Elite Orienteering Athletes In Standardized Time-trial And Distance-trial Tests Own Better Physiological And Psychological Indicators On Treadmill

Abstract

Orienteering founded in north europe is now gradually popular worldwide. However, how to train focus on event specificity has not been established well. PURPOSE: The goal of this preliminary study is to explore physiological and psychological characteristics of elite orienteering players. METHODS: Ten elite orienteering athletes (OA) (age: 25.4 ± 8.9 yrs; BMI: 20.2 ± 1.7; training: 9.2 ± 2.8 hrs/wk; 5 males and 5 females; VO2max: 48.8 mL/kg/min) and ten elite running athlete (RA) (age: 21.0 ± 1.5 yrs; BMI: 20.8 ± 1.1; training: 12.8 ± 2.7 hrs/wk; 5 males and 5 females; VO2max: 52.7 mL/kg/min) were recruited to attend a time-trial and a distance-trial treadmill tests in counterbalanced order. Athletic performance of participants were at least national level. Both tests were interspersed by 4 segments of mental games (named Peak in Apple Store) representing the capacity of problem solving, memory, concentration, and thinking agility in sequence. While playing mental games, participants kept on running with their effort. Performance indicators and ECG/EEG signals /game scores were analyzed using independent t test and mixed design of repeated measures respectively. Statistical significance was set at p < .05. RESULTS: Better performance of time/distance trials (1084 min vs. 1100 min; 3338 m vs. 3211 m) in OA and most all indicators of OA were better than those of RA in main effect. Results indicated that attention index (55.6 vs. 44.3), game score (10929 vs. 8817) and %HRR (77.3 % vs. 67.6 %) of OA were significantly higher than those of RA during mental games in time-trial test (p < .05) in main effect. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that elite orienteering athletes own stronger power for mental management while keeping on higher intensity of running. Introducing mental challenges on running may enhance training effect of orienteering.