Abstract
BackgroundMonitoring recovery–stress balance in sport is becoming more relevant to prevent training maladaptation and reach the optimal performance for each athlete. The use of questionnaires that identify the athlete’s recovery–stress state have much acceptance in sports due to reliability and useful, furthermore for its low cost. Identifying possible differences between sport modalities and sex is important to determine specific needs and possible intervention ways to keep a recovery–stress balance. The aim was to analyze the differences in the recovery–stress state and mood states by sex and sport type during the competitive phase in young Mexican athletes. As a secondary objective, the psychometric properties of the Mexican version of the Recovery–Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ-Sport) were analyzed.MethodsA cross-sectional study was carried on with 461 athletes (61% women and 39% men), 17.95 (±1.2) years old, from six sports disciplines. The RESTQ-Sport and Profile of Mood States (POMS) were applied in a single moment. Differences by sex and sports modality were analyzed. RESTQ-Sport’s confirmatory factor analysis was performed after the stress and recovery theoretical structure of two stress (general and sport) and two recovery (general and sport) dimensions, and last, the concurrent validation with the POMS was carried on.ResultsSignificant differences by sex were found in the General Recovery and Sport Stress dimensions of the RESTQ-Sport as well as Vigor factor of the POMS, being higher for men; furthermore, both the Sport Recovery dimension of RESTQ-Sport and Cholera and the Fatigue and Depression factors from POMS also had differences by sport type, showing a less recovery and high stress for individual sport athletes. Goodness-of-fit indexes of the model for the RESTQ-Sport were acceptable. Pearson’s correlation between questionnaires was moderate (p < 0.05).ConclusionThe recovery–stress state shows differences in the function of sex and sport modality. More special attention is suggested for women and individual sport athletes. The higher punctuation for men compared with women in sport stress dimension did not negatively affect the recovery–stress balance for male athletes. Finally, the Mexican context adaptation of the RESTQ-Sport provides a psychometric instrument suitable to assess the recovery–stress balance in Mexican athletes.
Highlights
High demands of sports competition require an intelligent approach to schedule training loads and recovery periods (Elbe et al, 2016)
The analysis of variance by sport type revealed that individual sport athletes present according to RESTQ-Sport, more SS [F(459) = 0.029; p = 0.014] and less general recovery scales (GR) [F(459) = 7.79; p = 0.034], as well as a greater negative mood states perception, being higher for anger [F(459) = 8.45; p = 0.047], fatigue [F(459) = 17.63; p = 0.000], and depression [F(459) = 15.26; p = 0.007] POMS factors, opposed to the vigor factor [F(459) = 2.21; p = 0.050] in which the team athletes show a higher levels
This coincides with what has already been reported in research that contrasted the stress–recovery behavior between female and male basketball players (Di Fronso et al, 2013) and rowers (Kellmann et al, 2001), as well as with the results referent to mood states reported by Brandt et al (2017), which confirms the need for individualization for both, the loads proposed, and monitoring the internal training load on athletes, demanding more precise attention for female athletes to prevent poor training adaptations and overtraining syndrome
Summary
High demands of sports competition require an intelligent approach to schedule training loads and recovery periods (Elbe et al, 2016). Overtraining syndrome is characterized by a lack of energy, eating, and sleep disturbances. Among other symptoms, it affects moods and concentration (Halson, 2014), highlighting recovery as an essential element to achieve optimal athletic performance. Monitoring recovery–stress balance in sport is becoming more relevant to prevent training maladaptation and reach the optimal performance for each athlete. The aim was to analyze the differences in the recovery–stress state and mood states by sex and sport type during the competitive phase in young Mexican athletes. The psychometric properties of the Mexican version of the Recovery–Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ-Sport) were analyzed
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