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This report explains the main contributions of the 1st conference on adapted judo, entitled “Beyond the limits: exploring adapted judo”, organized by the Italian Federation of Judo, Wrestling, Karate and Martial Arts (FIJLKAM) on April 8-9, 2024 at the FIJLKAM Olympic Center in Rome in collaboration with the European Judo Union (EJU) and the University of Rome “Foro Italico”. The various presentations highlighted the mechanisms of brain physiology that affect Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and the benefits that the practice of martial arts brings to the quality of life of people with ASD and intellectual disabilities. Another block of presentations focused on the rise of adapted judo competitions and its regulation at the level of regulation and the establishment of categories of competition following a criterion of functionality to include the maximum number of people. Finally, it ended with the practical applications of adapted judo on the tatami.

This cross-sectional study aims to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the control of knee extension forces in individuals with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Eleven soccer players with ACLR and nine control players performed unilateral isometric knee extensions at 10% and 30% of their maximum voluntary force (MVF). Simultaneous recordings of high-density surface electromyography (HDEMG) and force output were conducted for each lower limb, and HDEMG data from the vastus lateralis (VL) and vastus medialis (VM) muscles were decomposed into individual motor unit spike trains. Force steadiness was estimated using the coefficient of variation of force. An intramuscular coherence analysis was adopted to estimate the common synaptic input (CSI) converging to each muscle. A factor analysis was applied to investigate the neural strategies underlying the control of synergistic motor neuron clusters, referred to as motor unit modes. Force steadiness was similar between lower limbs. However, motor neurons innervating the VL on the reconstructed side received a lower proportion of CSI at low-frequency bandwidths (<5 Hz) compared with the unaffected lower limbs ( P < 0.01). Furthermore, the reconstructed side demonstrated a higher proportion of motor units associated with the neural input common to the synergistic muscle, as compared with the unaffected lower limbs ( P < 0.01). These findings indicate that the VL muscle of reconstructed lower limbs contribute marginally to force steadiness and that a plastic rearrangement in synergistic clusters of motor units involved in the control of knee extension forces is evident following ACLR. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Chronic quadriceps dysfunction is common after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). We investigated voluntary force control strategies by estimating common inputs to motor neurons innervating the vastii muscles. Our results showed attenuated common inputs to the vastus lateralis and plastic rearrangements in functional clusters of motor neurons modulating knee extension forces in the reconstructed limb. These findings suggest neuroplastic adjustments following ACLR that may occur to fine-tune the control of quadriceps forces.

In children, motor competence (MC) and the amount of physical activity are tightly interconnected. In adults with Down syndrome (DS), MC has been poorly addressed, resulting in a limited understanding of the possibility to improve MC over time. Here, we aim to: (1) investigate MC in adults with DS by comparing them with a group of typically developed peers and (2) verify the effect of an adapted karate program on MC. Adults with DS (DSG; n = 57) and typically developed adults (TDG; n = 21) performed the Test of Gross Motor Development version 3 (TGMD-3). The total TGMD-3 score ( TOT TGMD-3), the locomotor ( LOC TGMD-3), and object control ( OBJ TGMD-3) scores were computed. After a 40 week adapted karate program, DSG ( n = 37) underwent the post-training TGMD-3 assessment. Compared to TDG, DSG showed lower TOT TGMD-3 (DSG: 45.5 ± 17.3; TDG: 77.3 ± 9.5), LOC TGMD-3 (DSG: 22.2 ± 10.0; TDG: 36.2 ± 7.6) and OBJ TGMD-3 (DSG: 23.3 ± 10.9; TDG: 41.1 ± 5.6). After the training, TOT TGMD-3, LOC TGMD-3 and OBJ TGMD-3 increased by 35.6%, 30.0% and 40.7%, respectively. Our results suggest that MC acquisition does not evolve into a mature form in adulthood in individuals with DS. Moreover, a brief exposure to an adapted karate program induces an increase in motor competence in DS, even in adulthood.