Injuries in soccer athletes continues to rise and there is a cause for concern. Collegiate athletes have physically demanding workloads and struggle to sleep an adequate amount each night. A potential association is how sleep could play a role in an athletes’ injury. 24 NCAA DI women’s soccer athletes were utilized during the Fall 2019 season. Athletes self-reported their daily hours slept and the athletic trainer tracked and classified athletes’ injury and illness status: no-injury, medical attention injury, or time loss injury. K-mean clustering was utilized to classify the athletes into 3 groups: injury/illness-free group (n=12), mild-to-moderate injury/illness group (n=7), and heavy injury/illness group (n=5). Sleep was statistically significantly lower in the heavy-injury group than other groups and small effect sizes were detected (d31 = .282, p < .001; d32 = .278, p < .001). Based on the data, it appears hours slept plays a factor in female soccer athletes’ risk of injury.

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to measure the nutrition knowledge of Army ROTC cadets before and after the implementation of nutrition education sessions presented by a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN), while observing the effectiveness of nutrition intervention on this population.Methods: Army ROTC cadets (n=33; 19+1 years old) from a southeastern university participated in a 9-week study in which they completed a nutrition knowledge survey pre- and post- implementation of six nutrition education sessions. General nutrition knowledge (GNK) and sports nutrition knowledge (SNK) were measured via the Abridged Nutrition for Sport Knowledge Questionnaire (ANSKQ).Results: General, sports, and total nutrition knowledge (TNK) improved significantly between pre-survey and post-survey scores (p < .001; p < .01; p < .001, respectively). Independent samples t-test showed large t-score values (GNK t = -3.559; SNK t = -2.794; TNK t = -3.776), indicating a strong difference between the three groups. Army ROTC cadet ANSKQ scores significantly improved GNK from adequate to good, SNK from poor to adequate, and TNK from poor to adequate.Conclusions: The results of this study indicate nutrition knowledge is poor in ROTC cadets, but may improve from nutrition education interventions presented by an RDN.

Introduction: Monitoring Training Load in soccer is used to achieve the best individualized performance outcomes and to prevent injuries. However, there is no clear recommendation for which ‘match duration’ should be used in the calculation of match Session Rating of Perceived Exertion Training Load (sRPE-TL) in NCAA DI women’s soccer. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to establish a duration standard to be used in the calculation of sRPE-TL in collegiate NCAA DI women’s soccer matches. A secondary aim was to investigate whether multiple positions require the use of different durations for the calculation of sRPE-TL. Methods: Seventeen athletes (means ± standard deviations: age 20 ± 1.1 yrs., height 170 ± 6.6 cm, weight 64.6 ± 7.0 kg) participated in this study. Repeated measures correlations were used to determine the relationship between the different sRPE-TL calculations and objective variables (e.g., GPS variables and HR-based variable). Data was analyzed using the rmcorr package in R Studio executing R. Alpha was set a-priori at p ≤ 0.05. Results: The s-RPE-TL using the four ‘minutes played’ durations (‘minutes played only’, ‘warm-up added’, ‘halftime added’, and ‘warm-up and halftime added’) were strongly correlated with TLS (r = .773, .776, .789, .786), total distance (r = .825, .813, .811, .798), number of sprints (r = .716, .717, .712, .711), HSD (r = .608, .615, .609, .612), and mechanical load (r = .738, .738, .734, .732). When separated by positions, the correlations between sRPE-TL and objective data were similar across all four ‘minutes played’ durations. Conclusions: Any of the ‘minutes played’ durations should be used to calculate match sRPE-TL values for the entire team. Multiple positions do not require the use of different durations for the calculation of sRPE-TL which facilitates sRPE-TL comparisons across positions.

PURPOSE: To determine whether meeting overall calorie intake impacts the number of days an athlete has concussion-related symptoms following diagnosis. METHODS: Fourteen Division I collegiate athletes with a mean age of 20.14 (SD=1.027) who were diagnosed with a concussion were randomly placed in a control group (n=7) or intervention group (n=7). In both groups, daily caloric intake was compared to total daily caloric needs and the individual was coded as met or did not meet energy needs. Concussion related symptoms were assessed using the Sports Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT5) Symptom Evaluation Form. For the intervention group, four single serving packets of a carbohydrate supplement were provided following immediate impact at the suspicion of a concussion or within 30 to 60 minutes of diagnosis (two servings immediately at suspicion or following diagnosis of concussion, and one serving every other hour within the first 4 hours following the initial servings), and two single serving packets during daily concussion protocol evaluation until the athlete reported no symptoms. A 2x2 Factorial ANOVA was conducted on the total number of days of concussion symptoms with respect to daily average calories being met (AvgCalories) and comparing the control and intervention groups (ControlIntervention). RESULTS: Statistically significant differences were found in a number of days of concussion symptoms between those who met average daily calorie needs and those who did not, F(1, 14) = 7.826, p<.05. No statistically significant difference was seen in the number of days of concussion symptoms between athletes who were in the control group and the intervention group, F(1, 14) = 0.936, p=.356. Although a statistical significance was not observed in the number of days of athlete symptoms, an average decrease in the number of days was observed in the intervention (M = 4.43, SD = 2.37) when compared to the control (M = 8.57, SD = 5.09), t(7) = 2.357, p = .151. CONCLUSION: In this population, athletes that meet their daily calorie needs had fewer days that they experienced concussion related symptoms compared to the subjects that did not meet their caloric needs. This preliminary research suggests that it is beneficial to assure that individuals are aware of their caloric needs and strive to meet them following the diagnosis of a concussion.