The Impact of Competitive Trait Anxiety on Collegiate Powerlifting Performance

Abstract

Judge, LW, Urbina, LJ, Hoover, DL, Craig, BW, Judge, LM, Leitzelar, BM, Pearson, DR, Holtzclaw, KA, and Bellar, DM. The impact of competitive trait anxiety on collegiate powerlifting performance. J Strength Cond Res 30(9): 2399-2405, 2016-The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between competitive trait anxiety measures and powerlifting (PL) performance. Thirty-six collegiate powerlifters on club teams from 3 universities were recruited during a competition (men = 26, women = 10; age = 19.9 ± 1.5 years; height = 172.5 ± 8.6 cm; weight = 81.4 ± 21.0 kg). The athletes were distributed across weight classes for collegiate PL (47.6 kg: 1; 51.7 kg: 1; 54.9 kg: 1; 59.8 kg: 3; 67.1 kg: 2; 74.8 kg: 7; 82.1 kg: 4; 89.8 kg: 9; 99.8 kg: 5; super heavyweight: 3). A survey containing questions about PL performance history and the 15-item Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT) were administered to the participants before competing. The SCAT total was negatively correlated (r = -0.397; p = 0.02) to the athletes' percentage of best total achieved in the competition (actual performance total/best comp total × 100). Of the individual lifts, the SCAT score was negatively correlated to the personal best for bench press (r = -0.368; p = 0.03) and deadlift (r = -0.317, p = 0.05), but did not significantly correlate for squat (r = -0.182, p = 0.27). These results indicate a negative correlation between the SCAT score and athletes' personal best totals in PL. Increased SCAT scores were associated with decreased personal best PL totals. The results suggest that competitive trait anxiety may have negatively impacted performance and that some PL athletes may benefit from interventions aimed at decreasing anxiety before and during performance.

Psychometric Properties of the Brazilian Version of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2

“…Moreover, anxiety tends to be present even in cases of good performance history, since the end result is always uncertain (Frischnecht, 1990; Martens et al, 1990). The impact of anxiety on athletes’ lives has been studied for many years, and the results indicate that high levels of anxiety are inversely associated with sports performance (Milavić et al, 2013; Mottaghi et al, 2013; Judge et al, 2016), since anxiety can cause physiological (energy expenditure and cardiovascular changes), motor (impaired coordination), cognitive (reduced attention, concentration, and decision-making capacity) and relational (increased conflict among team members) changes (Guzmán et al, 1995; Mesquita and Todt, 2000).…”

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“…In addition, no difference was revealed between athletes with different competitive levels (Rocha &Osório, 2018). Higher competitive anxiety among athletes engaged in individual sport explains the negative impact of competitive anxiety on the powerlifting athletes' performance (Judge et al, 2016). Similarly, adolescent swimmers' performance is related to their competitive anxiety score (Verdaguer, Abad, & Mas, 2016) However, there is no difference in anxiety between more and less successful Portuguesemale national handball players (Massuça, &Fragoso, 2013).…”

Associations between competitive anxiety, athlete characteristics and sport context: evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Because this condition is potentially anxiogenic and usually experienced by athletes, studies show that high levels of anxiety are conversely associated with sport performance [4][5][6] . In addition, performance can be indirectly affected by different symptoms of anxiety, such as physiological (e.g.…”