Doha: Research Scientist at Aspetar, Professor and former elite athlete Dr. Karim Chamari revealed there are no effect of fasting during Ramadan on the performance of an athlete.
He explained that this is according to various studies, “many people think that Ramadan has negative effect on sports performance and this is absolutely wrong,” he explained in a video posted by Aspetar on Twitter.
Aspetar is the first specialised orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital in the Gulf region located at Aspire Zone.
Prof Chamari added: “If you have negative beliefs about Ramadan, how can you perform? You will not fight, you will not give it all, so my message is for the technical and medical staff that are supporting and surrounding the athletes that please put out your words, because it has effect to athletes.”
Research Scientist at Aspetar, Professor and former elite athlete Dr. Karim Chamari
The former elite athlete further stressed on the elite sports which he said is “mental first.”
“So mentally if you’re not ready to fight, how can you fight against difficult condition – it’s too hot, humid, you’re fasting – these are challenging conditions but you must be ready in your mind.”
Prof Chamari also reminded the staff to be cautious on the words they say, to be mindful on their comments, “don’t impact negatively the state of your athlete,” he said. Moreover he said that staff should train their athletes on fasting and training, and fasting and competing.
“Organise your training session ideally, very high intensity sessions should be performed at night, around three hours after Iftar, let’s say for fasting in Qatar, Iftar is around 6-7pm in the evening, 9-10pm you train them,” he said.
Athletes who are doing muscle strengthening, resistance training, can do these before Iftar. This is “because first of all, after the session, you’ll be able to eat, but most importantly, when you are doing resistance, intensive muscular training, in the fast state, you will have positive hormonal responses that will help you build muscles, so people perhaps seeing that if you do exercise when you are fasting is not good for muscles, no it’s wrong, it’s very good for muscles,” Prof Chamari said.
He likewise challenged athletes who are doing training and fasting during Ramadan to rehearse, try and challenge oneself not only during the holy month. Professor Karim Chamari is a former elite windsurfer who participated in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, and an amateur football player. He is one of the most active Sport Science Researchers in the fields of Ramadan and also football.
He authored over 270 scientific manuscripts and 20 book chapters, and has an H-index of 64 (to August 2019). Prof Chamari led the Tunisian Research Laboratory ‘Sport Performance Optimization’ of the National Centre of Medicine and Science in Sport, Tunis, Tunisia from its creation back in 2004 until March 2013. Since then, he moved to Doha and is now part of the injury and illness prevention program (ASPREV) at Aspetar, as a research scientist.
