**4. Recommendations and conclusion**

The only study in scientific literature (Chamari et al., 2012) on the muscle and general injury rate during the month of Ramadan was conducted in professional football players shows that many changes occurring during the Ramadan fasting may potentially affect the muscle injury risk for fasting players. In Muslim majority countries, non-fasting players may also be affected by changes in eating and sleeping habits and in the scheduling of training and match play. Preliminary data of Chamari et al., (2012), however, show the absence of the effect of the holy month of Ramadan on the general injury rates of fasting and non-fasting elite soccer players where weekly training loads were maintained during Ramadan. However, rates of non-contact injuries and rates of muscle injuries during training were higher during Ramadan than before or after Ramadan in fasting compared to the non-fasting players.

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Therefore, it appears that coaches and medical staffs involved in the management of fasting players should monitor and adapt the training load according to the timing of Ramadan on the year's span (environmental conditions), and the culture and the level of the players. Pay special attention to the recovery interventions (rest, nutrition, and hydration).

## **Author details**

Karim Chamari1 , Alexandre Dellal2,3,4 and Monoem Haddad5,6

1 Research and Education Centre, Aspetar, Qatar Orthopaedic and SportsMedicine Hospital, Doha, Qatar

2 FIFA Medical Excellence Centre, Santy Orthopedicae Clinical, Sport Science and Research Department, Lyon, France

3 OGC Nice, Fitness Training Department, Nice, France

4 Centre de Recherche et d'Innovation sur le Sport (CRIS), Université de Lyon 1, Lyon, France

5 Tunisian Research Laboratory ''Sport Performance Optimisation'', National Center of Medicine and Science in Sports (CNMSS), Tunis, Tunisia

6 Jandouba University, ISSEP Kef, Tunisia
