Objectives: Psychomotor performance is a vital factor which decisively affects the athletic performance. The purpose of the research was to investigate the acute effects of low intensity aerobic exercise on psychomotor performance of athletes with nocturnal sleep deprivation. Methods: Sixteen professional female volleyball players with mean age of 22.3 ± 2.6 years old were studied twice in a balanced, randomized design. The participants were asked to fill the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) prior to the beginning of the study and their nocturnal activity was recorded at 1-minute intervals and scored with the Actiwatch sleep analysis. The study used the Vienna Test System to measure cognitive functions. The exercise protocol consisted one-session light aerobic exercises based on Rockport one-mile walking/running test controlled by Polar Electro. Results: The results suggested that all psychomotor tests were significantly impaired by nocturnal sleep deprivation (P ≤ .05). Moreover, it was shown that the experimental group didn't have any deteriorating change in the mentioned tests after light aerobic exercises (P ≥ .05). Conclusions: Although nocturnal Sleep deprivation could result in psychomotor malperformance in professional athletes, the light aerobic exercise would alleviate the deleterious effect of sleep deprivation in decisive task among athletes.

We aim to analyze the effects of an 8-month physical activity intervention on cardiorespiratory fitness, body mass index (BMI), and vigilance performance in an adult obese population. We conducted an 8-month physical activity intervention based on dance and rhythmic activities. The weekly frequency was 2 sessions of 1 hr per day. Training sessions were divided into 3 phases: a 10-min warm-up, 40 min of dance and rhythmic activities, and 10 min to cool-down. To assess cardiorespiratory fitness, participants performed a modified version of the 6-min walk test from the Senior Fitness Test battery (Larsson & Mattsson, 2001; Rikli & Jones, 1999). Vigilance performance was measured by means of the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT). Two measurements were performed immediately before and after the intervention. The results revealed that participants improved their cardiorespiratory fitness, BMI, and vigilance performance after the intervention. All in all, findings contribute new empirical evidence to the field that investigates the benefits of physical activity intervention on cognitive processes in obese population.

La obesidad es una enfermedad sistémica, crónica y multicausal que afecta a todas las edades, sexos y condiciones sociales. Las alteraciones a nivel músculo-esquelético son evidentes, repercutiendo en estructuras óseas, articulares y desencadenando enfermedades que conllevan un incremento destacado en el gasto sanitario. El objetivo del estudio fue comparar el efecto de dos programas de actividad física basado en actividades rítmicas con control nutricional (PIAFARC). El programa de actividad física tuvo una duración de 8 meses para cada uno de los dos estudios y se aplicó a dos muestras de 34 adultos obesos. Se midieron variables de condición física y densitometría. Los resultados de la comparativa muestran diferencias significativas para el equilibrio (p=0,018) y la fuerza en piernas (p=0,045) a favor del PIAFARC1 y PIAFARC2 respectivamente.

Monleón, C., Pablos, A., Carnide, F., Martín, M., Veloso, A., & Pablos, C. (2015). Validity of bodily-rhythmic coordination field test for obese people. J. Hum. Sport Exerc., 10(2), pp.629-637. Coordination is one of the most important skills in humans' relationship with the environment, alongside others such as endurance, strength, flexibility, and memory. However, despite there are many tools to measure these latter functional capabilities, the assessment of rhythmic coordination tests require sophisticated and expensive materials, or are specific to certain forms of dance. The purpose of this study is to show a new test for measuring rhythmic coordination in any person, in order to prove its validity and usefulness in the field of physical activity and health. Methods: Twenty women obese participants aged 50.63 ± 11.48 with body mass index (BMI) 38.61 ± 5.19 participated in this study. The test procedures were developed in a square circuit. The test was video recorded with a fixed camera for post-hoc observation purposes. A binary subdivision music track was chose (due to the simplicity beat) and the basic motor skill march was performed in which armslegs-time musical coordination is important. Results: The results showed a moderate to good reliability and validity for the rhythmic-bodily coordination. These results show that observers had good accuracy in observing and evaluating the rhythmic-bodily coordination. Conclusion: The results obtained show that this test is presented as an objective, valid and reliable tool to assess the rhythmic-bodily coordination for people with obesity.