Psychological demands experienced by recreational endurance athletes

Abstract

This study aimed to identify psychological demands that are commonly experienced by endurance athletes so that these demands could inform the design of performanceenhancement psychological interventions for endurance athletes. Focus group interviews were conducted with 30 recreational endurance athletes of various sports (running, cycling, and triathlon), distances, and competitive levels to explore the psychological demands of training, competition preparation, and competition participation. An inductive thematic analysis was used to identify psychological demands that were experienced across sports, distances, and competitive levels. Seven themes captured demands that were commonly experienced away from the competitive environment (time investment and lifestyle sacrifices, commitment to training sessions, concerns about optimising training, and exercise sensations during training), preceding an endurance event (pre-event stressors), or during an event (exercise sensations, optimising pacing, and remaining focused despite adversity). Interventions that could be delivered to recreational athletes, who do not typically have access to a sport psychologist, are suggested. Experimental research examining the efficacy of interventions that help endurance athletes to cope with the reported psychological demands is encouraged.Keywords: cycling, focus groups, qualitative research, running, stressors, triathlon 3 Through this research, we aim to contribute to the design of performance-enhancement 1 psychological interventions for endurance athletes by increasing the understanding of the 2 psychological demands commonly encountered by endurance athletes. Sport psychology 3 professional practice guidelines (Birrer & Morgan, 2010; Simons, 2012; Taylor, 1995) 4 encourage practitioners who are designing a psychological performance-enhancement 5 intervention to target the psychological demands of the sport, in order to optimise the efficacy 6 of the intervention. Although the prominent psychological demands experienced in specific 7 endurance events vary (e.g., Dosil, 2006), there may be demands that are commonly 8 experienced across various endurance sports, competitive distances, and competitive levels. 9Research examining the efficacy of interventions at improving endurance performance could 10 target these common demands, which would provide an evidence base for practitioners 11 working with endurance athletes who compete in various endurance events. In other words, 12 efficacious interventions that target common psychological demands could have a wide 13 application.14 Psychological demands relate to stressors in transactional theories of stress (e.g., 15Fletcher, Hanton, & Mellalieu, 2006;Lazarus, 1999). Contemporary transactional theories in 16 sport psychology propose that stress is "an ongoing process that involves individuals 17 transacting with their environment, making appraisals of the situations they find themselves in, 18and endeavouring to cope with any issues that might arise" (Fletcher et al., 2006, p.329)...

Self-regulation in endurance sports: theory, research, and practice

“…Self-efficacy influences the amount of effort an individual is willing to expend and their perseverance when faced with difficulties and setbacks (Bandura, 1997). This is relevant to the psychological demands of endurance performance, such as dealing with pain and discomfort, pacing, a range of environmental stressors, and motivation to continue (e.g., McCormick et al, 2016). When examining the relationship between self-efficacy, self-regulation, and endurance performance, it is important to consider how self-efficacy may fit into Zimmerman's (2000) three phases of self-regulation (forethought, performance, and self-reflection), and the next three paragraphs explore the role, that we propose, self-efficacy may play in these phases.…”

“…Endurance athletes encounter many stressors (e.g., weather, temperature, equipment) before and during events (e.g., O'Neil & Steyn, 2007) that, depending on the athlete's appraisal of them (e.g., Martinent & Ferrand, 2015), could have helpful or harmful consequences. Research has shown that endurance athletes do experience harmful (i.e., dysfunctional) emotional responses such as anxiety, frustration, and discouragement in response to stressors before and during performance, as well as detrimental consequences to their motivation and focus of attention (McCormick et al, 2016). Other potentially harmful consequences of emotional responses are reduced confidence and concentration, and each of these consequences have implications for performance (Lazarus, 2000;Martinent & Ferrand, 2009;Vast, Young, & Thomas, 2010).…”

“…Performance aside, some emotions experienced before, during, and after endurance events are more pleasant than others, and the field of emotion regulation considers how pleasant emotions can be encouraged (Quoidbach, Mikolajczak, & Gross, 2015). For example, participating in endurance events can be a source of excitement and happiness or of anger and guilt (Lahart et al, 2013;McCormick et al, 2016McCormick et al, , 2018, impacting the quality of the event experience.…”

“…In such situations, situation modification strategies that help an athlete to quickly and constructively deal with a stressor could be particularly helpful. For example, if-then planning (Achtziger, Gollwitzer, & Sheeran, 2008) could be used to identify responses to stressors, and endurance athletes could visualise implementing these responses (e.g., visualising repairing a puncture) or actually practice doing them (e.g., taking goggles on and off during a swim) (McCormick et al, 2016). What makes an emotionregulation strategy particularly helpful therefore depends on the situation, as well as the characteristics of the person and the goals they are pursuing (Gross, 2015).…”

Implicit Theories about Athletic Ability Modulate the Effects of If-Then Planning on Performance in a Standardized Endurance Task

“…Despite common knowledge that physical activity is important for health [1,2], half of the people who want to become (and stay) physically active fail to do so [69]. In the domain of muscular endurance, an important cause for such failures might be that the training is perceived as effortful and is accompanied by uncomfortable sensations like pain [70]. Given their effectiveness across domains, it is therefore not surprising that implementation intentions are frequently recommended as a self-regulation strategy in the sports context [29,[70][71][72][73] and tailored primarily to the regulation of effort and pain when it comes to improving muscular endurance [18,30,31].…”