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Cortisol Predicts Performance During Competition: Preliminary Results of a Field Study with Elite Adolescent Taekwondo Athletes

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A Correction to this article was published on 14 August 2018

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Abstract

Competitive taekwondo composes a high stress situation leading to an increase in the stress hormone cortisol. Little is known about cortisol’s relation to outcome (winning vs. losing) and performance in taekwondo. Therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate cortisol relation to outcome, performance and whether cortisol can predict performance during a competition. Twenty taekwondo combatants (13 males; Mage = 15) provided four salivary samples (C1: 30 min prior, C2: during, C3: after, and C4: 30 min after competition) during an international competition. Total points made in the two rounds during their first fight were used as a performance indicator. Results show no difference in cortisol between winners and losers, before or after competition. However, a negative correlation between performance and C1 as well as C4 was detected. Unexpected, a positive correlation between cortisol during the competition (C2) and performance was identified. A stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that C2 predicted 25.5% of the performance variance. Even if the sample size is relatively small due to the field experimental setting, some conclusions can be drawn to motivate future research. Potentially, in taekwondo it seems advantageous for performance to have higher levels of stress as indicated by cortisol during a competition, whereas particularly before the competition, sport psychological interventions should be provided to combatants to reduce their psychophysiological stress level.

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Change history

  • 14 August 2018

    The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake in text under “Subject” section. The text portions masked for peer review were erroneously overlooked during the later stage “[country deleted to maintain the integrity of the review process]” and “[organization deleted to maintain the integrity of the review process]” should be replaced with “German” and “Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft” respectively.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft for their financial support. Further we would like to thank all the athletes who took the time before, during and after a stressful competition to provide us with salivary samples. Also, we thank the sport psychological expert Werner Mickler, the head coach Marko Scheiterbauer and the physiotherapist for their cooperation and their help collecting data during the competition. Finally, we thank the Institute of Psychology, Performance Psychology group for their critical feedback on the manuscript and Anita Todd for proof-reading of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology, German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Franziska Lautenbach & Babett H. Lobinger

  2. Institute of Sport Psychology and Sport Pedagogy, Faculty of Sport Science, Leipzig University, Jahnalle 59, 04109, Leipzig, Germany

    Franziska Lautenbach

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  1. Franziska Lautenbach
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  2. Babett H. Lobinger
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Correspondence to Franziska Lautenbach.

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Lautenbach, F., Lobinger, B.H. Cortisol Predicts Performance During Competition: Preliminary Results of a Field Study with Elite Adolescent Taekwondo Athletes. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 43, 275–280 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-018-9406-4

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