The Sport Perf Health Project

Sport and physical activity are major health, socio-cultural and economic issues. There is substantial evidence of their benefits on health and well-being, as illustrated by the inclusion of Sport on Prescription in the 2016 Health Law. Despite these benefits, 95% of the adult population is insufficiently active and too sedentary (ANSES report, 2022), with alarming repercussions, as physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle would kill more people in the world today than tobacco (Wen & Wu, 2012). In addition, high-level competitive sport offers a showcase through the media exposure of major national and international competitions, and represents an essential lever for economic development.

In order to respond to these challenges, scientists are questioning the definition of the optimal dose of sport and physical activity and how to promote it, limiting the double risk related to under- and overtraining that arises in performance sport, and similarly, limiting the double risk related to sedentary lifestyle and exercise intolerance that arises in physical activity for health. At present, research does not allow us to answer these questions satisfactorily, because it is mono-disciplinary and is most often carried out in the restricted framework of the laboratory. However, we know that the optimal dose of sport and physical activity is multifactorial, individual, and that it evolves over time.

To overcome these limitations, Sport Perf Health proposes an ambitious and original interdisciplinary approach by:

• Providing a multidimensional physical and psychosocial assessment in order to implement individualized interventions
• Moving beyond the laboratory to address the complexity of in situ conditions of sport and physical activity
• Modeling and predicting potential improvements in health status and performance
• Facilitating the transfer of knowledge and practical innovations.

The ambition of this approach is to better identify the biopsychosocial factors involved in the optimal dose of sport and physical activity, in order to better predict the response to effort in all its dimensions, and better individualize interventions, whether in the field of training or health.

To do this, the Sport Perf Health project brings together the main academic players in the field of sport and physical activity (SENS, HP2, LBFA, GIPSA, TIMC, LPNC, LaRAC laboratories), technological players (CEA-Leti, AGEIS) and data science (LJK, GRICAD), and socio-economic players (private companies, start-ups and associations) in the field of sport and physical activity in the Grenoble area.

This integrated approach of the human being in movement in his environment will be applied to specific case studies ranging from physical activity for health purposes to sports performance, in the context of the Maison Sport Santé de Grenoble Sud, outdoor sports (trail running and climbing), and team sports (rugby and ice hockey). These case studies will constitute a proof of concept of the scientific and societal impact of a multifactorial, interdisciplinary, in situ and longitudinal approach, based on recent technologies and methods (e.g., embedded sensors), capable of providing new theoretical and practical knowledge on sports performance and physical activity for the well-being and health of all.

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