ArticleAnnals of medicine2023
Impact of (long) COVID on athletes' performance: a prospective study in elite football players.
Article in Annals of medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Assessment of Aerobic Fitness and Repeated Sprint Ability in Elite Male Soccer: A Systematic Review of Test Protocols Used in Practice and Research.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Pooled it
- Assessment of Strength and Power Capacities in Elite Male Soccer: A Systematic Review of Test Protocols Used in Practice and Research.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2024Pooled it
- Hamstring strength and hip mobility associated with pain and disability in lumbar instability.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Physical Capacity After SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Adolescent Male Soccer Players: A Three-Month Follow-Up Study.Cureus · 2025Article
- The functional state of athletes who have undergone coronavirus infection (COVID-19).Sports medicine and health science · 2025Article
- A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on Aerobic Fitness Dynamics in Post-COVID-19 Athletes: Implications in the Return-to-Play Performance.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Impact of COVID-19 on football attacking players' match technical performance: a longitudinal study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Low rates of myocardial fibrosis and ventricular arrhythmias in recreational athletes after SARS-CoV-2 infection.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2024Article
- Short-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection and return to sport on neuromuscular performance, body composition, and mental health - A case series of well-trained young kayakers.Journal of exercise science and fitness · 2023Article
- Self-reported side effects following COVID-19 vaccination in athletes: A retrospective study.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo investigate possible persistent performance deficits after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in elite athletes.
methodsA prospective cohort study in three Belgian professional male football teams was performed during the 2020 - 2021 season. Participants were submitted to
resultsOf the 84 included participants, 22 were infected with SARS-CoV-2 during follow-up. At the first testing after infection (52.0 ± 11.2 days after positive PCR testing) significantly higher percentages of maximal heart rate (%HRmax) were seen - within the isolated group of infected players- during ( Aerobic performance seems compromised even weeks after infection. Simultaneously, anaerobic performance seemed to be spared. Because of the potential detrimental effects on the immune system, caution might be advised with high-intensity exposure until aerobic performance is restored.KEY MESSAGESElite football players' aerobic performance seems to be affected for weeks after they return to sports after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.Similarly, anaerobic performance tests showed no discernible changes between both before and after SARS-CoV-2 infections.Regular YYIR testing is recommended to monitor aerobic performance after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.