Physical Training August 2005

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Ch. Nasioudis1, Α. Kabitsi2, Ch. Kabitsis1, Υ. Harahousou1, Α. Lailoglou1
1.Department of Physical Education & Sport Science, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece
2. Saint-Louis University  MI, USA

Address for correspondence:
Nasioudis Christos
Natsina 34, Harilaou
Thessaloniki
P.C. 54249
Greece
E-mail: ax1971@otenet.gr                                          



Introduction

Sports and athletics create special opportunities for the study of the feelings of the athletes in various sporting events (Bray, Jones & Owen, 2002; Tielman, Peacock, Cureton & Dishman, 2002). State anxiety in sports refers to the personal feelings that an athlete has prior and during a competition that include fear and intense excitement (Spielberger, 1966).

Previous studies (Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump & Smith 1990) suggest that anxiety should be classified as cognitive and somatic anxiety. Cognitive anxiety refers to the mental component of anxiety caused by an athlete's negative expectations about success. According to Morris, Davis & Hutchings (1981), cognitive anxiety is characterized by the conscious awareness of unpleasant feelings about oneself or by external stimuli, apprehension and problems in the optic field disturbing visual images. Somatic anxiety refers to the perceived physiological arousal and the affective elements of the anxiety experience that develop directly from autonomic arousal. Somatic anxiety is reflected in specific physiological responses, such as rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, clammy hands, “butterflies in the stomach’’, and tense muscles (Martens, Vealey & Burton 1990).

Martens (1987) reported that the third dimension of state anxiety is self-confidence. Self-confidence is the realistic expectation of male and female athletes that they can succeed; it is their faith in themselves and their abilities.

The source of decreased self-confidence is the athlete's negative thoughts about themselves, the conditions of the fight, whether they might lose the kilos that they should in order to be able to fight. If the subconscious generates and provides negative thoughts, then the body is programmed to perform unsuccessfully. If the opposite happens then the body is programmed to perform with success. Consequently thought should always be  positive (Brennan, 1993; Leedy, 2000).

According to Hall, Kerr & Matthews (1998) an athlete's excessive concern about and absorption in his faults, as well as his doubts about his performance and the personal standards that he sets for his success are factors that can foretell the levels of cognitive and somatic anxiety and self-confidence in the various sports. When the levels of cognitive and somatic anxiety are high in the athletes and the levels of self-confidence are low before the competition, then the athletes possess high state anxiety. On the contrary, when the levels of self-confidence increase, they minimize the cognitive and somatic anxiety (Wiggins & Brustad, 1996). The high performance of the athletes is foretold by their low cognitive and somatic anxiety and high self-confidence (George, 1994; Mullen & Hardy, 2000).

Athletes with high-level anxiety, who cannot check their sentiments, get overexcited and cannot maintain their ideal excitation while they perform,  have as a result, a poor performance (Focht, Koltyn & Bouchard, 2000; Mullen & Hardy, 2000).

An important factor relating to the existence of anxiety in athletes in a lot of sports is the required body weight. Many times high level male and female athletes, are preoccupied so much with their body weight and have so much anxiety about this, that they end up thinking only about how they will be able to maintain their desired weight, a factor that probably has negative effects on their performance. This happens mostly in sports with categories of kilos (judo, wrestling, weight lifting, tae-kwon-do, boxing) where the athletes should have particular kilos (specific body weight) in order to have the right to take part in the competition (Horswill, Scott, Dick & Hayes, 1994).

Researchers have shown that the appearance of state anxiety rate is greater in sports where the body weight and the percentage of body fat can influence the performance (Borgen & Corbin, 1987; Sundgot - Borgen, 1994).

For athletes whose body weight is of great importance, the issue of weight control is as important as the issue of their performance (Fox, 1993). Moreover, in many sports, performance is related to weight as well as to the percentage of body fat, so for this reason the reduction and control of body weight is achieved by a lot of methods, among which the training plays the first role (Ball, Gingras, Fimrite, Villetard, Kayman & McCargar, 1999; Hill & Melanson, 1999; Liu, X., Liu, Y. & Gao, 1999). In fact concerning the sports in which weight plays a decisive role for the performance (judo, wrestling, boxing), the male and female athletes resort to a wide variety of pharmaceutical methods as well as to a reduction of the quantity of food and liquids they consume (Shen 1998; Wang & Jiang, 1999). The abrupt loss of weight by judokas has,  as a consequence, unpleasant results in their performance, power, force, resistance, flexibility and skilfulness, simultaneously influencing negatively their anxiety and psychology (Fogelhom, Koskinen Laakso, Rankinen & Ruokonen, 1993; Coksevim, Ustdal, Saritas & Caracas, 1997; Filaire, Maso, Degoutte, Jouanel & Lac, 2001).

The bigger the loss of body weight that is required, the higher is the level of anxiety in the athletes, who also run the risk of developing alimentary abnormalities, variable behaviour and a fall in their performance (Cox, Lantz, & Mayhew, 1997; Dale & Landers, 1999; Hausenblas & Mack, 1999).

Concerning the sports whose athletes face problems with their body weight (judo, wrestling etc.) the levels of cortizol increase when the athletes do not know their precise weight and believe that they have a problem with their kilos, while, on the contrary, the levels of cortizol decrease when the athletes believe that they have the kilos required (Passelerque, Robert, & Lac 1995; Choma, Sforzo & Keller, 1998).

Therefore, one of the biggest problems that athletes of judo and other similar sports (wrestling, boxing, weight lifting, tae-kwon-do) face seems to be their struggle to stay in the body weight required for their kilos-category so as to be able to fight. This effort by the athletes to reach and maintain the weight required for their kilos-category, a few minutes before the weigh-in for the competition, may fill them with additional anxiety that many times plays a catalytic role in the way in which they eventually face the requirements of the competition. Many times indeed, the male and female judokas think more about how they will overcome a ''whirlwind'' of kilos and weighing so that they can acquire the right to fight, than about how they will fight. As a result they may have more anxiety for the weighing and less for the competition.

The objective of this study was to investigate the changes of state anxiety, before and after the weighing, among male and female athletes that had a problem with their kilos before the weighing and in those that did not.

 Methodology

Subjects
One hundred-five (105), high level, male and female judokas (65 males – 40 females), aged 17-38 years took part in the research. These athletes came from all over Greece and had participated in the Pan-Hellenic championship that was carried out in Athens. The kilos-categories in which the male judokas fought were these of 60, 66, 73 kilos (light categories) and of 81, 90, 100 kilos (heavy categories). Also, the kilos-categories in which the female judokas fought were these of 48, 52, 57 kilos (light categories) and of 63, 70, 78 kilos (heavy categories). The sample of research was constituted by all the athletes of the Pan-Hellenic championship except from the male athletes of the category of 100+ kilos and the female athletes of the category of 78+ kilos, those who did not have restrictions of weight for the competition.

Research tool
In order to measure the state anxiety (cognitive-somatic anxiety, self-confidence) the athletes completed 2 sets of questionnaires. Firstly, the  Competitive State Anxiety Inventory (CSAI-2). CSAI-2 is regarded as one of the most reliable and valid tools for measuring state anxiety (Martens et al., 1990). The instrument was translated into Greek following Vallerand's (1989) proposed methodology which includes: (a) the back translation technique, (b) examination of the translation by experts in the field, and (c) pilot studies. This procedure has been used repeatedly in the past for the translation and adaptation of psychometric questionnaires into the Greek language (e.g., Tsorbatzoudis, 1990; Tsorbatzoudis & Barkoukis, 1995; Tsorbatzoudis, Barkoukis, & Iordanoglou, 1997). The final form of the Greek version of the questionnaire was tested in a pilot study with 61 track and field athletes (Tsorbatzoudis & Barkoukis, 1997). A factor analysis with varimax rotation supported the existence of three subscales closely resembling those in the original English version, explaining 48.7% of the total variance. The internal consistency alphas were .79, .81. and .84 for the cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and sell-confidence subscales respectively. The end product of this procedure comprised the final form of the Greek version of CSAI-2, which was used in this specific study. The Greek CSAI-2 consisted of 27 items, 9 for each of the 3 subscales (cognitive and somatic anxiety and self-confidence). Each item was rated on a 4-point Likert scale, producing a score range from a low of 9 to a high of 36 for each subscale.

Secondly, there was a further questionnaire concerning the demographic elements of the athletes [athletic experience, kilos-category, if the athletes (men and women) had a problem or not with body weight a few days and a few hours before the weighing.

Procedure
The athletes (men and women) filled in CSAI-2 twice, firstly 30 minutes before the weigh-in, and secondly immediately after this (approximately 1 hour before the competition), in the Pan-Hellenic Championships of judo. The researchers distributed the two questionnaires to the athletes who completed them within five minutes after which they handed them over to the same researchers.

Statistical analysis
Data were analyzed using statistical analyses such as Frequencies, Cross-tabs, Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA 2X2), Independent samples t-test, Paired samples t-test and Correlation analysis.

 Results

The average age of male and female athletes was 22.4±4.4 years, and they had 8.8±4.2 years average occupation with judo. From the 105 individuals of this study, 43.8% (48 individuals: 26 men-22 women) had a problem with their kilos two weeks before the beginning of the competition and the 56.2% (57 individuals) did not. From the 48 individuals that had a problem with their kilos two weeks before the beginning of the competition, 8.3% (4 individuals) had no difficulty in losing the extra kilos, 50% (24 individuals) had met with a small difficulty, 29.2% (14 individuals) had met with a difficulty, and 12.5% (6 individuals) had considerable difficulty in losing the extra kilos.

From the total of 48 individuals that had a problem with their kilos two weeks before the beginning of the competition, 14.6% (7 individuals) lost 1kg in 2 weeks time, 37.5% (18 individuals) lost 2 kg, 20.8% (10 individuals) lost 3 kg, 12.5% (6 individuals) lost 4 kg, 4.2% (1 man-1 woman) lost 5 kg, 6.3% (3 men) lost 6 kg and 4.2% (2 men) lost 8 kg.

MANOVA 2X2 (problem 2 weeks before the competition: 2 levels [athletes that had a problem with their kilos 2 weeks before the competition, athletes that did not have one], problem the moment before the competition: 2 levels [athletes that had a problem with their kilos that moment before the competition, athletes that did not have one]) showed: a) no significant main effect for the independent variable problem 2 weeks before the competition on the state anxiety variables before the weighing (cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, self-confidence) (p>.05) (Table 1), b) no significant main effect for the independent variable problem the moment before the competition on the state anxiety variables before the weighing (cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, self-confidence) (p>.05) (Table 1). There were no significant interaction effects among independent variables on the state anxiety variables before the weighing (Table 1).


MANOVA 2X2 (problem 2 weeks before the competition: 2 levels [athletes that had a problem with their kilos 2 weeks before the competition, athletes that did not have one], problem the moment before the competition: 2 levels [athletes that had a problem with their kilos the moment before the competition, athletes that did not]) showed: a) no significant main effect for the independent variable problem 2 weeks before the competition on the state anxiety variables after the weighing (cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, self-confidence) (p>.05) (Table 2), b) no significant main effect for the independent variable problem the moment before the competition on the state anxiety variables after the weighing (cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, self-confidence) (p>.05) (Table 2). There were no significant interaction effects among independent variables on the state anxiety variables after the weighing (Table 2).  


The Independent Samples t-test showed that before the weighing there were no significant differences on the 3 dimensions of the state anxiety among athletes (men and women) that had a problem with their kilos 2 weeks before the competition, and those that did not have one (p>.05) (Table 3).

Also, the Independent Samples t-test showed that after the weighing there were highly significant differences on the three dimensions of state anxiety among athletes that had a problem with their kilos 2 weeks before the competition, and those that did not have one (p<.001) (Table 3). More specifically, what was noticed after the weighing in the athletes with a problem of kilos was a significant reduction in cognitive and somatic anxiety and a significant increase of self-confidence compared to those athletes with no problem of kilos 2 weeks before the competition (p<.001) (Table 3).



From the 105 athletes of the study, roughly 40% (42 individuals) believed that they had a problem of kilos at that moment (half an hour before the weighing) and 60% (63 individuals) believed that they did not have a problem of kilos. In addition, there were 2 male and 2 female athletes who believed that they had a problem of kilos at that moment, before the weighing, and were finally, excluded from the competition because they did not have the body weight required for their category.

The Independent Samples t-test concerning the three dimensions of state anxiety (cognitive - somatic anxiety, self-confidence) showed that before the weighing there were no significant differences among the athletes that had a problem with their kilos the moment before the competition, and those that did not have one (p>.05) (Table 4).

On the contrary, the Independent Samples t-test concerning the three dimensions of state anxiety, showed that after the weighing there were highly significant differences among the athletes that had a problem with their kilos that moment before the competition, and those that did not have one (p<.01) (Table 4). More specifically, what was noticed in the athletes with a problem of kilos after the weighing was a significant reduction in cognitive and somatic anxiety and a significant increase of self-confidence compared to those athletes with no problem of kilos at that moment before the competition (p<.01) (Table 4). 


The Paired Samples t-test on the three dimensions of state anxiety showed statistically significant differences among athletes with a problem of kilos the moment before the competition both before and after the weighing (p<.001) (Table 5).


The correlation analysis conducted between cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety showed statistically significant positive correlation (p<.01). Similarly, a statistically significant negative correlation between cognitive anxiety and self-confidence was observed (p<.01), similar to the one between somatic anxiety and self-confidence (p<.01), both before and after the weighing (Table 6).


 Discussion

The present study revealed that before the weighing no significant differences exist on the three dimensions of state anxiety among the athletes that had a problem of kilos 2 weeks before the competition and those that did not have one. However after the weighing a significant reduction of state anxiety is observed in the athletes that had a problem of kilos 2 weeks before the competition. Moreover, what was most obvious in the study was an increase of self-confidence in the athletes that had a problem of kilos 2 weeks before the competition (after they had passed the weighing successfully). There was a minimal increase of self-confidence in the others as well.

The reported findings of the study revealed that the process of weighing plays an important role in the change of state anxiety. The reduction of cognitive and somatic anxiety and the increase of self-confidence after the weighing in the athletes that thought they had a problem with their kilos 2 weeks before the competition is most probably due to the fact that before the weighing, they think to a large extent about how they will pass this process and whether they will finally have the right to participate in the competition. As a result of this process, the athletes do not actually think as much as they should about how they will fight in the competition, but about whether they have the right to fight after they pass successfully the process of weighing. In other words, there is more anxiety for the weighing and less for the competition. Thus, the athletes concerned are very anxious before the weighing and quite relieved after it. On the contrary, in the athletes that did not have problem with their kilos, an increase of cognitive and somatic anxiety and, simultaneously, a small increase of self-confidence was observed after the weighing. This increase of cognitive and somatic anxiety it can be due to the fact that the competition is near while the small increase of self-confidence most probably declares that even these athletes that do not have a problem with their kilos retain a small doubt before the weighing, while after the weighing they feel more certain. Martin, Engels, Wirth & Smith (1997) reported that the athletes that are found in the required weight, present, after the weighing, decreased levels of state anxiety, increased self-confidence and, also, they are ready for the competition.

Moreover, similar findings in the study were noticed among athletes who believed that they had a problem with their kilos the moment before the weighing and those that had not. The changes of state anxiety before and after the weighing observed in the athletes with a problem of kilos the moment before the weighing, are likely due to the considerable psychological press that they feel in their attempt to be in the required body weight and to the relief they finally feel after the weighing. These athletes are psychologically pressed before the weighing, because they have anxiety both about how they will pass the process of weighing as well as about the competition. Obviously, the primary problem they are occupied with is whether they might acquire the right of participation in the competition after passing the weighing with success. The increased anxiety that the athletes have about whether they might reach the desirable weight has been found by other researchers as well (Steen & Brownell, 1990; Sundgot - Borgen, 1994; Swoap & Murphy, 1995). In any case, it is considered essential that body weight is controlled throughout the training period, so that the phenomenon of abrupt loss of weight before the competition with the resulting consequences in the physiological and psychological status is avoided (Kowatari et al., 2001). The preservation of the desirable weight is an important factor for the completion of the competition profile of the athletes in judo and other similar sports (wrestling, boxing) (Coleman, 1998; Wroble & Moxley, 1998).
The fact that the athletes who had a problem with their kilos before the competition, presented a reduction of state anxiety after the weighing, while those that did not have a problem of kilos presented an increase of state anxiety after the weighing, cannot clarify which situation of state anxiety (that is, its reduction or its increase) is better for the ideal performance, as it is believed that each athlete has his own individual level of state anxiety (Individual Area of Ideal Operation) that leads to a maximization of  his performance. Hanin (1980) determines the ideal level of anxiety as the one that is more suitable for an athlete who employs a specific skill in specific conditions. The ideal level of anxiety leads the athlete to a more efficient occupation with the particular skill, a more advantageous use of his mental and energy reserves, to the better implementation of the skill, and to a high level of achievement.

The correlation findings revealed that there was significant positive correlation between cognitive and somatic anxiety (the more the cognitive anxiety was increased the more the somatic anxiety increased too and via versa). On the contrary, there was significant negative correlation between cognitive and somatic anxiety and self-confidence (the more the cognitive and somatic anxiety were increased, the more the self-confidence decreased and via versa). Obviously, the high levels of cognitive and somatic anxiety contribute negatively to the psychological status of the athletes producing reduced levels of self-confidence. In addition, self-confidence is an important factor, which is influenced by other basic psychological processes such as anxiety, self-concentration, attention, and insistence on the effort. The athletes with high self-confidence do not have high levels of anxiety, are better concentrated and do not give up easily. The findings of this study seem to be in agreement with other studies (Finkenberg, DiNucci, McCune, E. & McCune, S. 1992; Krane, Williams & Feltz, 1992; Lox, 1992; Edwards & Hardy, 1996; Eidson, 1998; Zhu & Fang, 1998; Bray, Martin & Widmeyer, 2000; Jerome & Williams, 2000).

 Conclusions-Proposals

In summary, from the above results it seems that: a) before the weighing the state anxiety of the athletes that had a problem of kilos does not differ from the state anxiety of those that did not have a problem with their kilos, b) after the weighing the state anxiety of the athletes that a had problem of kilos is low compared to the one measured in those athletes who did not have a problem with their kilos and c) both before and after the weighing the cognitive and somatic anxiety of judo male and female athletes are related positively to each other  and negatively  to self-confidence. Finally, it is proposed that the weight should be controlled by the trainers and athletes throughout all the period of the athletic career of an athlete. Moreover, more research about the effect of ''weighing'' in the change of state anxiety should be carried out, as well about whether this change of anxiety has positive or negative results in the athletic performance.

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