Purpose: To examine the subjective perception of daily acute fasting on sports performance, training, sleep and dietary patterns of Muslim athletes during the Ramadan month. Methods

Purpose: Some major competitions (e.g. London Olympics, 2012) are scheduled during the Ramadan fasting month. Little attention has been given to explore the archers' performance related subjective experiences with a qualitative method. Therefore, this study addressed individual archers' subjective experiences within the framework of self-regulation during Ramadan. Methods:Eleven elite Malaysian Muslim fasting archers volunteered to participate in the study. Grounded theory was the qualitative approach used to examine the subjective experiences of athletes during Ramadan. Interviews were conducted and inductive content analysis was adopted to identify the temporal patterns of self-regulation of subjective experiences across the fasting period. Results: Inductive content analysis identified (a) physical, (b) mental,(c) emotional, (d) behavioral, and (e) spiritual experiences.Overall patterns revealed that experiences associated with physical, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual dimensions dominated in the first phase of fasting, while the mental dimension surfaced increasingly in the latter phase of fasting. Conclusions:The trend showed changes in the patterns of experiences among the major domains across the temporal dimension. Athletes reported increased subjective experiences in mental factors toward the latter half of the fasting period. Practitioners should emphasize on mental aspects of training, as these appear to be salient in archery performance.

Background:The article highlights an athlete’s cognitive appraisals form the onset to return to play. The narrative provides how an athlete constructs a sense of self within personal and situational factors and describes the subjective experiences during rehabilitationObjectives:The study examined the cognitive appraisal and psychological response within the backdrop of personal and situational factors in an injured athlete.Patients and Methods:The study is contextualized within the injury rehabilitation experiences of a cycling national athlete aged about 18 years old who was presented with the complaint of right shoulder pain, following a right shoulder dislocation. The 22 page narrative account provided by the athlete offered a holistic and integrated account of his experiences from the onset to return to play. A six step narrative analysis was analyzed by two qualified psychologists and two medical practitioners.Results:The themes are extracted to understand what was important to the participant. The cognitive appraisal and lived experiences are discussed within three dominant themes: 1) Injury and consequences in sporting life. 2) Childhood experiences, emotions, social support. 3) Trusting relationship, behavioral outcome and hopeful future. The study indicates the influence of personal and situational factors in cognitive appraisals leading to emotional and behavioral responses during rehabilitation.Conclusions:The study demonstrates how individual experiences become a dynamic core of psychological response during injury rehabilitation. The study highlights the cognitive appraisals and, emotional upheaval to provide an understanding of how personal and situational factors affect the psychological responses of an injured athlete. Findings suggest the need to develop a holistic approach as an effective strategy in injury rehabilitation.

Understanding emotional influence that affect sport performance in archery helps to design the appropriate intervention in athlete's preparation. The present study examined the effect of emotion intensity from four Olympic level recurve archers on error scores and performance outcomes; compared individual emotion intensities of three competing archers during Olympic competition with previously established individual optimal zone; and examined the influence of being "in or out of individual zone" relating the archer's achievement with the individual target set by the coach and performance outcome during Olympic competition. The results revealed that unpleasant dysfunctional emotion (N-) had the most influence on performance score. The in-out of zone results derived from the archers data lend support to emotion-performance relationship.

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