Scientists begin researching sports activities that benefit physical and mental health

The aim of this project is to promote research in health and sports science, to strengthen the link between research and sports, to develop a data-driven scientific and analytical base in sports, as well as to generate new knowledge and approaches to promote sustainability and efficiency in sports.

The project activities are planned in three thematic directions – the development of sports technologies, the health of those engaged in sports, and supervision of the sports sector. Each of these contains several subtasks. More than 80 researchers, including students, experienced scientists and lecturers, sports professionals, coaches, physiotherapists, sport medicine doctors, and also the athletes themselves take part in this project.

One of the directions in the IMRSports project is to build a data-driven scientific base and to develop recommendations for athletes, coaches, and other industry representatives, with a focus on three groups – people engaged in adaptive sports, amateur sports, and children's and youth sports. In order to learn more about the progress and contribution of the research to both the sports sector and the scientists themselves, we talked to Asst. Prof. Dace Reihmane from the RSU Department of Human Physiology and Biochemistry, Lead Visiting Researcher at the RSU Department of Rehabilitation Aija Kļaviņa. and Assoc. Prof. Līga Plakane from the University of Latvia.

Each researcher has their own tasks and goals. What are yours?

Līga Plakane: Despite the health benefits that result from physical activity, physically active people are at risk of injury and overload, especially when amateur athletes rapidly increase their training load and apply intense training regimens similar to those of professional athletes.

In our research, we will follow various amateur sports, such as running, cycling, orienteering, and others.

People from a variety of age groups engage in these disciplines. Sometimes amateurs perform more physical activities than professional athletes. One of our tasks is to explore how much activity is healthy and when it can become harmful.

Dace Reihmane: Young people often leave sports even if they engaged and trained with enthusiasm in the beginning. If they are talented, coaches will want to involve them in competitions for their age group, as well as encourage to train together with older athletes. This results in a huge physical and emotional overload.

We will research whether young people who actively engage in sports are psychologically stable asking questions such as whether they feel burned out or whether they have performance anxiety.

Coaches want to achieve good results in both individual and team sports, as this is linked to various advantages. The better the athletes’ results are, the easier it is to ensure the necessary sports infrastructure, equipment, visits by sports medicine doctors, and physiotherapists. There is often a lot of pressure on children from both coaches and parents, who want to see their children's success increase.

It is therefore important to study how much both coaches and parents listen to children and pay attention to how they are feeling. A child might complain about pain or fatigue, but have a competition approaching. If a coach does not then listen to how the child feels and does not make an objective assessment of these feelings, it can result in injuries leading the young person to abandon sports altogether. There are also cases when coaches do not take exams or other major tests at school into account during the preparation period for a competition, creating an additional emotional strain.

What methods will you apply in your research?

Reihmane: At the moment, it is common here to make a macro assessment of athletes, for example, to examine children and young people at the Children’s Clinical University Hospital, where they carry out Eurofit tests. One examination a year may not provide much information, especially if the examination is carried out at different time periods. For example, the young person might first be examined in September, and then in January the following year. Examinations carried out in pre-, peak-, or end-of-season will have different results. It is important to study what kind and how much useful information a coach gets after one assessment.

Micro assessments should be carried out in parallel with macro assessments, where we will compare changes in data during a year. Our target group will be young people aged 12-18 who are training in Liepāja, Cēsis, Murjāņi, and Rīga.

We will carry out exercise stress tests and apply other methods of physical assessment as well. In our study, we will look for the most efficient ways to foresee the risks of potential injuries and how to prevent them in time.

We will also use various validated questionnaires to assess the emotional state of young people in connection with burnout and pre-competition anxiety. Afterwards, coaches, athletes, parents and other experts engaged in the sports sector will receive this information as recommendations. This will allow us to have efficient tools available on a daily basis to help us assess risk factors.

What would be the right way to engage people with functional disabilities in sports?

Aija Kļaviņa: We devote two sections to this in the study. One section focuses on adult athletes who compete in the Paralympic Games, for example, and are licensed in Latvia. The second section focuses on children and young people with functional disabilities and inclusive education in schools.

Currently, children with functional disabilities seem to disappear in the inclusive education system. Engaging in extracurricular activities basically rests only on their parents’ ability to take initiative to find training opportunities.

We will standardise the Eurofit tests and adapt them so that sports professionals can use this tool for children and young people with functional disabilities. This tool could be used by coaches, sports medicine doctors, physiotherapists, other experts in the field of sports to assess the physical abilities of children with various functional disorders, as well as to track their growth after engaging in physical activities.

The second section of the study relates to adults, including Paralympic athletes. In this case, their cardiopulmonary capacity is assessed in both laboratory and simulated competition settings. It is essential to understand the intensity that these athletes apply to the physical exercise in their particular sport whether it is wheelchair basketball, sitting volleyball, or archery, which are all very different disciplines from the point of view of physical intensity. Despite training in a sitting position (for example in shot put or javelin), the training intensity of athletes is high.

The mental health of these athletes is also an important factor. We will analyse emotional and personality tests, as well as evaluate the psychophysical parameters.

The mental parameters go hand in hand with the physical parameters.

Will you study where to draw the line between “positive” and “negative” in amateur sports?

Plakane: The reality is that in grassroots sport, the line between positive and negative impact is not so fine, and it all depends on the context. For amateur athletes, the main goal is usually not to improve their athletic performance. They play sports in their spare time, so adapting the training process can become even more difficult, as the stressors of work also have to be taken into account. In this study, we plan to assess daily activity patterns, physical performance, cardiovascular health, as well as the perceptual and psychological aspects of amateur athletes in a multifaceted way. As a result, we want to define more precisely the main factors influencing health and athletic performance, which will serve as reference points and allow us to establish basic guidelines for grassroots athletes to improve both their quality of life and athletic performance through healthy sport in different settings. 

Kļaviņa: The team from RSU, under the leadership of Prof. Oskars Kalējs, will assess the cardiopulmonary health parameters in the amateur basketball team in depth. These people exercise in addition to their work and probably more than they would be allowed taking their health criteria into account. The physical performance parameters of these athletes will be assessed, and recommendations will be made regarding loads and risk factors.

When will the sports community get to access the conclusions and recommendations of the first studies?

Reihmane: At the moment, we are working hard to obtain existing data on physical ability tests in children and young people from the Children's Clinical University Hospital. We rely on the parents’ responsiveness. After involving children in the study, we will ask the hospital to provide us with the required information in autumn, so that the initial data analysis can be carried out in the winter months and the first conclusions could be outlined during RSU Research Week next year.

We will start testing students before the new school year, and we will continue monitoring until next spring. We will analyse this data in the summer and autumn of 2025. Our suggestions and recommendations will be ready by the end of the project, at the end of 2026.

Kļaviņa: Regarding adaptive sports, it should be noted that the Olympic Games, and also the Paralympic Games, will be taking place this year. All the focus is on the high-achieving athletes. We want to be able to assess the participants of the Paralympic Games before they leave for Paris, when they are in their best shape athletically.

We are also analysing athletes competing in winter sports. Often, these athletes engage in several disciplines at a high level. For example, there are athletes in curling who also play wheelchair basketball.

By December, we intend to finalise this section, collect the data and present it at RSU Research Week. The children's section in adaptive sports will be commenced in September when the school year starts. We will involve a large number of participants here. In 2026, we will start analysing data and drafting recommendations.

Plakane: We are currently carrying out targeted work on the development of a set of tests for the assessment of neuromuscular abilities. Part of these results will be presented on 17 May at the international scientific conference arranged by Daugavpils University Sports: Education, Science, Technology. During the summer and autumn of this year, we intend to obtain the results of cross-sectional studies allowing us to provide a more accurate description of amateur athletes in Latvia. We will present the results next year at an international conference arranged by the University of Latvia, at RSU Research Week, and at the Congress of the European College of Sport Science. At the same time, in 2025, we intend to assess how physical activities, working capacity and psychological aspects of amateur athletes change in the course of a season. That's why we really hope for people's engagement, because this final stage of the practical section will allow us to draft even more comprehensive recommendations, which we will present at the end of the project in 2026.

Will this benefit both sports and science?

Kļaviņa: Most significant is that several master's and doctoral theses will be developed as part of the research. We will also publish in international journals and speak at conferences.

Reihmane: We encourage students to apply, as there are still topics to work on. The doors to research are open.

The project will be finalised at the end of 2026. The recommendations drafted during this period will promote the correct process of sports activities in a large spectrum of participants – from children to active seniors, from amateur sports to professionals, including people with functional disabilities.

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The project “Innovations, Methodology, and Recommendations for the Development and Management of the Sports Sector in Latvia” No. VPP-IZM-Sports-2023/1-0001) receives funding from the state budget as a result of the open competition of the National Research Programme (NRP) Sports announced by the Latvian Council of Science.

The National Research Programme is a public procurement to conduct scientific research in a national priority sector with the aim of creating new knowledge, skills, and innovations. It provides support for both high-quality fundamental research and policy makers, creating research-based recommendations for policy drafting.

The Ministry of Education and Science is responsible for implementation of the programme Sports 2023-2026. The Latvian Council of Science organises and implements call for proposals for the NRP, providing international external expertise in the evaluation of projects.