↓ Skip to main content

Athletes: Fit but Unhealthy?

Overview of attention for article published in Sports Medicine - Open, May 2016
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#7 of 604)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
blogs
2 blogs
twitter
359 X users
facebook
78 Facebook pages
googleplus
2 Google+ users
video
1 YouTube creator

Citations

dimensions_citation
18 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
201 Mendeley
Title
Athletes: Fit but Unhealthy?
Published in
Sports Medicine - Open, May 2016
DOI 10.1186/s40798-016-0048-x
Pubmed ID
Authors

Philip B. Maffetone, Paul B. Laursen

Abstract

While the words "fit" and "healthy" are often used synonymously in everyday language, the terms have entirely separate meanings. Fitness describes the ability to perform a given exercise task, and health explains a person's state of well-being, where physiological systems work in harmony. Although we typically view athletes as fit and healthy, they often are not. The global term we place on unhealthy athletes is the overtraining syndrome. In this current opinion, we propose that two primary drivers may contribute to the development of the overtraining syndrome, namely high training intensity and the modern-day highly processed, high glycemic diet. Both factors elicit a sympathetic response through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, in turn driving systemic reactive oxygen species production, inflammation, and a metabolic substrate imbalance towards carbohydrate and away from fat oxidation, manifesting in an array of symptoms often labeled as the overtraining syndrome. Ultimately, these symptoms reveal an unhealthy athlete. We argue that practitioners, scientists, and athletes may work towards health and alleviate overtraining syndrome by lowering training intensity and removing processed and/or high glycemic foods from the diet, which together enhance fat oxidation rates. Athletes should be fit and healthy.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 359 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 201 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Portugal 1 <1%
Ireland 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Belgium 1 <1%
Spain 1 <1%
Unknown 196 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 39 19%
Student > Bachelor 27 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 25 12%
Other 20 10%
Researcher 15 7%
Other 32 16%
Unknown 43 21%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Sports and Recreations 54 27%
Medicine and Dentistry 24 12%
Nursing and Health Professions 18 9%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 17 8%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 10 5%
Other 29 14%
Unknown 49 24%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 319. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 04 March 2024.
All research outputs
#106,709
of 25,591,967 outputs
Outputs from Sports Medicine - Open
#7
of 604 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#2,148
of 352,353 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Sports Medicine - Open
#1
of 4 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,591,967 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 604 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 26.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 352,353 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them