BRIEF REPORT EFFECTS OF FACE MASK WEARING ON ATHLETE PERFORMANCE IN THE COVID-19 ERA

Face masks and athletes’ performance

Authors

Keywords:

COVID-19, athlete performance, hypoxia, surgical face mask, high-intensity exercise, cold temperature

Abstract

n the COVID-19 era, the prevalence of wearing face masks by athletes while exercising and examination of reasons for not wearing them and of association of maximum ambient temperature on performance while wearing mask were investigated by a self-administered web-based questionnaire. Primary data was correlated with secondary data such as average temperature, which were obtained from open sources. Athletes (n = 633, 84.7% male, 45.8% 20-29 years of age) from 188 countries participated in the survey conducted between June and July 2020. The majority of athletes (70.8%) wore masks while exercising and 66.8% of athletes reported mask wearing adversely affected their performance, in particular among all users of N95, FFP2 or equivalent mask and 90.9% of those wearing surgical mask. Adverse performance is significantly associated with highest ambient temperature in the respective country (p-value <0.001). In conclusion, wearing a face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic adversely impacted high- intensity exercise performance in athletes due to discomfort and restriction in breathing, and high ambient temperature was also a negative factor.

Author Biographies

  • Wesam Saleh A. Al Attar, Department of Physical Therapy, College of Applied Medical Sciences, UMM AL QURA UNIVERSITY

    Assistant Professor / Consultant of Sports Physical Therapy, Founder and Director of Master of Science in Sports Physical Therapy program, Chair of the Postgraduate Studies Committee, Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Umm Al Qura University (UQU), Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

    Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel, Switzerland.

    Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Discipline of Exercise and Sport Science, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Australia.

    He completed his PhD in Sports Physical therapy from the University of Sydney in 2017. “The University of Sydney has been ranked first in the world in the 2017 QS subject rankings in Sport, Physical therapy and Rehabilitation”. During his time in Sydney, he worked with a worldwide renowned research group (the Exercise, Health and Performance Research Group at the University of Sydney) in the area of sports injury prevention and successfully published important scientific articles in top sports medicine and physiotherapy journals in the world, which attracted considerable attention.

  • Mohamed A. Husain , 4. Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Bahrain, Manama, Bahrain

    Mohamed A. Husain is an Assistant Professor of Sports Physical therapy, Department of Physical Therapy, College of Health and Sport Sciences, Director of Quality Assurance (CHSS) at University of Bahrain. He completed his PhD in Sports Physical therapy from Leeds Beckett University.

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Published

2021-03-25

Issue

Vol. 52 No. 2 (2021): THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Section

Articles

How to Cite

BRIEF REPORT EFFECTS OF FACE MASK WEARING ON ATHLETE PERFORMANCE IN THE COVID-19 ERA: Face masks and athletes’ performance. (2021). The Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health, 52(2), 214-221. https://journal.seameotropmednetwork.org/index.php/jtropmed/article/view/329

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