear to be of greater importance than training at the actual movement velocity of a task. Aim: The aim of actual research was to determine difference in the explosive strength of upper extremities between...

Dr. Anu Vaittinen is a qualitative sociologist of sport, health and physical culture. She holds a position of a research associate for the Institute of Health & Society at Newcastle University (UK). Anu is a lifelong sports practitioner and is a recreational MMA and wing chun practitioner and a novice triathlete. Fighting Scholars is an edited collection of ethnographic scholarship on martial a...