Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 2–3 doi: 10.1111/sms.12270
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Editorial Football for Health – Science proves that playing football on a regular basis contributes to the improvement of public health
On the occasion of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa 2010 and in the same journal, a special issue was dedicated to the prevention of risk factors for non-communicable diseases through playing football. The 13 original papers concluded that football, the most popular team sport in the world, is associated with positive motivational and social factors that may facilitate compliance and persistence with the sport and at the same time contributes to the maintenance of a physically active lifestyle (Krustrup et al., 2010). The original studies demonstrated that carrying out football training on a regular basis, two to three times a week, caused significant cardiovascular and muscular adaptation, including muscle growth and elevated muscle strength, irrespective of the level of training, experience of the game, gender, and age. The results of extensive scientific studies have been simplified in the slogan “Playing football for 45 minutes twice a week – best prevention of noncommunicable diseases”, first presented at the 59th FIFA Congress in Nassau. In line with this, the editorin-chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Karim Khan, promoted the slogan “The exercise pill – time to prescribe it.” Given its popularity, football might be the appropriate exercise pill to prescribe and promote. The research group from Copenhagen, under the leadership of Professors Peter Krustrup and Jens Bangsbo, joined forces with FIFA/F-MARC (FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre) as a number of questions remained unanswered following the research presented in 2010. During the past 4 years, these questions have been investigated in a large multinational study covering Denmark, England, Portugal, and Brazil. Using the momentum of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™, this special issue of the journal presents 16 original papers with convincing data to support the continued promotion of football as a health-enhancing leisure activity that improves social behaviour and justifies the implementation of the “FIFA 11 for Health” programme, backed and approved by the FIFA congress 2013, as a global health initiative.
2
The team of international researchers has thoroughly investigated numerous groups of inactive subjects across the lifespan in a prospective controlled manner. These studies, which include groups of children aged 9–13, mature women and men up to the age of 80, have produced impressive results that cannot be ignored by public health policy-makers around the globe. Two articles describe football as an effective broadspectrum treatment for hypertension in middle-aged Danish men (Andersen L.J. et al., 2014) and mature Faroese women (Mohr et al., 2014), while another two articles describe the positive cardiovascular and metabolic effects of football for type 2 diabetic men in Denmark (Andersen T.R. et al., 2014a) and Brazil (de Sousa et al., 2014). Four articles present a brand-new insight into the effects of football for 65- to 80-year-old untrained men who have never played football before, describing marked improvements in heart function (Schmidt et al., 2014), physical capacity (Andersen T.R. et al., 2014b) and bone strength (Helge et al., 2014a) as well as elevated muscle mass for prostate cancer patients despite anti-androgen treatment (Uth et al., 2014). Three articles cover the effects of football for 9- to 12-year-old children, showing improved cardiac function after shortterm school football in Denmark (Krustrup et al., 2014), enhanced self-esteem, perceived physical competence and attraction to physical activity for obese boys after short-term school football in Portugal (Seabra et al., 2014) and effective training through club football for recreational and elite U10 and U13 players in Denmark using 5v5 and 8v8 matches (Randers et al., 2014b). Moreover, one article describes the positive effects on muscles, bones and postural balance for homeless men playing street football in Denmark (Helge et al., 2014b) and another describes that the intensity is high during football training for untrained men irrespective of the number of players (Randers et al., 2014a). Last, but not least, three articles describe the positive psychosocial benefits of football for middle-aged men (Nielsen et al., 2014), elderly men (Bruun et al., 2014) and mature women (Bennike et al., 2014), covering the motivational and social aspects of football. Altogether, the supplement articles reveal that football has a great potential in the
prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases across the lifespan. Given that football is easy to organize as an intense and effective broad-spectrum type of training it shows a great promise in changing the habits of untrained people all over the world, creating adherence to a physically active and healthier lifestyle.
J. S. Blatter1, J. Dvorak2 FIFA President, FIFA, Zürich, Switzerland 2 FIFA Chief Medical Officer, Chairman F-MARC, FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC) and Schulthess Klinik, Zürich, Switzerland [email protected] and [email protected] 1
References Andersen LJ, Randers MB, Hansen PR, Hornstrup T, Schmidt JF, Dvorak J, Søgaard P, Krustrup P, Bangsbo J. Structural and functional cardiac adaptations to 6 months of football training in untrained hypertensive men. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 27–35. Andersen TR, Schmidt JF, Nielsen JJ, Randers MB, Sundstrup E, Jakobsen MD, Andersen LL, Suetta C, Aagaard P, Bangsbo J, Krustrup P. Effect of football or strength training on functional ability and physical performance in untrained old men. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014b: 24 (Suppl. 1): 76–85. Andersen TR, Schmidt JF, Thomassen M, Hornstrup T, Frandsen U, Randers MB, Hansen PR, Krustrup P, Bangsbo J. A preliminary study – effects of football training on glucose control, body composition and performance in men with type 2 diabetes. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014a: 24 (Suppl. 1): 43–56. Bennike S, Wikman JM, Ottesen LS. Football fitness – a new version of football? A concept for adult players in Danish football clubs. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 138–146. Bruun DM, Krustrup P, Hornstrup T, Uth J, Brasso K, Rørth M, Christensen JF, Midtgaard J. “All boys and men can play football”: a qualitative investigation of recreational football in prostate cancer patients. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 113–121. de Sousa MV, Fukui R, Krustrup P, Pereira RMR, Silva PRS, Tude AC, de Andrade JL, Hernandez AJ, da Silva MER. Positive effects of football on
fitness, lipid profile and insulin resistance in Brazilian patients with type 2 diabetes. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 57–65. Helge EW, Andersen TR, Schmidt JF, Jørgensen NR, Hornstrup T, Krustrup P, Bangsbo J. Recreational football improves bone mineral density and bone turnover marker profile in elderly men. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014a: 24 (Suppl. 1): 98–104. Helge EW, Randers MB, Hornstrup T, Nielsen JJ, Blackwell J, Jackman SR, Krustrup P. Street football is a feasible health-enhancing activity for homeless men – bone marker profile and balance improved. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014b: 24 (Suppl. 1): 122–129. Krustrup P, Dvorak J, Junge A, Bangsbo J. Executive summary: The health and fitness benefits of regular participation in small-sided football games. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2010: 20(S1): 132–135. Krustrup P, Hansen PR, Nielsen CM, Larsen MN, Randers MB, Manniche V, Hansen L, Dvorak J, Bangsbo J. Structural and functional cardiac adaptations to a 10-week school-based football intervention for 9–10-year-old children. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 4–9. Mohr M, Lindenskov A, Holm PM, Nielsen HP, Mortensen J, Weihe P, Krustup P. Football training improves cardiovascular health profile in sedentary premenopausal hypertensive women. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 36–42. Nielsen G, Wikman JM, Jensen CJ, Schmidt JF, Gliemann L. Health promotion: the impact of beliefs of
health benefits, social relations and enjoyment on exercise continuation. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 66–75. Randers MB, Andersen TB, Rasmussen LS, Larsen MN, Krustrup P. Effect of game format on heart rate, activity profile and player involvement in elite and recreational youth players. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014a: 24 (Suppl. 1): 17–26. Randers MB, Nielsen JJ, Bangsbo J, Krustrup P. Physiological response and activity profile in recreational small-sided football: no effect of the number of players. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014b: 24 (Suppl. 1): 130–137. Schmidt JF, Hansen PR, Andersen TR, Andersen LJ, Hornstrup T, Krustrup P, Bangsbo J. Cardiovascular adaptations to 4 and 12 months of football or strength training in 65–75-year-old untrained men. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 86–97. Seabra AC, Seabra AF, Brito J, Krustrup P, Hansen PR, Mota J, Rebelo A, Rêgo C, Malina RM. Effects of a 5-month football program on perceived psychological status and body composition of overweight boys. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 10–16. Uth J, Hornstrup T, Schmidt JF, Christensen JF, Frandsen C, Christensen KB, Helge EW, Brasso K, Rørth M, Midtgaard J, Krustrup P. Football training improves lean body mass in men with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 105–112.
3
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Editorial Football for Health – Science proves that playing football on a regular basis contributes to the improvement of public health
On the occasion of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa 2010 and in the same journal, a special issue was dedicated to the prevention of risk factors for non-communicable diseases through playing football. The 13 original papers concluded that football, the most popular team sport in the world, is associated with positive motivational and social factors that may facilitate compliance and persistence with the sport and at the same time contributes to the maintenance of a physically active lifestyle (Krustrup et al., 2010). The original studies demonstrated that carrying out football training on a regular basis, two to three times a week, caused significant cardiovascular and muscular adaptation, including muscle growth and elevated muscle strength, irrespective of the level of training, experience of the game, gender, and age. The results of extensive scientific studies have been simplified in the slogan “Playing football for 45 minutes twice a week – best prevention of noncommunicable diseases”, first presented at the 59th FIFA Congress in Nassau. In line with this, the editorin-chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Karim Khan, promoted the slogan “The exercise pill – time to prescribe it.” Given its popularity, football might be the appropriate exercise pill to prescribe and promote. The research group from Copenhagen, under the leadership of Professors Peter Krustrup and Jens Bangsbo, joined forces with FIFA/F-MARC (FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre) as a number of questions remained unanswered following the research presented in 2010. During the past 4 years, these questions have been investigated in a large multinational study covering Denmark, England, Portugal, and Brazil. Using the momentum of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™, this special issue of the journal presents 16 original papers with convincing data to support the continued promotion of football as a health-enhancing leisure activity that improves social behaviour and justifies the implementation of the “FIFA 11 for Health” programme, backed and approved by the FIFA congress 2013, as a global health initiative.
2
The team of international researchers has thoroughly investigated numerous groups of inactive subjects across the lifespan in a prospective controlled manner. These studies, which include groups of children aged 9–13, mature women and men up to the age of 80, have produced impressive results that cannot be ignored by public health policy-makers around the globe. Two articles describe football as an effective broadspectrum treatment for hypertension in middle-aged Danish men (Andersen L.J. et al., 2014) and mature Faroese women (Mohr et al., 2014), while another two articles describe the positive cardiovascular and metabolic effects of football for type 2 diabetic men in Denmark (Andersen T.R. et al., 2014a) and Brazil (de Sousa et al., 2014). Four articles present a brand-new insight into the effects of football for 65- to 80-year-old untrained men who have never played football before, describing marked improvements in heart function (Schmidt et al., 2014), physical capacity (Andersen T.R. et al., 2014b) and bone strength (Helge et al., 2014a) as well as elevated muscle mass for prostate cancer patients despite anti-androgen treatment (Uth et al., 2014). Three articles cover the effects of football for 9- to 12-year-old children, showing improved cardiac function after shortterm school football in Denmark (Krustrup et al., 2014), enhanced self-esteem, perceived physical competence and attraction to physical activity for obese boys after short-term school football in Portugal (Seabra et al., 2014) and effective training through club football for recreational and elite U10 and U13 players in Denmark using 5v5 and 8v8 matches (Randers et al., 2014b). Moreover, one article describes the positive effects on muscles, bones and postural balance for homeless men playing street football in Denmark (Helge et al., 2014b) and another describes that the intensity is high during football training for untrained men irrespective of the number of players (Randers et al., 2014a). Last, but not least, three articles describe the positive psychosocial benefits of football for middle-aged men (Nielsen et al., 2014), elderly men (Bruun et al., 2014) and mature women (Bennike et al., 2014), covering the motivational and social aspects of football. Altogether, the supplement articles reveal that football has a great potential in the
prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases across the lifespan. Given that football is easy to organize as an intense and effective broad-spectrum type of training it shows a great promise in changing the habits of untrained people all over the world, creating adherence to a physically active and healthier lifestyle.
J. S. Blatter1, J. Dvorak2 FIFA President, FIFA, Zürich, Switzerland 2 FIFA Chief Medical Officer, Chairman F-MARC, FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC) and Schulthess Klinik, Zürich, Switzerland [email protected] and [email protected] 1
References Andersen LJ, Randers MB, Hansen PR, Hornstrup T, Schmidt JF, Dvorak J, Søgaard P, Krustrup P, Bangsbo J. Structural and functional cardiac adaptations to 6 months of football training in untrained hypertensive men. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 27–35. Andersen TR, Schmidt JF, Nielsen JJ, Randers MB, Sundstrup E, Jakobsen MD, Andersen LL, Suetta C, Aagaard P, Bangsbo J, Krustrup P. Effect of football or strength training on functional ability and physical performance in untrained old men. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014b: 24 (Suppl. 1): 76–85. Andersen TR, Schmidt JF, Thomassen M, Hornstrup T, Frandsen U, Randers MB, Hansen PR, Krustrup P, Bangsbo J. A preliminary study – effects of football training on glucose control, body composition and performance in men with type 2 diabetes. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014a: 24 (Suppl. 1): 43–56. Bennike S, Wikman JM, Ottesen LS. Football fitness – a new version of football? A concept for adult players in Danish football clubs. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 138–146. Bruun DM, Krustrup P, Hornstrup T, Uth J, Brasso K, Rørth M, Christensen JF, Midtgaard J. “All boys and men can play football”: a qualitative investigation of recreational football in prostate cancer patients. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 113–121. de Sousa MV, Fukui R, Krustrup P, Pereira RMR, Silva PRS, Tude AC, de Andrade JL, Hernandez AJ, da Silva MER. Positive effects of football on
fitness, lipid profile and insulin resistance in Brazilian patients with type 2 diabetes. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 57–65. Helge EW, Andersen TR, Schmidt JF, Jørgensen NR, Hornstrup T, Krustrup P, Bangsbo J. Recreational football improves bone mineral density and bone turnover marker profile in elderly men. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014a: 24 (Suppl. 1): 98–104. Helge EW, Randers MB, Hornstrup T, Nielsen JJ, Blackwell J, Jackman SR, Krustrup P. Street football is a feasible health-enhancing activity for homeless men – bone marker profile and balance improved. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014b: 24 (Suppl. 1): 122–129. Krustrup P, Dvorak J, Junge A, Bangsbo J. Executive summary: The health and fitness benefits of regular participation in small-sided football games. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2010: 20(S1): 132–135. Krustrup P, Hansen PR, Nielsen CM, Larsen MN, Randers MB, Manniche V, Hansen L, Dvorak J, Bangsbo J. Structural and functional cardiac adaptations to a 10-week school-based football intervention for 9–10-year-old children. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 4–9. Mohr M, Lindenskov A, Holm PM, Nielsen HP, Mortensen J, Weihe P, Krustup P. Football training improves cardiovascular health profile in sedentary premenopausal hypertensive women. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 36–42. Nielsen G, Wikman JM, Jensen CJ, Schmidt JF, Gliemann L. Health promotion: the impact of beliefs of
health benefits, social relations and enjoyment on exercise continuation. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 66–75. Randers MB, Andersen TB, Rasmussen LS, Larsen MN, Krustrup P. Effect of game format on heart rate, activity profile and player involvement in elite and recreational youth players. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014a: 24 (Suppl. 1): 17–26. Randers MB, Nielsen JJ, Bangsbo J, Krustrup P. Physiological response and activity profile in recreational small-sided football: no effect of the number of players. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014b: 24 (Suppl. 1): 130–137. Schmidt JF, Hansen PR, Andersen TR, Andersen LJ, Hornstrup T, Krustrup P, Bangsbo J. Cardiovascular adaptations to 4 and 12 months of football or strength training in 65–75-year-old untrained men. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 86–97. Seabra AC, Seabra AF, Brito J, Krustrup P, Hansen PR, Mota J, Rebelo A, Rêgo C, Malina RM. Effects of a 5-month football program on perceived psychological status and body composition of overweight boys. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 10–16. Uth J, Hornstrup T, Schmidt JF, Christensen JF, Frandsen C, Christensen KB, Helge EW, Brasso K, Rørth M, Midtgaard J, Krustrup P. Football training improves lean body mass in men with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy. Scand J Med Sci Sports 2014: 24 (Suppl. 1): 105–112.
3
