Identifying Unique Contributions of the Coach-Athlete Working Alliance, Psychological Resilience and Perceived Stress on Athlete Burnout among Norwegian Junior Athletes

Effect of boxers' social support on mental fatigue: Chain mediating effects of coach leadership behaviors and psychological resilience

BACKGROUND

Athletic fatigue is an inescapable issue in competitive sports. It belongs to a physiological response that is triggered when competitive athletes are trained to a critical point.

OBJECTIVE

The study aims to explore the relationships involving boxers' social support, mental fatigue, coach leadership behaviors and psychological resilience.

METHODS

1050 boxers were selected in several provinces across China and investigated on the basis of the Social Support Questionnaire for Athletes, Mental Fatigue Scale, Psychological Resilience Scale, and Leadership Scale for Sport.

RESULTS

Boxers' social support was negatively correlated with mental fatigue and psychological resilience, while it was positively correlated with coach leadership behaviors. Apart from direct effects on mental fatigue, other impacts are imposed by boxers' social support via mediating effects such as coach leadership behaviors and psychological resilience. The total effect value was -0.18, the direct effect value was -0.08, and the indirect effect value was -0.12; furthermore, coach leadership behaviors and psychological resilience play a mediating role, accounting for 65.57% of the total.

CONCLUSION

In order to alleviate the stress from intense competitive training and abate mental fatigue, competitive athletes may be encouraged in subsequent training to seek all-sided social support for social interpersonal relationships. While clarifying the mechanism how the external environment affects individuals, this paper explains the principle of social support on athletes' psychological fatigue and identifies mutual influences between coaches and athletes.

Toward Prevention of Doping in Youth Sport: Cross-Sectional Analysis of Correlates of Doping Tendency in Swimming

Doping is recognized as one of the most important problems in sports, but a limited number of studies have investigated doping problems in youth athletes. This study aimed to evaluate doping tendency (potential doping behavior (PDB)) and correlates of PDB in youth age swimmers. The participants were 241 competitive swimmers (131 females; 15.3 ± 1.1 years of age, all under 18 years old). Variables included predictors and PDB (criterion). Predictors consisted of sociodemographic factors (gender and age), sport-related variables (i.e., experience in swimming and sport achievement), variables explaining coaching strategy and training methodology, consumption of dietary supplements (DS), knowledge about doping, and knowledge about sports nutrition and DS (KSN). In addition to the descriptive statistics and differences between genders, a multinomial regression using PDB as the criterion (negative-, neutral-, or positive-PDB, with a negative-PDB as the reference value) was calculated to define associations between predictors and criterion. With only 71% of swimmers who declared negative-PDB results indicated an alarming figure. Boys with better KSN were more negatively oriented toward positive-PDB (OR: 0.77, 95%CI: 0.60–0.95). In girls, lower competitive achievement was evidenced as a risk factor for neutral-PDB (OR: 0.39, 95%CI: 0.24–0.63). Also, higher neutral-PDB (OR: 0.88, 95%CI: 0.81–0.96) and positive-PDB (OR: 0.90, 95%CI: 0.83–0.99) were identified in girls who began with intensive training in younger age. Because of the alarming figures of PDB, there is an evident need for the development of systematic antidoping educational programs in youth swimming. In doing so, focus should be placed on girls who began intensive training at an earlier age and those who did not achieve high competitive results.

Identifying Unique Contributions of the Coach-Athlete Working Alliance, Psychological Resilience and Perceived Stress on Athlete Burnout among Norwegian Junior Athletes

The main purpose of the current study was to examine how the coach-athlete working alliance, psychological resilience and perceived stress are uniquely associated with burnout among junior athletes in sport. A sample of 670 Norwegian junior athletes practicing a variety of sports participated in the study. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that the bond dimension of the working alliance, the protective factors 'planned future' and 'structured style', as well as perceived stress, all contributed uniquely to the explanation of athlete burnout. A dominance analysis identified perceived stress to have the strongest relative influence on athlete burnout among the set of variables investigated in this study. The findings are discussed in terms of applied implications and possible future research.