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The precompetitive anxiety impacts immediately actual gymnastics’ performance or sustain during routine’s outcomes over the execution time

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Abstract

Aims

The present study attempted to test whether the strongest effect of precompetitive anxiety on consecutive Gymnastic’ performance can be observed only prior to performance or sustain during routine’s outcomes during the long-term delay condition.

Methods

Sixteen female rhythmic gymnasts (age 13.93 ± 2.1 years; body mass 46.87 ± 6.9 kg; height 1.78 ± 0.06 m) competing at international level, voluntarily participated in this study. They have had an experience of at least 8 years and had previous experience in the execution of the clubs and rope’s routines. Before performing the experimental tasks, participants had to record the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 over the multidimensional constructs of cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confidence. A Timeout sanction, numbers of clubs and rope’s falls per gymnast and routine execution during training and competition situation were recorded.

Results

The finding of the present study showed that the score levels for cognitive and somatic anxiety were significantly higher for competition situation than for training situation, whereas our participants reported the same level of self-confidence during the two sessions. The results indicate as well that the timeout showed a significant difference between training situation and competition situation. Significant changes in the number of falls either between training situation or between competition situation were observed. Furthermore, the anxiety’s effect on the rope’ performance was greater than that one recorded during clubs routine.

Conclusion

So that recognizing specific situational stimuli could activate spontaneously efficient behavioral patterns; then, using the mental training to control negative emotions could be fruitful for performance. Hence, reducing pre-competitive anxiety should be of paramount importance if coaches want to optimize their individual athlete’s performance.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the gymnasts who took part in this investigation that was performed in collaboration with the Tunisian Federation of Gymnastics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sports and Physical Activities, Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education, Ksar Saïd, 2010, Manouba, Tunisia

    Sarra Hammoudi Nassib, Bessem Mkaouer, Sabra Hammoudi Riahi, Sameh Menzli Wali & Sabri Nassib

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  1. Sarra Hammoudi Nassib
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  2. Bessem Mkaouer
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  3. Sabra Hammoudi Riahi
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  4. Sameh Menzli Wali
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  5. Sabri Nassib
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Correspondence to Sarra Hammoudi Nassib.

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There is no conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations that have influenced the performance of this work.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Nassib, S.H., Mkaouer, B., Riahi, S.H. et al. The precompetitive anxiety impacts immediately actual gymnastics’ performance or sustain during routine’s outcomes over the execution time. Sport Sci Health 13, 165–173 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-017-0347-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-017-0347-8

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