Participant Information Sheet

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You are invited to take part in a study exploring the effect of the current Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and government recommended/implemented isolation and public amenity closure measures, upon on your resistance training behaviours and perceptions of changes in training. Whether or not you take part is your choice. If you do not want to take part, you do not have to give a reason. If you do want to take part now, but change your mind later, you can leave the study at any time.

Why are we doing the study?

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness; however, some older people and those with underlying medical problems are more likely to develop serious illness.

Governments worldwide have imposed significant restrictions with regards to human movement to try and reduce the risk of the COVID-19 disease spreading. This has included closure of leisure centres and gyms, as well as encouraging people to stay at home and only to leave if absolutely necessary. Yet, most governments encourage participation in physical activity, such as resistance training, for maintenance of health and wellbeing during this period.

The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of COVID-19 on people’s engagement in resistance training and their perceptions of current training compared with prior to the pandemic. This information will help us to understand how people have adapted to the changing circumstances and environment and provide insight into how to support and encourage continued participation in resistance training if we were to encounter similar events in the future.

What is involved?

If you would like to take part in the study, we ask that you give your consent on page 2. The study will involve the completion of a short online questionnaires about your resistance training behaviours before and after the current pandemic, in addition to your perceptions of current training. This questionnaire should take about 10 minutes in total to complete. With permission we may contact you in the future will a follow-up survey depending on the changing circumstances.

Once you have completed the questionnaire you will also be asked if you would be happy to be contacted regarding participation in a semi-structured interview (lasting no more than 1 hour) regarding your experiences in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and isolation measures, impact upon training, and your perceptions and attitudes towards this.

What are the benefits for taking part in the study?

This study may allow us to understand how the Government strategies to counteract coronavirus impacts resistance training behaviours. It will also allow us to explore people’s perceptions of enforced changes to training practices. This information will help us to understand how people have adapted to the changing circumstances and environment and provide insight into how to support and encourage continued participation in resistance training if we were to encounter similar events in the future.

Are there any risks to being part of this study?

The risks involved in the study are low, although we acknowledge thinking about your behaviours, health and well-being may be sensitive topics.

What are the rights of participants in the study?

Taking part in this study is voluntary. You are free to say no to participating, or to leave the research study at any time, without any disadvantage. All data will be handled in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation which came into law on May 25th 2018. You have the right to access any information that we obtain on you from the study. Data will be stored securely in password protected files on a secure cloud server. Only the research team who are directly involved in the study will have access to identifiable data. The anonymised dataset from the study will be stored in a publically available server to facilitate sharing of data with other researchers who may be able to utilise the data for relevant research. Any data shared publically will non-identifiable. Aggregated results will be presented in public reports including pre-print and open access scientific articles.

Who are the investigators?

Dr James Fisher, Solent University, Southampton, UK,

Dr James Steele, Solent University, Southampton, UK

Patroklos Androulakis-Korakakis, Solent University, Southampton, UK

Dr Luke Carlson, Discover Strength, Minneapolis, USA

Dr David Williams, Brown University, Providence, USA

Prof. Stuart Phillips, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Dr Dave Smith, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

Dr Brad Schoenfeld, CUNY Lehman College, New York, USA

Dr Jeremy Loenneke, University of Mississippi, Oxford, USA

Prof. Richard Winett, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, USA

Prof. Takashi Abe, University of Mississippi, Oxford, USA

Dr. Stéphane Dufour, University of Strasbourg, France

Dr Martino Franchi, University of Padova, Italy

Mr Fabio Sarto, University of Padova, Italy

Dr Tommy Lundberg, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Dr Paulo Gentil, Universidade Federal de Goias, Gois, Brazil

Dr. Thue Kvorning, Team Danmark, Brøndby, Danmark

Prof. Jürgen Giessing, Universität Landau, Germany

Dr Milan Sedliak, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

Prof. Antonio Paoli, University of Padova, Italy

Dr Israel Halperin, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr Fiona Spotswood, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

Alex Lucas, ukactive Research Institute, London, UK


Contact details of lead investigator:
email: james.fisher@solent.ac.uk

This project has received ethical approval from the Health, Exercise, and Sport Sciences Ethics Committee at Solent University (Approval number: fishj2020)

This project has also been pre-registered and can be viewed by following this link.