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Context: The level of body awareness, performance emotional state (PES), and demographic characteristics in different sports are subjects to be investigated. It is important to examine the concepts of PES and body awareness to better understand the body-mind relationship in different sports., Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the level of body awareness and PES of athletes., Design: In this cross-sectional study, the independent variables are groups (4 different sports), and the dependent variables are body awareness and PES., Participants: The study was conducted on 188 licensed athletes (85 footballers, 36 basketball players, 34 handball players, and 33 swimmers). The mean age of the participants was 14.64 (1.89) years, mean height was 172.44 (11.03) cm, and mean body weight was 62.35 (13.12) kg., Settings: Four sports clubs and 2 high schools were the intervention facilities., Intervention: Body Awareness Questionnaire and Continuous Optimal Performance Emotional Status Scale-2 were used for data collection. Sociodemographic information was recorded., Main Outcome Measures: One-way analysis of variance was used for analysis of normal distribution data in 4 different groups, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was used for the analysis of data that did not show normal distribution., Results: There was no difference in body awareness among the branches (P = .17). The PES of the footballers was better than that of other athletes (P = .01). The correlation between body awareness and PES was medium (r = .47, P < .01), and the correlations between body awareness and age, licensed year, and number of weekly training sessions were weak (r = .22, P < .01; r = .19, P < .01; r = .15, P = .03)., Conclusions: The body awareness of athletes may not differ among different sports, but PES is related to many factors such as mood, age, license years, and number of training sessions. In rehabilitation and training, body awareness and PES should be evaluated together.

Objective: Lower limb muscle-tendon injuries are the most common injuries in adolescent soccer players. The primary aim of this study was to examine the effects of motor imagery and action observation-based (MI+AO) plyometric training (PT) on the pennation angle (PA), muscle thickness (MT) and fiber length (FL) of the vastus lateralis (VL) and biceps femoris long head (BFlh). The secondary aim was to evaluate the effects of training on single leg jump performance. Methods: Thirty-six healthy adolescent soccer players (age: 13.91±1.05 years, height:162.22±10.20 cm, weight: 52.09±8.33 kg) were randomly assigned to PT (n=17) or control (n=19) groups. Athletes in both groups continued their routine training programs. PT group also participated in 3 sessions of training per week for 8 weeks. Athletes watched the prepared videos and imagined jumping. Muscle images were taken using the ultrasound probe. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, 4, 8, and 12 weeks. Results: There was no significant change in the muscle architecture parameters in the control group during 8 weeks (p>0.05). The dominant (mean difference=2.40±3.45°, p=0.01) and non-dominant side (mean difference=3.32±3.75°, p=0.01) VL PA was higher in the PT group at week 4 compared the baseline. Similarly, there was a significant increase in dominant side VL MT (mean difference=0.15±0.19 cm, p=0.03), nondominant side VL MT (mean difference=0.24±0.23 cm, p=0.01), and dominant side BFlh MT (mean difference= 0.21±0.31 cm, p=0.03). Both sides jump performance was significantly better in the PT group at weeks 4 and 8 compared to baseline (mean difference=16.71±11.76 to 22.88±12.19 cm, p<0.01). In time x group interactions, non-dominant side VL PA (p=0.03) and MT (p<0.01), dominant side BFlh MT (p=0.04), and both side jump performance (p<0.01) were higher in the PT group. Conclusion: This research provides the first evidence that MI+AO PT improves muscle architecture. It is recommended that future research be conducted in injured athletes and using neuroimaging tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]