Exercise indexes have been affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and its related restrictions among athletes. In the present study, we investigated the exercise frequency and intensity before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also current exercise dependency and mood state among non-contact individual, contact individual, and team sports athletes. A total of 1353 athletes from non-contact individual sports athletes (NCISA), contact individual sports athletes (CISA) and team sport athletes (TSA) participated; 45.4% of them were females that completed a series of self-rating questionnaires covering sociodemographic information, former and current exercise patterns, exercise dependency and mood states. NCISA had less exercise frequency than CISA, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and NCISA had less exercise frequency than TSA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding exercise intensity, CISA had higher scores than NCISA and TSA before the COVID-19 pandemic, and CISA had more exercise intensity than TSA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frequency and intensity were reduced from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic in the three groups, except for TSA intensity. In addition, positive and negative mood states were correlated with exercise dependency. CISA were more discouraged and vigorous than NCISA and TSA, respectively. For NCISA, CISA, and TSA, ordinal regressions separately showed that adherence to quarantine and exercise dependency were better predictors of exercise indexes. Finally, exercise dependency subscales were different among sports, but it was not in exercise dependency itself. Although the decrease in exercise indexes was noticeable, there was no consistent pattern of change in exercise behavior in all sports. Additionally, during the COVID-19 pandemic, negative moods were predominant among all athletes. The results discussed are based on exercise nonparticipating, sport type, and affect regulation hypothesis.

Considering that cognitive and motor dimensions of human beings grow together, and that primary school age is one of the most important stages of children’s cognitive and motor development, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between executive functions and gross motor skills in rural children aged 8–10 years. This descriptive and correlational research was conducted with 93 Iranian rural primary school children aged 8 to 10 years. A Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) questionnaire and the Test of Gross Motor Development, second edition (TGMD-2) were used to collect data on executive functions and gross motor skills, respectively. The results showed that most of the correlations between criterion and predictor variables were moderate. In the regression results we observed that among the components of executive functions, inhibition, working memory, planning/organizing, and organization had a significant relationship with gross motor skills, but no relationship was found between other components and motor skills. As a result, it can be said that in predicting cognitive development and specifically mentioned executive functions, gross motor skills are an important and effective factor among rural children and, given the importance of cognitive development and executive functions in childhood, it seems that by helping to develop their gross motor skills, executive functions will also be strengthened. Finally, possible future studies are addressed, which could investigate the effect of different aspects of motor skill classifications on executive functions.