Although the primary purpose of signing players is to provide fans with the best on-field performance, players' role in team branding is another important factor that needs to be considered. Furthermore, as teams are dedicating tremendous time and effort into scouting and with large talent pools available worldwide, teams can easily find players with similar on-field qualities but possess dissimilar brand personalities. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to investigate the role of player signing in team branding. Particularly, this study examined the effect of player-team brand personality alignment on team-related fan responses. The empirical evaluation was undertaken with data collected from an experimental study. The authors empirically demonstrated that player-team brand personality alignment positively affected overall team evaluation and customer-based team brand equity, with more pronounced result for unfamiliar teams. Our findings not only establish the vital role of players in teams' branding strategies but also uncover when aligned brand personality is more influential in reinforcing brand meaning and shaping affective brand evaluations and customer-based brand equity. The results of the current study fill gaps in the literature and extend the body of knowledge in branding studies in general and sports team branding studies in particular.

The purpose of this study is to establish a simpler way to assess cardiopulmonary function in handball athletes whose continuous aerobic ability is vital in games using field tests, as well as to provide basic data on changes in lactic acid concentration. A total of 8 youth elite male handball athletes participated in this study. Participants visited three times in total. The first was assigned to graded exercise test and body composition measurements. Participants were then randomly assigned to a 20-meter shuttle ride or Yo-Yo Intermediate Recovery. All participants measured the lactic acid concentration after each exercise test. There were no significant differences in the VO2max (ml/kg/min) results in each test. There was no significant difference immediately after exercise of each test, after 5 minutes, after 10 minutes, and after 20 minutes. Compared to the golden standard GXT, there is no difference in maximum oxygen intake and lactic acid concentration after the two field tests, so both tests are expected to be efficiently used to evaluate the aerobic ability and develop training programs in the field.

This study aimed to analyze the voice of recipients of professional sports teams' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Fairclough's critical discourse analysis (CDA) was adopted and analyzed 275 tweets from every NBA team that included the #NBATogether hashtag from March 20th to April 20th, 2020. Results suggested the public mostly complied with discourses created by NBA teams, but challenging discourses were constantly created in comments. This study provided possible reasons to support these findings. First, the conceptual background of CDA is provided to justify the creation of different discourses in comments. Second, the characteristic backgrounds of users following professional sports teams' social media were mentioned as a possible cause of complying discourse as dominant in comments. Third, the research also highlighted how social media should not be a panacea for delivering CSR discourse, which brings up the necessity for the traditional media to be considered as not all public have internet access. Finally, the importance of analyzing the public's discourse was mentioned to emphasize the benefits of both professional teams and communities.

Common Cartesian dualisms (e.g., mind vs. body) are misleading in understanding human action like physical activity. Therefore, in this paper, we will challenge the typical dualism habitus vs. reflexivity and showcase that exercise habitus and reflexivity are embodied encompassing familial, cultural, cognitive, emotional, and corporeal elements that inform exercise decisions. Exercise tradition is not lost in the modern globalized world; rather, it remains strong (e.g., instead of relying on screens, young people enjoy being active outdoors). Exercise habitus and reflexivity need to be studied together with emotions, which are embodied and constitute an integral part of them. The embodied nature of exercise habitus and reflexivity form human consciousness and can better explain physical activity choices than Cartesian dualisms, such as cognitive vs. bodily elements.

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of emotion regulation in the relationship between perfectionism and self-handicapping. After 503 college dancers (414 females, 89 males) completed the battery of questionnaires, the data were analyzed for descriptive statistics and analyzed by frequency analysis, correlation analysis. The bootstrapping method was used to verify the statistical significance of the indirect effect. The results showed that the reappraisal of emotion-regulation significantly mediated the relationship between self-oriented perfectionism and behavioral self-handicapping. Also determined that the suppression of emotion regulation significantly mediated the relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and claimed self-handicapping. This study demonstrates that perfectionism and self-handicapping will have a different relationship depending on dancers' types of emotion regulation. These findings provide valuable information on the psychological coping strategies used to control the negative emotion that are related to perfectionism among dancers.

Previous research points out high relevance of maximal strength measurement in the diagnostics of different populations. However, there is inconsistency in procedures of maximum strength measurements. Thus, it must be questioned whether the results from different studies are actually comparable. Due to the aforementioned problems in standardization, the aim of this study was to assess correlations between and reproducibility of isometric and dynamic strength testing. Since there are many studies investigating maximal strength in the calf muscles, this study will examine the plantar flexors. For this purpose, 87 active participants were recruited (m: 52, f: 35, age: 28.3 ± 5.5 years, range 18-38 years, height: 178.3 ± 6.6 cm, weight: 81.5 ± 7.4 kg) who performed maximal isometric strength testing and dynamic 1RM testing in plantar flexion both with extended and bended knee joint. Pearson correlation as well as concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) were determined. In literature, CCC is used to determine reproducibility between two different testing methods. There were correlation coefficients of r = 0.63 - 0.77 and ρc=0.62 - 0.77. Results are comparable with correlations between maximal isometric strength and 1-RM in previous studies in different movements. In consideration of CCC, isometric strength testing and 1RM seem to not measure the same parameter, therefore comparison of results measured with different procedures seems difficult. Our results exhibit a high influence of isometric maximal strength on 1RM performance. However, 1RM tests cannot be replaced by isometric strength testing. Care must be taken due to standardization of procedure when comparing results from different studies and, especially, if 1RM testing should be replaced with isometric strength measurement.

This experiment is designed for bone health in wrestlers and martial arts athletes who lose weight with Rapid Weight Loss (RWL). To clarify the effect of iron intake on the relationship between weight loss and bone densityFor athletes using the RWL strategy, iron intake was observed for bone mineral density (BMD), serum osteocalcin (OC) level, and serum iron marker. This study was conducted on 23 wrestlers (13 males and 10 females). It was divided into the trial 1 (iron intake and weight loss) and the trial 2 (only weight loss). In addition, between the first and second experiments, a washout period was given for 3 weeks} in order to eliminate the medicinal effect. All measurements were performed in the same group. However, the OC levels were reduced following RWL. In case of the males, the intake group after weight loss demonstrated a significant increase in BMD (p<0.05). Correlation analysis of the data for the male group showed significant correlations between serum OC and iron contents (p<0.05), total BMD and TIBC(total iron binding capacity) (p<0.05), and transferrin and iron concentrations (p<0.05). In the female group, serum OC and iron (p<0.01), transferrin and TIBC(total iron binding capacity) (p<0.01) showed correlations. In addition, between serum OC and ferritin (p<0.05), total BMD and ferritin (p<0.05), TIBC and iron (p<0.05) were shown to have some degree of correlation in the global evaluations.