Research Presentation 1-Mental Side of Sports and Competition

Video Link:

https://youtu.be/AMLn1tn6fns

Citations:

Hackney, A. C., & Viru, A. (2008, November 1). Research methodology: Endocrinologic measurements in Exercise science and sports medicine. Journal of Athletic Training. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://meridian.allenpress.com/jat/article/43/6/631/110698/Research-Methodology-Endocrinologic-Measurements.

ACS. (n.d.). Cytokines and their side effects. American Cancer Society. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatments-and-side-effects/treatment-types/immunotherapy/cytokines.html.

In Hackney’s Research Methodology: Endocrinologic Measurements in Exercise Science and Sports Medicine article, they deal with quantitative research within the endocrine system of athletes. Endocrinology deals with hormones and cytokines. “Cytokines are small proteins that are crucial in controlling the growth and activity of other immune system cells and blood cells. When released, they signal the immune system to do its job. Cytokines affect growth of all blood cells and other cells that help the body’s immune and inflammation responses” (ACS, 2021) . This journal article’s goal is to provide data on areas of study that have been ignored when it comes to sports, performance and exercise science. Since very little research has been done with the endocrine system, their hope was to understand sports performance better as well as clinical and performance related conditions found in athletes such as anxiety etc. Although their goals were in the right place, some of the issues they ran into was, they did not control certain factors that impacted their data collected. Because hormones can be majorly affected by the time of day, the age and sex of those being measured, whether or not a female is menstruating or blood drawing during a female’s menstrual cycle. All of these factors have major effects on their results, and they failed to control for these factors. Although, they did not account for many of these factors, they identified many different factors that can affects ones cortisol response to high intensity exercise, cortisol is a stress hormone and can show how much stress your body is feeling during/after high intensity training which can give us insights into how to keep those levels in check when competing to ensure athletes do not become too overwhelmed and anxious when competing which can decrease ones performance levels. They also mentioned many aspects that can affect hormone secretion such as sleep, nutrition etc.

Their research question was, how does the endocrine system and athlete’s secretion of hormones in response to environments, nutrition, sleep, high intensity exercise affect one’s performance. They used quantitative research, relying on specific data and numbers when dealing with specific levels of hormones and cytokines produced before, during and after high intensity exercise and competition. In terms of methods they used, mostly they implemented experiments in terms of hormone production in response to exercise. This research mostly came to the conclusion that more work must be done in this field especially accounting for their flaws in data collection. Although, they did not come to a final conclusion on how one can control stress responses and the production of certain hormones, they were able to give us a framework to take their research further. They also gave us an insight into the various factors that go into data collection in this field and what they failed to do. They concluded that if someone else did research in this area, accounting for their mistakes and the factors that impact one’s hormone production, we could make great strides in understanding hormone production in athletes to help aid in their performance.

My Research Questions:

• Does mental preparation and mental training such as meditation etc. help athletes such as Novak Djokovic in competition?
• Does mental training correlate to more success on the court?
• What type of mental training does Novak Djokovic incorporate in his everyday life to help him become a better, more successful athlete?

Although, this study had many flaws, it is very useful to understand how to go about my own research. I plan to use mixed methodology, both qualitative and quantitative research. Before finding this article, I was planning just using qualitative research because I was not sure how much data there would be, that could apply to my research. But after seeing this and realizing that there are some quantitative research/data such as hormone production during competition that could impact performance. And seeing the number of factors that can affect these hormones, this could be very helpful in my research to understanding the mental side of competition and how hormones can impact our mental performance. To increase our understanding of the different factors and the impacts they have; we can address them to improve athlete’s performance and their ability to avoid things like mental anxiety when competing. Being able to control ones stress response by things like meditation and quieting the mind, could improve one’s performance level greatly.

Thinking about my unit of analysis which was to compare results with mental preparations taken by professional athletes and hope to find a correlation between mental preparation and results. As well, compare to college athletes to identify possible barriers that stand in the way of college athletes pursuing their professional aspirations. Having both qualitative and quantitative research to apply and compare between these professional athletes and college athletes could allow us to see the lack of mental preparation in college compared to professional levels which may be an indication of why some athletes are more successful. Obviously, there is some level of skill and talent that make certain athletes stand out but why those stand out athletes may or may not reach the pro level may depend on whether or not they mental prepare and train.