Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted sporting activities across the world. However, practical training strategies for athletes to reduce the risk of infection during the pandemic have not been definitively studied. The purpose of this report was to provide an overview of the challenges we encountered during the reboot of high-performance sporting activities of the Japanese national handball team during the 3rd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Tokyo, Japan. Twenty-nine Japanese national women’s handball players and 24 staff participated in the study. To initiate the reboot of their first training camp after COVID-19 stay-home social policy, we conducted: web-based health-monitoring, SARS-CoV-2 screening with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, real-time automated quantitative monitoring of social distancing on court using a moving image-based artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, physical intensity evaluation with wearable heart rate (HR) and acceleration sensors, and a self-reported online questionnaire. The training camp was conducted successfully with no COVID-19 infections. The web-based health monitoring and the frequent PCR testing with short turnaround times contributed remarkably to early detection of athletes’ health problems and to risk screening. During handball, AI-based on-court social-distance monitoring revealed key time-dependent spatial metrics to define player-to-player proximity. This information facilitated appropriate on- and off-game distancing behavior for teammates. Athletes regularly achieved around 80% of maximum HR during training, indicating anticipated improvements in achieving their physical intensities. Self-reported questionnaires related to the COVID management in the training camp revealed a sense of security among the athletes that allowed them to focus singularly on their training. The challenges discussed herein provided us considerable knowledge about creating and managing a safe environment for high-performing athletes in the COVID-19 pandemic via the Japan Sports–Cyber Physical System (JS–CPS) of the Sports Research Innovation Project (SRIP, Japan Sports Agency, Tokyo, Japan). This report is envisioned to provide informed decisions to coaches, trainers, policymakers from the sports federations in creating targeted, infection-free, sporting and training environments.
Highlights
The COVID-19 outbreak and the associated home confinement strategy have significantly altered the daily lives of the general public, and the sporting activities of athletes [1,2]
We here present an overview of the challenges encountered by the JHA in developing a safe training environment and evaluate the outcome of risk management among highperformance athletes who rebooted their training despite the COVID-19 pandemic
With our comprehensive monitoring/feedback protocol, the Japanese national handball team was successful in completing the training camp with no COVID-19 positive cases and confirming their postlockdown physical level, which may help in planning their training requirements for future competitions
Summary
The COVID-19 outbreak and the associated home confinement strategy have significantly altered the daily lives of the general public, and the sporting activities of athletes [1,2]. With viral transmission mechanisms becoming clearer, preventive measures have become the mainstay of addressing individual-level risk control [7]. These actions are sometimes impractical when dealing with elite athletes. It is imperative to establish a novel, state-of-the-art support protocol that enhances the performance of athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, we studied the modalities of applying cutting-edge technology in the current scenario and the benefits of such approaches in sports medical sciences
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