Abstract
All around the world in March, due to COVID-19, competitive sport calendars were suddenly canceled, jeopardizing the training programs of athletes. Moreover, in Italy, the government banned all non-essential travel across the entire country from the beginning of March. Consequently, Italian cyclists were banned from leaving their homes and therefore unable to perform their ordinary training activities. The Italian Association of Professional Cyclists (ACCPI) early on during that period noticed that several cyclists were experiencing a worrying decrease in their mental well-being and asked the authors to set up an online Sport Psychology Intervention (SPI) during lockdown to enhance the athletes' mental health. Through a number of unprecedented events and considerations, the aim of the current investigation was to assess the Italian cyclists' mental health during the lockdown and its changes after the SPI. We validated the Italian version of the Sport Mental Health Continuum Short Form (Sport MHC-SF)—presented in Study 1—and then applied it to a sample of Italian professional cyclists—presented in Study 2—prior to and after the SPI. To achieve these objectives, the reliability and construct validity of the Italian version of the Sport MHC-SF were tested in Study 1. RM-MANOVA tests were run to evaluate the effect of SPI on cyclists in Study 2. A total of 185 Italian athletes were involved in the validation of the MHC in Study 1 and 38 professional cyclists in Study 2. Results from Study 1 suggested a three-factor higher order model of Sport MHC-SF [Model fit: χ2(df) = 471.252 (252), p < 0.000; CFI = 0.951; RMSEA = 0.049; RMR= 0.048]. MCFA showed that the default model kept invariance among groups of athletes (i.e., female, male, individual, and team sports). Results from Study 2 highlighted that professional cyclists who followed the SPI were able to cope better with psychological stressors, showing improved well-being compared to the athletes that did not. No significant differences were found for emotional and social well-being. The present multi-study paper contributes to the theoretical field with a validated measure of Sport MHC-SF translated in the Italian language and culture. It also provides practical implications related to cases of reduced mental health due to injury, illness, or similar situations of home confinement in the future.
Highlights
In March 2020, Italy became the first country in Europe to enter nationwide lockdown due to the spread of the COVID-19
We obtained similar results for McDonald’s omega
Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analyses (MCFAs) evidenced a very good fit for the model proposed by Foster and Chow (2018) with “sport emotional well-being,” “sport social well-being,” and “sport psychological well-being” as dimensions [Model fit: χ2(df) = 471.252 (252), p < 0.000; comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.951; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.049; root mean square residual (RMR) = 0.048]
Summary
In March 2020, Italy became the first country in Europe to enter nationwide lockdown due to the spread of the COVID-19. According to data reported by Sanders et al (2019) (∼18,000 km cycled per year at a mean speed of 28 km h−1), weekly volume can be estimated at around 12–16 h for female road professionals Both men and women cyclists usually compensate on any restrictions to train outdoors due inclement weather (e.g., due to snow, storm, hail) by using Cycling Indoor Training Equipment (CITE) like stationary ergometers, turbo trainers, and rollers. Training specificity is advocated to optimize training adaptation (Millet et al, 2011), and in professional cycling, both high intensity and high volume of training have been shown to be crucial for improving specific peripheral adaptations (Bishop et al, 2014), which have been associated with high-level endurance performance (Jacobs et al., 2011) In this way, to the best of our knowledge, professional cyclists do not adopt CITE as their standard routine of training
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