Associate Professor
Email: miguelaujar@ugr.es
Member of the PROFITH research Group and the Research Unit of Physical Activity and Health Promotion in the Research Institute of Sport and Health (iMUDS).
Miguel Martín-Matillas studied Physical Education Degree at the University of Almería (Spain), Physical Activity and Sport Sciences Degree at the University of Granada (Spain), and PhD in Human Nutrition Programme, at the University of Granada (Spain).
His main research includes the assessment of physical activity and physical fitness, and their relationship with body composition and obesity, as well as the study of the different determinants, physical, social, etc., that affect the population’s health. He has participated in epidemiological studies and in the design and implementation of strategies to promote healthy habits and exercise interventions.
Contribution: Nearly all female players playing in the highest Spanish volleyball league during season 2003/2004 participated in this study (N=148 elite players, 92% of the total). This study provides a complete set of reference data on anthropometry, body composition and somatotype of elite female volleyball players. Morphological differences have been identified according to performance level and playing position. To this day, it continues to be one of the most complete studies of its type on elite female volleyball players and one of the first to include sport performance parameters.
Contribution: This study is part of the AVENA Multicenter Project (Food and assessment of the nutritional status of Spanish adolescents), where reference values were obtained at the national level that served as a basis for the development of future intervention projects and campaigns to promote healthy eating and physical activity habits in adolescents. We found in this study that Physical activity levels in boys were only related to their male relatives’ physical activity, whereas physical activity levels in girls were strongly related to the physical activity of any significant other
Contribution: This study is part of the HELENA European Project (Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence) from which hundreds of publications have emerged revealing transcendental data for the health of European adolescents on issues of nutrition, physical activity and fitness. We found that PA encouragement was more strongly associated with adolescents’ PA levels than relatives’ PA engagement. The higher the encouragement level (from most relatives) the higher the adolescent’s PA levels, highlighting the importance of the social role through the participation of family and friends in future PA promotion strategies.
Contribution: This study is part of the NUHEAL European Project (NUtraceuticals for a HEALthier life) from which significant advances have been derived in nutrition and supplementation during pregnancy and the early stages of life, as well as its effect on the children’s physical and mental growth and development. We found that higher fitness level in childhood is related to both expansions and contractions in certain brain regions. Future trials will be needed to study if the changes in fitness modify the shapes of brain structures and the extent to which those changes influence cognitive function.
Contribution: The ActiveHip Project consisted of a multidisciplinary telerehabilitation intervention, including physical exercise, in patients with hip fracture. According to the results, the @ctivehip telerehabilitation program seems to be a promising treatment to improve the quality of life and psychological factors (i.e. anxiety and depression) of older adults after a hip fracture, as well as to recover their previous fitness level. This study allowed the development of the following European Project: @ctivehip plus, a program that is already being implemented in numerous hospitals in Spain for all their patients with hip fracture and several entities internationally have shown their interest in the protocol.
