Introduction: International guidelines recommend regular physical activity during pregnancy, including resistance training, as a safe and effective strategy to promote maternal-fetal health. However, there are variations among countries regarding the specificity of these recommendations, particularly with respect to resistance training prescription. Objective: To comparatively analyze international recommendations on resistance training for pregnant women, identifying convergences, divergences, and implications for maternal-fetal health. Methods: A narrative review of guidelines published between 2015 and 2025 was conducted, including documents issued by governmental bodies and scientific societies from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Spain, France, England, Japan, Norway, and the United States. Recommendations were qualitatively synthesized and organized into a comparative table, considering frequency, type of exercise, intensity, safety guidelines, and contraindications. Results: The analyzed guidelines converge in recommending physical activity during pregnancy, including moderate-intensity resistance training, generally two to three times per week. Exercises targeting large muscle groups, lumbopelvic stability, and pelvic floor strengthening are widely endorsed. Major obstetric contraindications are consistent across countries. Nonetheless, heterogeneity was observed regarding detailed prescriptions of training volume, intensity and progression. Conclusion: Resistance training is widely recognized as safe and beneficial for pregnant women without contraindications; however, the lack of standardization across guidelines limits precise prescription. Integration with nutritional counseling and individualized programming is essential to ensure safety and optimize maternal-fetal benefits. Future studies are needed to establish more specific prescription parameters.
Introduction: High diving is an emerging aquatic discipline and part of the World Aquatics Championships since 2013. Some information is available on injuries and illnesses during competitions, but information on training is scarce. The primary goal of this study was to survey elite high divers on training contents, competition preparation, recovery activities and their experiences with soreness and injuries. Methods: A comprehensive internet survey. Results: 24 athletes completed the survey, 9 females and 15 males, representing 56% of all 2025 World Aquatics Championships participants. Training and recovery: These divers spend more hours per week preparing in the gym, practicing skills in the dryland area, in low diving and in recovery activities than in high diving. Six female high divers (67%) and six males (40%) do not practice, or do not have access to a diving platform at competition height on a weekly basis. Competition preparation: These divers build competition confidence by more diving, from high and low platforms. Soreness and injuries: Female and male high divers both report the neck, calves and low back as sore body areas after competition, but they describe different injuries over the last year and attribute to those different causes (females 50% acute, 50% overuse; males 88% acute, 12% overuse) and they differ in injury severity. Correlations reveal strong associations with the number of injuries for the subgroups females and divers with less years of high diving experience. Conclusions: This comprehensive survey of 56% of elite high divers describes how they partake in their sport. Findings provide possible directions for athletes, officials and healthcare professionals to help advance health and sport performance. Continuous injury and illness registration and prospective research are necessary to formally identify risk factors and to formulate evidence-based prevention measures.
Background: Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), commonly assessed through maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max), is a robust biomarker of cardiovascular and respiratory efficiency. Increasing evidence highlights its strong association with reduced all-cause mortality, prevention of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and enhanced longevity. Despite the multifactorial determinants of VO2 max, physical activity represents the main modifiable factor, reinforcing its role as a central indicator for both clinical practice and public health strategies. Methods: This study is a narrative review of the scientific literature conducted through searches in PubMed, SciELO, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases. The descriptors "VO2 max," "cardiorespiratory fitness," "longevity," "chronic diseases," "public health," and "mortality risk" wereused in Portuguese and English. Articles published between 2000 and 2024, including systematic reviews, guidelines, consensus papers, and seminal studies, were considered. Publications lacking methodological rigor, duplicates, case reports, and opinion articles were excluded. The included studies were analyzed interpretatively and organized into the maticaxes: physiological basis of VO2 max, its relationship with health and longevity, methods of assessment, and interventions to improve it. Results: The literature demonstrates that VO2 max is a strong independent predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Each 1-MET increment (~3.5 ml/kg/min) in VO2 max is associated with a 13% reduction in overall mortality and a 15% reduction in cardiovascular mortality risk. Higher levels of CRF are linked to lower incidence of NCDs, greater functional capacity during aging, and improved quality of life, regardless of body mass index or other traditional risk factors. VO2 max can be assessed through direct methods (spirometry during graded exercise testing) or indirect field protocols (Cooper, Rockport, or shuttle run tests), which provide feasible alternatives for large-scale assessments. Interventions such as moderate-intensity continuous training and high-intensity interval training consistently improve VO2 max by 15-30% in sedentary individuals. At the population level, promoting CRF has been recognized as a strategic priority for reducing healthcare costs, extending longevity, and enhancing quality of life. Conclusion: VO2 max is one of the most reliable indicators of population health and longevity, with significant predictive power for mortality and chronic disease risk. Unlike immutable risk factors, VO2 max is highly modifiable through physical activity, making it an essential target for clinical practice, exercise prescription, and public health policies. Incorporating VO2 max assessment into routine health evaluations and promoting strategies to improve CRF may strengthen preventive approaches, support healthy aging, and reduce the global burden of chronic disease.
Background: Lateral epicondylitis is a self-limiting condition linked to biomechanical overuse, often from work or sports activities. It presents as lateral elbow pain during wrist extension or gripping, reduced grip strength. While 70% to 90% of LE cases gradually improve on their own, ESWT and conventional physiotherapy are commonly employed as supplementary therapies in conservative management of the condition. Aim: This study aims to assess the effectiveness of ESWT and other conventional methods of physiotherapy for the conservative management of LE. By critically reviewing recent randomized controlled trials (RCTs), it seeks to identify which therapy demonstrates superior outcomes in managing LE. Methods: Randomized controlled trials relevant to the study were retrieved from several databases, including CINAHL, Cochrane, PubMed, EMBASE, ScienceDirect, and MEDLINE. Results: ESWT is very effective in managing pain in patients with LE, and greatly improves functionality in these patients. It is more effective in short-term (immediately after treatment) and long-term pain management than most conventional physiotherapy except kinesiotaping. Conclusion: ESWT is highly effective than other conventional physiotherapy techniques except kinesiotaping
The present study analyzed the behavior of internal loads through the session rating of perceived exertion (RPE) method and its monotony and strain indicators, as well as the external loads through vertical jump monitoring, during two training weeks of the preparatory phase of athletes from the Brazilian under-19 volleyball team. The sample consisted of 17 athletes (18.2 ± 0.4 years, 88.8 ± 11.7 kg and 198.5 ± 8.2 cm). During the period assessed, the first week consisted of five training days and one recovery day, and the second week consisted of four training days and three recovery days. Daily training loads (TL) and weekly TL were monitored using the session RPE method. Monotony and strain were weekly assessed. Jump performance was evaluated during tactical training, in which the number of vertical jumps and mean jump height were collected. Data were evaluated by comparing weeks 1 and 2 that made up the microcycle, using the paired t test for normal data and the Wilcoxon test for non-normal data, with a significance level of α ≤ 0.05. No significant differences were found in the comparison between the TL of week 1 and week 2 of the microcycle (p = 0.125), while the monotony and strain indicators had higher means in week 1. The total number of jumps performed was the same in weeks 1 and 2, but the mean number of jumps performed per training session was higher in week 2 (p = 0.012), and the mean jump height was greater in week 1 (p = 0.008). We conclude that the microcycle was balanced for the number and height of jumps, leading to equal TL values between weeks.
