Since more than three years COVID-19 has determined our life and research. During that time our student Jule Zorn has work at the University of Ulm together with Prof. Steinacker and Shirin Vollrath to do her Bachelor thesis. We are quite lucky that she recently could publish her thesis topic as a paper in PLOS One in collaboration with Department of Medicine, Division of Sports and Rehabilitation Medicine (Ulm University Hospital), the Division of Clinical & Biological Psychology, Institute of Psychology and Education (Ulm University), and the Exercise Biology (Technical University of Munich). 

COVID-19 is a multi-systemic disease which can target the lungs and the cardiovascular system and can also affect parts of the brain for prolonged periods of time. Even healthy athletes without comorbidities can be psychologically affected long-term by COVID-19. This study aimed to investigate athletes’ perceived mental stress and recovery levels in daily life, and their maximal aerobic power, at three different time points, post COVID-19. In total, 99 athletes (62.6% male), who had been infected by COVID-19, filled out the Recovery Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (REST-Q-Sport) and completed cardiopulmonary exercise testing (endpoint maximal aerobic power output (Pmax)) at the initial screening (4 months after infection). Follow-up assessments occurred three (n = 37) and seven months after (n = 19). The perceived recovery seems to be negatively affected in post COVID-19 athletes. Physical performance post COVID-19 correlates with both “Emotional and Somatic Stress” and “Somatic and General Recovery”, indicating potential mental and physical benefits of exercise. While it is evident that COVID-19, like other viral infections, may have an influence on physical performance, monitoring stress and recovery perceptions of athletes is critical to facilitate their return-to-sports, while minimizing long-term COVID-19 induced negative effects like the athletic objective and subjective perceived recovery and stress levels.

If you are interested to read in the full paper, please follow this link to PLOS One.

Reference:
Relationship between physical performance and perception of stress and recovery in daily life post COVID-19-An explorative study.
Zorn J, Vollrath S, Matits L, Schönfelder M, Schulz SVW, Jerg A, Steinacker JM, Bizjak DA.
PLoS One. 2023 May 15;18(5):e0285845. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285845. eCollection 2023.
PMID: 37186604