CORRELATION BETWEEN MENTAL FATIGUE AND SPORTS MANAGEMENT

Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°2, 564-569

DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.278 564

CORRELATION BETWEEN MENTAL F

ATIGUE AND SPORTS

MANAGEMENT

Yanchao Li

Abstract

Sports fatigue is a common mental state for athletes, due to the high pressure of competitive sports. As a tool to promote self-efficacy, sports management has been increasingly adopted to relax the mental fatigue of athletes. Based on sports psychology, this paper explores the correlation between the mental state and sports management through a survey on 37 track-and-field athletes, using the 5-point scale. Through the analysis of the survey data, it is concluded that the mental fatigue induced by sports affects the brain functions, especially the cognitive processing ability; the symptoms of mental fatigue are attributable to the fatigue of the central nerves, which is in turn caused by bodily fatigue; sports management can greatly ease the mental fatigue induced by sports activities. The research results provide a new direction for curing sports fatigue.

Key words: Sports science, mental fatigue, sports management, sports psychology. Received: 18-05-19 | Accepted: 12-08-19

INTRODUCTION

With the advancement of material and spiritual life, psychology and sports science researchers are paying more attention to the psychological needs that are closely related to people's work and life. One of the related issues is the mental fatigue problem, in sports science,

it’s called the sports mental fatigue problem

(Barker, Neil, & Fletcher, 2016). The existence of sports mental fatigue is inevitable, and it has a huge negative effect on athletes during the training and matches, in severe cases, it directly affects the growth of athletes (Bar-Eli, 2018; Trousselard, Demont, Malgoyre et al., 2014). The common sports mental fatigue is not only manifested as physical symptoms, but also exhibited as mental exhaustion, weariness and fatigue, including individual emotions and moods, etc. (Cook & Fletcher, 2017). At present, neurophysiological tests, psychological scales

School of Economics and Management, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China.

E-Mail: liyanchao2000@sina.com

and behavioral measures are generally adopted for the comprehensive evaluation and analysis of sports mental fatigue (Dixon, Lee, & Ghaye, 2015).

Sports is a kind of non-material production activity which largely depends on the material production process. Only when the material conditions reach a certain level would people introduce the management science that plays a major role in the material field into the field of sports (Nichols & Ojala, 2009). The vigorous development of sports management has benefited from the prosperous development of sports industry and the rapid expansion of sports

management in the process of sports

modernization (Si, Duan, Li et al., 2015). In the theory of sports management, the sports mental fatigue is divided into peripheral fatigue and central fatigue, wherein the peripheral fatigue is generated from the feedback of peripheral nervous system, it’s a common physical fatigue; while the central fatigue is generated from the feedback of central nervous system, and it’s a common mental fatigue (Mcdougall, Nesti, & Richardson, 2015; Quartiroli, Knight, Etzel et al., 2018). Based on the theory of sports psychology,

YANCHAO LI

565

this paper explores the correlation between the mental fatigue and sports management, and the study of this paper can provide theoretical basis and empirical research for the study of the sports mental fatigue problem.

CURRENT STATE OF SPORTS MANAGEMENT RESEARCH IN CHINA

At present, the development of sports culture in China has entered a new era of rapid transformation, but people’s awareness for sports management is not sufficient enough, and the legalization and scientization of sports is not ideal, which has greatly affected the development of sports (Sarrazin, Giraudo, & Vercher, 2008). As the sports management in the national sports development is becoming more and more important, it will exert an increasingly important role in the development of sports in China (Macquet & Skalej, 2015). At present, all sports colleges and universities have set up disciplines related to sports management, including public sports management and sports industry management, etc. They are committed to cultivating talents for sports, sports-related enterprises and institutions, and sports market (Samuels, 2012). Figure 1 shows the number of research papers in sports management, it can be clearly seen that sports management research has shown a high growth trend in recent years.

At present, China's sports management studies have not yet established a systematic system, and there are many problems. Figure 2 shows the problems existing in sports management majors in China, mainly including the problems in sports management disciplines and the problems in the training of sports

management professionals, wherein the

problems of sports management include that it puts more emphasis on Western management theories, while ignoring the boundary between

management theory and sports theory.

Furthermore, the nature of the management of various businesses in sports management discipline system is not clear; the talent cultivation problems of sports management discipline mainly include two problems: the deviation between the cultivation objectives and the market demands; and the obstacles within the sports industry. Through research, many scholars have found that sports management includes introduction to sports management, sports department management, and sports

business management, etc. Its success is based on the flexible application of history, psychology, philosophy, sociality and other disciplines (Knapik, Patel, Wetzel et al., 2017).

Figure 1

.

Number of research papers in

sports management

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

240 260 280 300 320 340 360 380 400

Quantity

Years

Figure 2

.

Problems in sports management

disciplines in China

Problems in the development of sports management

Problems in the discipline system of sports management

Problems in the training of sports management

professionals

Neglecting the differences of management ideology and culture between the East and the West, and laying particular

stress on the application of Western management theory The proportion of sports theory is too high, and the boundaries between management theory and sports theory

are unclear.

The nature of various business management in the discipline system of sports management is not clear, resulting in failure

to develop in depth Training objectives and market demand deviation

Internal resistance of sports industry

MULTIDIMENSIONAL DETECTION OF SPORTS FATIGUE

Structure model and causes of sports mental fatigue

The internal mechanism of mental fatigue is the functional fatigue of the central nervous

system whose core mechanism is the

information processing ability, and the main

observation methods include behavioral

observation, psychological measurement and comprehensive application of physiological and biochemical indicators. From the perspective of neuropsychology and electroencephalography, the sports fatigue will affect people's brain function, especially the cognitive processing ability. Figure 3 shows sports mental fatigue dimension structure model. Generally, the sports mental fatigue is divided into central fatigue dimension, negative emotion dimension,

CORRELATION BETWEEN MENTAL FATIGUE AND SPORTS MANAGEMENT ₅₆₆

motivation level dimension, body behavior symptom dimension and sports negative evaluation dimension (decreased sense of achievement), etc. Figure 4 shows the causes for sports mental fatigue, mainly including the environmental factors, the behavioral factors and the motivational factors, wherein the environmental factors include the natural environment and the social environment; the natural environment mainly refers to the climate impact and the physiological functions of the sports participants; and the social environment mainly refers to the interpersonal relationship. The behavioral factors include subjective factors and objective factors; wherein the subjective factors refer to the attitudes and behaviors of the sports participants; and the objective factors refer to the participants’ adaptability to the sports environment and the physiological function state of the participants themselves. The motivational factors include intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, wherein the intrinsic motivation comes from the participants themselves, and the extrinsic motivation refers to the influence of the surrounding environment.

Figure 3

.

Mental fatigue dimension

structure model

Kinematic psychological fatigue

Central fatigue

Negative emotions

Motivation level

Somatobehavioral symptom

Negative evaluation and reduced sense of achievement

Electroencephalogram change, external somatic behavior symptom, etc.

Bored, depressed, annoyed, complaining, negative, etc

Desire declines, goals are lowered, will declines, etc.

Enlightenment, decreased concentration of thought and attention, decreased perception, etc.

Low sense of achievement, sports, environment and self-negative evaluation, etc

Figure 4

.

Causes for the sports mental

fatigue

Causes of mental fatigue

Environmental factor

Behavioral factors

Motivational factors

Natural environment

Social environment

Subjective factors

Objective factors

Intrinsic motivation Extrinsic motivation

Climate factors and physiological functions of athletes themselves

Mainly refers to interpersonal relationships Attitudes and behaviors of sports

participants The monotonous repetition of the exercises, the adaptability to the sports environment and the physiological state of the participants themselves, etc.

Sports participants themselves

Environmental impact

Research and analysis of sports mental fatigue indices

In the previous paragraph, we learned about the structure model of kinematic fatigue. In this section, the sports major students are taken as the subjects to explore the relationship between the scores of fatigue indices of the athletes, and the athletes' physical fatigue, central fatigue and mental fatigue. A total of 37 track and field athletes were surveyed, and the survey content includes the performance, experience and feelings of mental fatigue, as well as the effects of mental fatigue on training, life, behavior and spirit, etc. The survey was based on a five-point scale, and higher score indicates higher degree of satisfaction of the index. Figure 5 shows the scores of athletes' fatigue indices, it can be seen that the score of the attention concentration of the athletes is the highest, followed by the training quality index and the emotional state index, and the score of the weariness index is the lowest, indicating that the athletes have a strong sense of exhaustion after exercises. Figure 6 shows the relationship between physical fatigue, central fatigue and mental fatigue of athletes. The high psychological load of athletes would cause central fatigue, which can lead to the decline of central information processing ability, thereby causing physical behavior symptoms; however, central fatigue is caused by physical fatigue, and it will lead to mental fatigue symptoms.

Figure 5

.

Scores of indices of athletes'

fatigue

2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5

Mind clarity Weariness Technical sense Training

quality Training

desire Attention concentration Emotional

state

A

v

e

ra

g

e

sc

o

YANCHAO LI

567

Figure 6

.

Relationship between physical

fatigue, central fatigue and mental fatigue

of athletes

High psychological load

Central nervous system

Decreased central information processing capacity

Physical and behavioral symptoms Symptoms such as emotion, motivation, negative

evaluation (symptoms of mental fatigue)

Physical fatigue

CORRELATION BETWEEN MENTAL FATIGUE AND SPORTS MANAGEMENT

Research design

Table 1.

Basic information of the subjects

Variable Classification Quantity Percentage /%

Age

15-20 92 31.0%

21-25 77 25.93%

26-30 79 26.6%

>30 49 16.5%

Sports management study period

≤2 55 18.52%

3 41 13.8%

4 102 34.34%

5 60 20.20%

≥6 39 13.13%

Sports management

learning level

High level 84 28.28%

General level 161 54.21%

Low level 52 17.51%

The high pressure and high load

characteristics of competitive sports will cause the generation of sports mental fatigue, it is a kind of physiological and psychological phenomenon generated due to long-term, repeated stimulation. This paper takes the three variables of decreased sense of achievement, physical fatigue and negative evaluation of exercise in the mental fatigue as the subjects, and adopts the questionnaire survey method to respectively investigate the influence of age, sports management learning years, and sports management learning levels on the evaluation of mental fatigue, the basic information of the subjects are shown in Table 1. An athlete mental fatigue scale was taken as the measuring tool for the questionnaire survey, and a total of 5 questions were compiled, each of which was to be answered by the five-point rating method, and lower score indicates higher level of mental fatigue. All obtained data were processed by the SPSS software, and the correlation between

mental fatigue and sports management was analyzed.

Research results and analysis

Figure 7 shows the influence of age factor on the evaluation of mental fatigue, generally, the scores of the negative evaluation of exercise and the physical fatigue are the lowest, and the score of the decreased sense of achievement is relatively high, indicating that in terms of the dimension of decreased sense of achievement, the mental fatigue level is lower; moreover, as the age increases, the scores of each dimension of the mental fatigue increase first and then decrease, which is mainly related to the state of physical functions. Figure 8 shows the influence of sports management learning years on the evaluation of mental fatigue, it can be clearly seen that for the students with sports management learning years of more than 6 years, the level of mental fatigue is lower, generally the increase of sports management learning years does not reduce the level of mental fatigue. Figure 9 shows the influence of sports management learning level on the evaluation of mental fatigue, it can be seen that the various dimensions of mental fatigue do not show obvious changes. The dimension of decreased sense of achievement is represented as lower sports management level yields higher score, while the dimensions of negative evaluation of exercise and physical fatigue are shown as higher sports management level results in higher score. In general, sports management has a significant role in promoting the sports mental fatigue.

Figure 7

.

Influence of age factor on

evaluation of sports mental fatigue

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Negative evaluation of exercise Physical fatigue

Decreased sense of achievement

A

v

er

ag

e sc

o

re

15-20 21-25 26-30

CORRELATION BETWEEN MENTAL FATIGUE AND SPORTS MANAGEMENT ₅₆₈

Figure 8

.

Influence of sports management

learning years on evaluation of sports

mental fatigue

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

A

v

er

ag

e sc

o

re

≤2 3 4 5 ≥6

Decreased sense

of achievement Physical fatigue

Negative evaluation of exercise

Figure 9

.

Influence of sports management

learning level on evaluation of sports

mental fatigue

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

A

v

er

ag

e sc

o

re

High level sports management learning General level sports management learning Low level sports management learning

Decreased sense

of achievement Physical fatigue

Negative evaluation of exercise

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the theory of sports psychology, this paper explored the correlation between sports mental fatigue and sports management. The specific conclusions are as follows:

(1) The sports mental fatigue is divided into central fatigue dimension, negative emotion dimension, motivation level dimension, body behavior symptom dimension and sports negative evaluation dimension (decreased sense of achievement), etc.; the causes for sports mental fatigue mainly include the environmental factors, the behavioral factors and the

motivational factors, etc.

(2) The high psychological load of athletes would cause central fatigue, which leads to the decline of central information processing ability,

and thereby causing physical behavior

symptoms. However, central fatigue is caused by the fatigue of body functions, and it would result in mental fatigue symptoms. The score of the attention concentration of the athletes is the highest, followed by the training quality index and the emotional state index, and the score of the weariness index is the lowest.

(3) For the students with sports management learning years of more than 6 years, the level of mental fatigue is lower, the dimension of decreased sense of achievement is represented as lower sports management level yields higher score, while the dimensions of negative evaluation of exercise and physical fatigue are shown as higher sports management level results in higher score.

REFERENCES

Bar-Eli, M. (2018). Boost!: How the psychology of sports can enhance your performance in management and work. Oxford University Press. Barker, J. B., Neil, R., & Fletcher, D. (2016). Using sport and performance psychology in the management of change. Journal of Change Management, 16(1), 1-7.

Cook, G. M., & Fletcher, D. (2017). Sport psychology in an olympic swimming team: perceptions of the management and coaches. Professional Psychology Research & Practice, 48(5), 343-351. Dixon, M., Lee, S., & Ghaye, T. (2015). Strengths-based reflective practices for the management of change: applications from sport and positive psychology. Journal of Change Management, 16(2), 142-157.

Knapik, D. M., Patel, S. H., Wetzel, R. J., & Voos, J. E. (2017). Prevalence and management of coracoid fracture sustained during sporting activities and time to return to sport: a systematic review. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 46(3), 753-758.

Macquet, A. C., & Skalej, V. (2015). Time management in elite sports: How do elite athletes manage time under fatigue and stress conditions. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 88(2), 341-363. Mcdougall, M., Nesti, M., & Richardson, D. (2015).

The challenges of sport psychology delivery in elite and professional sport: reflections from

YANCHAO LI

569

experienced sport psychologists. The Sport Psychologist, 29(3), 265-277.

Nichols, G., & Ojala, E. (2009). Understanding the management of sports events volunteers through psychological contract theory. Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organizations, 20(4), 369-387.

Quartiroli, A., Knight, S. M., Etzel, E. F., & Zakrajsek, R. A. (2018). Fostering and sustaining sport psychology professional quality of life: the perspectives of senior-level, experienced sport psychology practitioners. The Sport Psychologist, 33(2), 148-158.

Samuels, C. H. (2012). Jet lag and travel fatigue, a comprehensive management plan for sport medicine physicians and high-performance support teams. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine,

22(3), 268-273.

Sarrazin, J. C., Giraudo, M. D., & Vercher, J. L. (2008). Coupling kinematics of memory and kinematics of movement: the conditions for a psychological relativity. Human Movement Science, 27(3), 532-550.

Si, G., Duan, Y., Li, H. Y., Zhang, C. Q., & Su, N. (2015). The influence of the chinese sport system and chinese cultural characteristics on olympic sport psychology services. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 17, 56-67.

Trousselard, M., Demont, G., Malgoyre, A., Fidier, N., & Ferhani, O. (2014). Sport practice and stress management in french soldiers deployed in afghanistan: is sport dependence a risk factor for psychological distress. European Psychiatry, 29(8), 543.