Upoređivanje stanja anksioznosti i prevladavanja stresa sprintera i trkača na srednje i duge distance

Ana Vesković,Marija Čolić,Marija Regodić,Nenad Janković

doi:10.5937/fizkul74-32871

Abstract

Competitive anxiety and coping with competitive stress determine successful athletic performance in important ways. The first goal of this study was to investigate the intensity and potential differences in state anxiety (somatic and cognitive) and self-confidence between sprinters and middleand long-distance runners, as well as to compare their use of coping strategies and/ or coping dimensions. The second goal was to define which coping strategies runners use most frequently in general. The third aim was to examine if there is a relationship between competitive anxiety and coping dimensions in runners. A sample of 52 runners, 44.2% sprinters and 55.8% long-distance runners, (Mage = 24.25; Msp.exp .= 9.78) completed the SCAI-2 and CICS. Compared to middleand long-distance runners, sprinters scored higher on somatic and cognitive anxiety and lower on self-confidence. In total, runners most frequently use task-oriented coping strategies. There are no differences between sprinters and middleand long-distance runners in coping dimensions and strategies except in mental distraction, which is more frequently used by middleand long-distance runners. Task-oriented coping was positively related to self-confidence and negatively to cognitive anxiety. Disengagement-oriented coping is positively related to both somatic and cognitive anxiety and negatively to self-confidence. The study results highlight the possible directions for further research and provide a basis for several practical recommendations.

Highlights

Athletic competitions have become highly demanding and potentially stressful for most athletes, which is especially pronounced in professional and elite sport
MANOVA was used to test the differences between sprinters and long-distance runners in somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety, and self-confidence
Discriminant analysis indicates that cognitive anxiety score contributes to group differentiation the most, followed by somatic anxiety, and self-confidence, and that 71.2% of the runners could be correctly classified as sprinters or middlelong distance based on their anxiety composite score

Summary

Introduction

Athletic competitions have become highly demanding and potentially stressful for most athletes, which is especially pronounced in professional and elite sport. Competitive stress can be defined as an ongoing transaction between an individual and the demands of the environment which is directly related to competitive performance (Fletcher, Hanton, & Mellalieu, 2006, p.7). Both before and during the competition, when performance of the acquired motor skills is being evaluated, athletes are exposed to different stressors of varying intensity (Kimball & Freysinger, 2003). Athletes may react with a wide spectrum of emotions that can impair their performance. A large number of studies investigated the relationship between competition stressors and athletes’ cognitions, emotions, and coping strategies (Abedalhafiz, Altahayneh, & Al-Haliq, 2010)

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