Relationships between Mood and Perceived Exertion among Elite Biathletes at Altitude

1
Relationships between Mood and Perceived Exertion
among Elite Biathletes at Altitude

• Andy Lane1, Greg P. Whyte2, Richard Godfrey3 and
  Charles Pedlar2  1University of Wolverhampton,
  UK, 2 English Institute of Sport, UK and 3Brunel
  University, UK
• International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP)
  11th World Congress of Sport Psychology15-19
  August 2005 Sydney Convention Exhibition
  Centre, Sydney , Australia

2
Introduction

• Elite athletes may sometimes have to produce
  optimal performance in extreme environmental
  conditions.
• Strenuous exercise in extreme environments such
  as altitude, heat and cold imposes increased
  physiological and psychological stress (see
  Acevedo Ekkekakis, 2001 for a review).
• Lane, Terry, Stevens, Barney and Dinsdale (2005)
  emphasized the importance of monitoring mood
  states responses to extreme environmental
  conditions among elite athletes.

3
Purpose

• To examine the relationship between mood, rate of
  perceived exertion (RPE), heart rate (HR), and
  blood lactate measures among a sample of elite
  athletes training at altitude.

4
Method

• Participants where eight members of the GB
  biathlon team (male 5, female 3).
• Data collection took place at an altitude of
  approximately 2000m above sea-level.
• Athletes completed a modified version of the
  Brunel Mood Scale between 7 and 8 am.
• Five hours later participants performed a 20
  sub-maximal test from which rates of perceived
  exertion, heart rate and blood lactate scores
  were taken.
• Each sub-maximal test was based on 70 VO2 max
  as calculated from a test performed at sea level.
  
• Data were stacked together giving a total of 40
  data sets for mood blood lactate and perceived
  exertion.

5
Results

• Rate of perceived exertion and
• Vigour r - .64, plt .05,
• Happiness r - .42, plt .05,
• Fatigue r .47, plt .05,
• Blood lactate r .12, p gt .05,
• Heart rate r .28, p gt .05.
• No significant relationship between perceived
  exertion and lactate and heart rate.

6

• The direction of the relationships showed
  athletes with high vigour and happiness, and low
  fatigue, had lower rates of perceived exertion.

7
Discussion

• The monitoring of adaptation to training is
  complex and often involves physiological and
  psychological testing.
• The present study supports the view that an
  integrated program for sports science support is
  warranted (Pyne et al ., 2000).
• Due to the added stressors of training at
  altitude initial acclimatisation requires careful
  monitoring of individuals training volumes.
• Results from the present study provide support
  for using mood as a method of identifying
  maladaptive responses to training at altitude.

8
Conclusions

• The monitoring of adaptation to training is
  complex and often involves physiological and
  psychological testing.
• Acclimating to altitude involve careful
  monitoring of the training volumes during the
  initial stages.
• Findings of the present study provide support for
  using indicators of mood as a method of
  identifying early indicators of maladaptive
  responses to training at altitude.

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• An advantage of mood monitoring is that measures
  taken in the morning can be used to tailor
  training for that day accordingly.
• An accepted limitation of the study is that it
  was difficult to control a number of variables.
• We suggest that there is a need for
  well-controlled research to investigate mood and
  perceived exertion relationships.