Sweating, increased heart rate, fidgeting, inattention and negative thoughts are typical symptoms of anxiety in sport. Hanton, Mellalieu, and Williams (2015) found that competitive sport has the potential for a high level of stress and anxiety. Anxiety is a typical response to a situation where an athlete's skills are being evaluated (Smith & Smoll, 1990). According to Weinberg and Gould (2015) anxiety can manifest itself as a stable part of one's personality known as trait anxiety, or as a temporary, more malleable, situation-specific state anxiety. Anxiety is made up of worrying thoughts and apprehensions (cognitive component) and degree of physical activation (somatic component). The factors which can increase stress and anxiety are: physical demands, psychological demands, environmental demands or expectations and pressure to perform to a high standard (Reilly & Williams, 2003). There are coping strategies which may help athletes to manage stress in important moments of the match (Smith, Schutz, Smoll, & Ptacek, 1995). Previous research showed that psychological skills of athletes

Objective: Financial awards can be an important factor affecting athletes' mental preparation and various skills to manage stress. Since such a link has not yet been studied, the study has been designed to evaluate the moderation effect of financial awards in relation to football players' anxiety and coping skills. Methods: The study consists of 110 male football players aged 18-32 years old (mean ± SD: 23.98 ± 3.01 years) who were divided into two groups: financial awarded (n = 48) and financial unawarded for sports performance (n = 62). The anxiety of football players was measured by the Sport Anxiety Scale SAS-2. Coping strategies to manage stress were assessed by the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory ACSI-28. The effect of financial awards in relation to football players' anxiety and coping skills was evaluated by the mediators' model using the PROCESS software (Hayes, 2018).

The precompetitive, competitive, and postcompetitive mental states of athletes are currently not sufficiently researched. Long-term exposure to stressors contributes to the formation of mental blocks and leads to various health problems. One of the factors that can explain the variability of athletes' reactions to stress is their personality. This study is the first to examine competitive anxiety, and guilt and shame proneness in the context of the reaction of football players to distress in sports. The study consists of 112 male football players aged 16–24 (21.00 ± 1.90) who were divided into type D and non-type D football players according to scoring on the Denollet Scale (DS14). Football players also filled out the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS-2) and the Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale (GASP). The taxonomic approach was conducted to test and to examine differences in stressor intensity as a function of type D personality. A correlation, multivariate analysis of variance, and regression analysis were performed in the study. We found that type D football players were more afraid of failures in sports (worry), felt more often autonomous excitement concentrated in the stomach and muscles (somatic anxiety), and showed more frequent concentration disruption than did non-type D football players. We also found that although type D football players were more likely to rate their behavior as negative and inappropriate, they showed a much greater effort to correct it than did non-type D football players. Negative affectivity and social inhibition of type D football players were positively correlated with competitive anxiety. In addition, we noted lower levels of somatic anxiety and lower concentration disruption for football players who used escape strategies to manage stress. The shame proneness subscale monitoring negative self-evaluation was also closely related to the concentration disruption of football players. We found that the examination of athletes by type D personality is necessary due to the fact that negative affectivity and social inhibition are significant predictors of competitive anxiety of football players, which explains their worries at 24.0%, somatic anxiety at 8.2%, and concentration disruption at 10.6%.

The reason why some gymnasts give an excellent performance and others are barely able to give average performance in competition may be embedded in the sphere of personality structure. Stress is the body's response to the imbalance between the demands of the external environment and the body's ability to meet those requirements. Therefore, the aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between personality structure of gymnasts and coping strategies to manage stress. The study sample consisted of 56 elite Slovak gymnasts (16 men and 40 women) aged from 15 to 26, with an average age of 19.34 ± 3.15 years. The personality structure of gymnasts was investigated by the NEO-FFI inventory (Ruisel & Halama, 2007). Coping strategies to manage stress were investigated by the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory ACSI-28 (Smith et al., 1995). The correlational research design was used. The results of our study showed that 6 of the 7 subscales of coping strategies to manage stress are in relation to personality structure of the gymnasts, namely emotional lability/stability, extroversion/introversion and openness to experience. We also found that none of subscales of coping strategies to manage stress is in relationship to an agreeableness and conscientiousness of gymnasts. A better understanding of the personality traits and coping strategies to manage stress may help coaches and sports psychologists to develop effective interventions and assist gymnasts to attain optimal performances in competition.

The study compared the effect of 12-week multimodal training programme performed twice a week at the regular exercise facility (REF) with the 12-week multimodal training programme performed three times per week as a part of the research programme (EX). Additionally, the study analysed how the experimental training programme affect the physical performance of cognitive healthy and mild cognitive impaired elderly (MCI). The REF training group included 19 elderly (65.00±3.62 years). The experimental training programme combined cognitively healthy (EXH: n=16; 66.3±6.42 years) and age-matched individuals with MCI (EXMCI: n=14; 66.00±4.79 years). 10m maximal walking speed (10mMWS), Five Times Sit-to-Stand Test (FTSS), maximal and relative voluntary contraction (MVC & rel. MVC) were analysed. The REF group improved in 10mMWS (t=2.431, p=.026), the MVC (t=-3.528, p=.002) and relative MVC (t=3.553, p=.002). The EXH group improved in FTSS (t=5.210, P=.000), MVC (t=2.771, p=.018) and relative MVC (t=-3.793, p=.004). EXMCI improved in FTSS (t=2.936, p=.012) and MVC (t=-2.276, p=.040). According to results, both training programmes sufficiently improved walking speed and muscle strength in cognitively healthy elderly. Moreover, the experimental training programme improved muscle strength in MCI elderly.