Indeed, numerous papers within this Research Topic align with and draw upon challenge and threat theory. Britton et al.

provide an important piece of work that speaks to the complex interaction of constructs that are implicated within challenge and threat theory. They recruited adolescent athletes who completed self-reported stress reactivity and cognitive appraisals on approach to competition and a retrospective assessment of emotions, coping strategies, and subjective performance.

The path analysis revealed that perceived stress reactivity had direct and indirect effects on the appraisal of higher stressor intensity, lower perceived control, higher perceived threat, negative emotions, and maladaptive coping. Increased threat, positive and negative emotions, and maladaptive coping were associated with performance satisfaction.

The complex interaction of cognitive appraisal constructs and affect is also captured by Harwood et al. in their study of stress among parents of competitive British tennis players, in which they consider the primary appraisals, emotions, and coping strategies associated with self-disclosed stressors.

The mixed methods analyses showed that a range of organizational, competitive, and developmental stressors were predominantly appraised as harm or challenge, and that anxiety and anger were the most prominent emotions experienced by parents. In particular, parents experienced greater anger in relation to competition compared to organizational and developmental stressors, harm appraisal increased negative emotions, and challenge appraisal increased positive emotions.

Where most challenge and threat research has focused on singular events, Moore et al. focused on examining the generalizability of challenge adaptive and threat maladaptive by examining the consistency of challenge and threat evaluations across potentially stressful situations.

In their sample of roller derby players, they found some idiosyncrasies in the athletes' tendency to view particular stressors as more of a challenge or threat. A key take away message from this paper is that there is an interaction between the person and the situation in determining challenge and threat, a notion at the heart of transactional stress theories such as cognitive appraisal theory Lazarus and Folkman, , and rational emotive behavior therapy REBT —also featured in this Research Topic.

The interacting constructs and the personal-situational variability of cognitive appraisals, and by extension challenge and threat, provides an exciting task for researchers to conceptualize challenge and threat in testable theories.

This Research Topic contains two pieces of work that seek to adjust and extend theory, that of Uphill et al. and Meijen et al. Both reflect a re-conceptualization of challenge and threat theory applied to sport.

Uphill et al. provide a critical review of challenge and threat literature, and propose a new theory, Evaluative Space Approach to Challenge and Threat ESACT. The ESACT reconciles some of the ambiguities found in the extant research and draws upon the Evaluative Space Model ESM.

One of Uphill's suggestions is that rather than seeing challenge and threat as opposite ends of a single bipolar continuum, it might be better to consider that individuals could be 1 challenged, 2 threatened, 3 challenged and threatened, or 4 neither challenged or threatened by a particular stimulus.

The article by Meijen et al. also offers a rethink of the dichotomous nature of challenge and threat but is more conservative than the suggestions of Uphill et al. Meijen et al. provide a review and revision of the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes TCTSA , with a specific focus on the predictions made in the TCTSA and inclusion of Lazarusian cognitive appraisal constructs.

The revised TCTSA TCTSA-R considers additional biomarkers of challenge and threat, includes more specific predispositional factors that influence challenge and threat, and offers a more parsimonious integration of Lazarusian ideas of cognitive appraisal and challenge and threat.

Most notably, Meijen et al. propose a 2 × 2 bifurcation theory of challenge and threat, which reflects a polychotomy of four states: high challenge, low challenge, low threat, and high threat.

For example, in low threat, an athlete can evince a threat state but still perform well so long as they perceive high resources.

We urge the research community to test the hypotheses posited by Uphill et al. to progress this area. The TCTSA-R places a greater emphasis on dispositional factors compared to the original TCTSA, but this aspect of challenge and threat theory is somewhat underdeveloped.

One factor that may predispose athletes to threat is the extent to which they hold irrational beliefs, a notion examined in Chadha et al. This offered some theoretical advancement to both theories of challenge and threat, and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Similarly, exploring dispositional traits that could affect performance under pressure, Clarke et al.

examined personality traits in predicting yips and choking susceptibility in a group of golfers and archers. Notably, conscientiousness and private self-consciousness were the largest contributors to the choking model, whilst conscientiousness and perfectionistic self-promotion were the largest contributors to the yips model.

Another dispositional trait relevant to challenge and threat is rumination which is addressed by Kröhler and Berti who used data from competitive athletes from different sports to demonstrate that sports and competition-related ruminative mechanism exists and further that ruminative cognitions are related to the cognitive basis of state orientation.

In another study of personality traits, Frenkel, Brokelmann et al. set out to identify protective factors in stressful situations in risk sports. Specifically, the authors experimentally examined the role of sensation seeking and dispositional mindfulness on the stress response to a risk sport-specific stressor; the Heidelberg Risk Sport-Specific Stress Test HRSST—evaluated in the Research Topic in an additional paper by Frenkel, Laborde et al.

Their results indicate that high sensation seekers perceived the stressor as less stressful, but dispositional mindfulness did not predict anxiety. Where irrational beliefs and rumination can predispose one to threat, one construct that could be an important protective factor from the negative impact of psychological stress is resilience.

Hrozanova et al. reason that stress can deleteriously affect sleep, and that potentially mental resilience may protect individuals against the detrimental effects of stress on sleep.

In their study, the authors investigated the effects of mental resilience, emotional negative affect and cognitive worry reactions to stress, and perceived stress, on the sleep quality of junior athletes.

Results revealed that sleep quality was predicted by greater mental resilience sub-components Social Resources and Structured Style, and lower worry and perceived stress.

suggest that close attention should be paid to athletes' abilities to manage worry and perceived stress, and that mental resilience could act as a protective factor preventing sleep deterioration. Relevant to the notion of protective factors, some researchers have suggested that individual's histories of adversity may influence stress reactivity, an idea examined by Wadey et al.

in their multi-study paper. The authors draw upon prominent sport injury, and challenge and threat theory to examine whether preinjury adversity affects postinjury responses over a 5-year period.

They found that injured athletes with moderate preinjury adversity experienced less negative psychological responses and used more problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies compared to low or high preinjury adversity groups.

In a follow-up study, Wadey et al. found that athletes with high preinjury adversities were excessively overwhelmed to the point that they were unable to cope with injury, while those with low preinjury adversities had not developed the coping abilities and resources needed to cope postinjury.

As previously stated in this editorial, adaptation to psychological stress is a biopsychosocial phenomenon, and thus, it is pleasing to see works included in the Research Topic that take a psychophysiological perspective on psychological stress.

MacDonald and Wetherell assessed competitive anxiety and salivary diurnal cortisol in elite rowers during two training and two competition weekends.

They found that anxiety levels were significantly greater during the competition phase compared with training, and specifically that cognitive anxiety was greater on the day of competition compared with the preparation day. They also found that the cortisol awakening response CAR magnitude was significantly reduced during the competition phase compared with training, with no differences between preparation and event days.

Importantly, the findings indicate maladaptive responding during a period where maximized functioning is critical, whereby reduced or blunted CARs are typical in chronically stressed populations. Similarly examining acute psychophysiological responses, Guo et al.

examined the impact of high and low coping self-efficacy CSE on the neural activity of athletes' cerebral cortex under acute psychological stress. Results indicate that high CSE athletes were better able to cope with the acute stressor, adjust their behaviors in a timely manner according to the results of their coping, and focus more on processing positive information, demonstrating significantly lower N1 amplitude and significantly shorter N1 latency, compared to low CSE athletes.

In contrast to MacDonald and Wetherell , and Guo et al. studied the longitudinal patterns of change in stress variables in the lead up to, during, and following the Invictus Games, in a cohort of wounded, injured, and sick military veterans.

In addition, the interactions between psychosocial variables and salivary biomarkers of stress, and how these relate to veterans' health, well-being, illness, and performance, was investigated. Multilevel growth curve analyses revealed significant changes in growth trajectories of stress-related variables, with for example, anger and dejection emotions increasing, whilst challenge appraisals and excitement and happiness emotions decreased over the same timeframe.

Alongside additional self-report effects e. Collectively, the papers by MacDonald and Wetherell , Guo et al. There are a number of papers in the Research Topic that have significant theoretical and practical implications for adaptation to psychological stress in sport.

In addition, there are number of papers included in the Research Topic that expressly posit potential interventions for successful adaptation. In one study, Quinton et al. examined whether mastery imagery ability was associated with stress response changes to a competitive car racing stress task following an imagery intervention.

They also assessed the effects of different guided imagery content on pre-task cognitive and emotional responses. Based on the study results, the authors suggest that positive mastery imagery ability may act as a buffer against the stress effects of negative images.

Imagery featured as part of the intervention tested in the Olmedilla et al. paper, whereby a program based on cognitive-behavioral therapy was applied with youth soccer players. Pre to post-test data demonstrated that athletes improved their stress management, and enhanced the use of psychological resources and techniques.

One psychological intervention that has particular efficacy in endurance sports is action monitoring and this was explored by Vitali et al.

That is, to deal with discomfort, fatigue, and pain associated with endurance performance under pressure, athletes tend to direct attention to both internal e.

Thirty-two male participants completed a time-to-exhaustion running task on a treadmill. There was no difference in performance regardless of the type or level of action monitoring employed.

This is primarily due to the multitude of physiological and technological variables that come into play. Yet, the realm of progress tracking extends beyond the confines of numerical data. Biofeedback harnessed through the lens of perceived effort and recovery indicators, offers a more intimate and intuitive feedback loop.

The subjective perception of effort, meticulously cataloged, can unveil nuances in training loads and endurance gains. Interpreting these multifaceted data points empowers athletes to form a comprehensive picture of their progression. Plateaus in adaptations, detectable through stagnation or tapering of performance metrics, serve as milestones in this process.

Confronted with an adaptation plateau, runners begin on a dynamic process of adjustment and innovation. Training plans, the blueprint of progress, are recalibrated to surmount these plateaus and propel forward momentum. The training environment may evolve, with variations in volume, intensity, and recovery strategies.

For instance, if a runner notices a stagnation in race times or performance metrics despite consistent training, a deliberate infusion of interval training or hill repeats intensity might be integrated to reignite growth or, in contrast, maybe more rest periods are integrated into the training process.

In essence, monitoring progress and sculpting adjustments in concurrence with adaptation timelines is a mutual interaction between quantifiable metrics and intuitive introspection. In this complex interplay of data and analysis, the genuine essence of training is crafted, resulting in a continuously developing depiction of progress and goal achievement.

A coach has mastered this craft, but you, the athlete, can learn it too. RELATED: 6 Rules for Dealing with Injury, Illness, and Aging as an Athlete. Understanding adaptation timelines has a ripple effect on various aspects of training.

Recovery strategies and nutrition choices gain significance. Runners can tailor their recovery protocols based on the expected timeline of adaptations, ensuring ample time for the body to repair and grow. Enhancing sleep quality, adequately managing stress and rest, strategically timing nutrients, and upholding optimal hydration and electrolyte levels collectively serve as tactics to promote and expedite the adaptive process.

Mental preparation stands as a pillar in the realm of ultrarunning, mirroring the significance of physical readiness.

Ultrarunning, with its extreme distances and relentless terrain, necessitates a mindset characterized by patience, resilience, and determination.

While the physical body undergoes gradual adaptations, the mental resilience required to conquer these challenges is equally imperative. By acknowledging and embracing the gradual progression of physiological adaptations, runners equip themselves with a potent tool to manage expectations effectively.

Understanding that substantial endurance gains, muscular development, and cardiovascular improvements require time and persistent effort fosters a patient mindset. Having a solid foundation of education and understanding related to the nature of physiological development, including how the training plan is designed to impact physiological adaptations in alignment with race or event day success is a vital starting point in this process.

Furthermore, this recognition of gradual adaptation dovetails seamlessly into the cultivation of mental toughness. Just as the body slowly adapts and strengthens over time, so too does the mind.

Embracing the incremental nature of the process breeds mental toughness—the capacity to persevere through discomfort, push through mental barriers, and surge forward even when faced with adversity.

Your mind is with you no matter where you go, and athletes who develop deep awareness to understand how their mind works, and follow that awareness with skills in self-talk, psychological regulation, attentional control, self-efficacy, and mental toughness end up having more positive experiences and better race day outcomes than those that leave the mental game up to chance.

In the crucible of ultrarunning, the relationship between the gradual evolution of adaptations and mental resilience thrives. Runners who grasp this synergy transform their perspective. RELATED: Study Shows Ultrarunners Exhibit An Increased Risk For Exercise Dependency. Armed with this knowledge of the time course of adaptations, athletes can navigate training with purpose and precision.

The intricate interplay of physiological changes, from cardiovascular enhancements to mental resilience, is orchestrated over a timeline that demands respect, patience, and commitment. As trail and ultrarunners lace up their shoes and tackle the winding paths that lie ahead, they can embrace the art of strategic training.

By leveraging the insights gleaned from adaptation timelines, they transform themselves into formidable forces of nature, conquering not just terrains but their own potential. RELATED: Why Speed Training Matters Even for Ultrarunners. Find out what happened when this six-year run streaker and HOKA Global Athlete Ambassador took on an iconic ultramarathon in California's Sierra Nevada.

Heading out the door? More Challenge. More Community. Welcome to a New Kind of Trail Running Relay. Video loading Want to Know What It Takes to Finish at Western States? Just Ask Hellah Sidibe.

This is primarily due to the multitude of physiological and technological variables that come into play. Yet, the realm of progress tracking extends beyond the confines of numerical data. Biofeedback harnessed through the lens of perceived effort and recovery indicators, offers a more intimate and intuitive feedback loop.

The subjective perception of effort, meticulously cataloged, can unveil nuances in training loads and endurance gains. Interpreting these multifaceted data points empowers athletes to form a comprehensive picture of their progression.

Plateaus in adaptations, detectable through stagnation or tapering of performance metrics, serve as milestones in this process. Confronted with an adaptation plateau, runners begin on a dynamic process of adjustment and innovation. Training plans, the blueprint of progress, are recalibrated to surmount these plateaus and propel forward momentum.

The training environment may evolve, with variations in volume, intensity, and recovery strategies. For instance, if a runner notices a stagnation in race times or performance metrics despite consistent training, a deliberate infusion of interval training or hill repeats intensity might be integrated to reignite growth or, in contrast, maybe more rest periods are integrated into the training process.

In essence, monitoring progress and sculpting adjustments in concurrence with adaptation timelines is a mutual interaction between quantifiable metrics and intuitive introspection. In this complex interplay of data and analysis, the genuine essence of training is crafted, resulting in a continuously developing depiction of progress and goal achievement.

A coach has mastered this craft, but you, the athlete, can learn it too. RELATED: 6 Rules for Dealing with Injury, Illness, and Aging as an Athlete. Understanding adaptation timelines has a ripple effect on various aspects of training. Recovery strategies and nutrition choices gain significance.

Runners can tailor their recovery protocols based on the expected timeline of adaptations, ensuring ample time for the body to repair and grow.

Enhancing sleep quality, adequately managing stress and rest, strategically timing nutrients, and upholding optimal hydration and electrolyte levels collectively serve as tactics to promote and expedite the adaptive process. Mental preparation stands as a pillar in the realm of ultrarunning, mirroring the significance of physical readiness.

Ultrarunning, with its extreme distances and relentless terrain, necessitates a mindset characterized by patience, resilience, and determination.

While the physical body undergoes gradual adaptations, the mental resilience required to conquer these challenges is equally imperative. By acknowledging and embracing the gradual progression of physiological adaptations, runners equip themselves with a potent tool to manage expectations effectively.

Understanding that substantial endurance gains, muscular development, and cardiovascular improvements require time and persistent effort fosters a patient mindset. Having a solid foundation of education and understanding related to the nature of physiological development, including how the training plan is designed to impact physiological adaptations in alignment with race or event day success is a vital starting point in this process.

Furthermore, this recognition of gradual adaptation dovetails seamlessly into the cultivation of mental toughness. Just as the body slowly adapts and strengthens over time, so too does the mind. Embracing the incremental nature of the process breeds mental toughness—the capacity to persevere through discomfort, push through mental barriers, and surge forward even when faced with adversity.

Your mind is with you no matter where you go, and athletes who develop deep awareness to understand how their mind works, and follow that awareness with skills in self-talk, psychological regulation, attentional control, self-efficacy, and mental toughness end up having more positive experiences and better race day outcomes than those that leave the mental game up to chance.

In the crucible of ultrarunning, the relationship between the gradual evolution of adaptations and mental resilience thrives. On the other hand, a seasoned veteran may find that 2—3 days is not enough to adequately stress the system.

According to the overload principle, as fitness improves, so must the stress to ensure continued gains and to avoid plateauing.

The duration of exercise, or time, also contributes to the amount of stress experienced during a workout. Certainly, a minute brisk walk is less stressful on the body than a 4-hour marathon.

Although independent of one another, frequency and time are often combined into the blanket term, volume. The idea is that volume more accurately reflects the amount of stress experienced.

This can be connected to the progression principle. For example, when attempting to create a jogging plan, you may organize 2 weeks like this:. At first glance, this might appear to be a good progression of frequency and time.

However, when calculated in terms of volume, the aggressive nature of the progression is revealed. In week 1, three days at 30 minutes per session equals 90 minutes of total exercise. In week two, this amount was doubled with four days at 45 minutes, equaling minutes of total exercise.

Doing too much, too soon, will almost certainly lead to burnout, severe fatigue, and injury. The progression principle relates to an optimal overload of the body by finding an amount that will drive adaptation without compromising safety.

In cardiorespiratory fitness, the objective of the exercise is to stimulate the cardiorespiratory system. Other activities that accomplish the same objective include swimming, biking, dancing, cross country skiing, aerobic classes, and much more.

As such, these activities can be used to build lung capacity and improve cellular and heart function. However, the more specific the exercise, the better. To improve performance in a 10k, athletes spend the majority of their time training by running, as they will have to do in the actual 10k.

Cyclists training for the Tour de France, spend up to six hours a day in the saddle, peddling feverishly. These athletes know the importance of training the way they want their body to adapt.

This concept, called the principle of specificity , should be taken into consideration when creating a training plan. In this discussion of type and the principle of specificity, a few additional items should be considered.

Stress, as it relates to exercise, is very specific. There are multiple types of stress. The three main stressors are metabolic stress, force stress, and environmental stress.

Keep in mind, the body will adapt based on the type of stress being placed on it. Metabolic stress results from exercise sessions when the energy systems of the body are taxed. For example, sprinting short distances requires near maximum intensity and requires energy ATP to be produced primarily through anaerobic pathways, that is, pathways not requiring oxygen to produce ATP.

Anaerobic energy production can only be supported for a very limited time 10 seconds to 2 minutes. However, distance running at steady paces requires aerobic energy production, which can last for hours.

As a result, the training strategy for the distance runner must be different than the training plan of a sprinter, so the energy systems will adequately adapt.

Likewise, force stress accounts for the amount of force required during an activity. In weightlifting, significant force production is required to lift heavy loads. The type of muscles being developed, fast-twitch muscle fibers, must be recruited to support the activity.

In walking and jogging, the forces being absorbed come from the body weight combined with forward momentum.

Slow twitch fibers, which are unable to generate as much force as the fast twitch fibers, are the type of muscle fibers primarily recruited in this activity. Because the force requirements differ, the training strategies must also vary to develop the right kind of musculature.

Environmental stress, such as exercising in the heat, places a tremendous amount of stress on the thermoregulatory systems.

As an adaptation to the heat, the amount of sweating increases as does plasma volume, making it much easier to keep the body at a normal temperature during exercise. Rapidly escalating training volume or intensity too quickly is a common misstep that often results in overtraining and injury.

Impatience and unrealistic expectations can cause frustration and hinder desired progression. The process of adaptation must unfold before the benefits of your hard work materialize.

Inadequate recovery is another consequence of neglecting adaptation timelines. Runners might fail to allocate sufficient time off or active rest between intense workouts, leading to burnout and diminished performance.

In this context, I typically advise adopting a cautious approach. Balancing stress and recovery is a fundamental training principle that plays a crucial role in optimizing adaptations and ensuring long-term engagement in the sport. A prevalent misstep I often encounter involves the inclination to arrange demanding endeavors—like races or extensive training sessions—in close proximity to the designated race day.

An illustrative case arises when an athlete intends to participate in a mile race merely two weeks ahead of their target mile event. However, the aftermath of the mile exertion might not yield its complete physiological benefits until a week or even more after the intended mile race.

Consequently, rather than enhancing fitness, this mile race inadvertently adds to the burden of fatigue, leaving the athlete more tired than fit. In this scenario, comprehending the progression of adaptations over time empowers the athlete, or coach, to strategically position their high-volume training sessions well in advance of the race day, guaranteeing complete adaptations and sufficient recovery.

In essence, understanding the time course of adaptations empowers endurance athletes, particularly trail and ultrarunners, to embark on a purposeful journey.

With insights into physiological changes that progress through early, intermediate, advanced, and long-term phases, athletes can fine-tune their training strategies for optimal performance. This awareness not only ensures physical progression but also reinforces mental resilience.

Through this synergy, athletes can navigate challenges, avoid common pitfalls, and run on a path that blends resilience, science, and commitment to achieve their fullest potential in the world of endurance running. Find out what happened when this six-year run streaker and HOKA Global Athlete Ambassador took on an iconic ultramarathon in California's Sierra Nevada.

Photo: Getty Images. Heading out the door?

In particular, parents experienced greater anger in relation to competition compared to organizational and developmental stressors, harm appraisal increased negative emotions, and challenge appraisal increased positive emotions.

Where most challenge and threat research has focused on singular events, Moore et al. focused on examining the generalizability of challenge adaptive and threat maladaptive by examining the consistency of challenge and threat evaluations across potentially stressful situations.

In their sample of roller derby players, they found some idiosyncrasies in the athletes' tendency to view particular stressors as more of a challenge or threat.

A key take away message from this paper is that there is an interaction between the person and the situation in determining challenge and threat, a notion at the heart of transactional stress theories such as cognitive appraisal theory Lazarus and Folkman, , and rational emotive behavior therapy REBT —also featured in this Research Topic.

The interacting constructs and the personal-situational variability of cognitive appraisals, and by extension challenge and threat, provides an exciting task for researchers to conceptualize challenge and threat in testable theories.

This Research Topic contains two pieces of work that seek to adjust and extend theory, that of Uphill et al. and Meijen et al.

Both reflect a re-conceptualization of challenge and threat theory applied to sport. Uphill et al. provide a critical review of challenge and threat literature, and propose a new theory, Evaluative Space Approach to Challenge and Threat ESACT.

The ESACT reconciles some of the ambiguities found in the extant research and draws upon the Evaluative Space Model ESM. One of Uphill's suggestions is that rather than seeing challenge and threat as opposite ends of a single bipolar continuum, it might be better to consider that individuals could be 1 challenged, 2 threatened, 3 challenged and threatened, or 4 neither challenged or threatened by a particular stimulus.

The article by Meijen et al. also offers a rethink of the dichotomous nature of challenge and threat but is more conservative than the suggestions of Uphill et al. Meijen et al. provide a review and revision of the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes TCTSA , with a specific focus on the predictions made in the TCTSA and inclusion of Lazarusian cognitive appraisal constructs.

The revised TCTSA TCTSA-R considers additional biomarkers of challenge and threat, includes more specific predispositional factors that influence challenge and threat, and offers a more parsimonious integration of Lazarusian ideas of cognitive appraisal and challenge and threat.

Most notably, Meijen et al. propose a 2 × 2 bifurcation theory of challenge and threat, which reflects a polychotomy of four states: high challenge, low challenge, low threat, and high threat.

For example, in low threat, an athlete can evince a threat state but still perform well so long as they perceive high resources. We urge the research community to test the hypotheses posited by Uphill et al. to progress this area. The TCTSA-R places a greater emphasis on dispositional factors compared to the original TCTSA, but this aspect of challenge and threat theory is somewhat underdeveloped.

One factor that may predispose athletes to threat is the extent to which they hold irrational beliefs, a notion examined in Chadha et al. This offered some theoretical advancement to both theories of challenge and threat, and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.

Similarly, exploring dispositional traits that could affect performance under pressure, Clarke et al. examined personality traits in predicting yips and choking susceptibility in a group of golfers and archers. Notably, conscientiousness and private self-consciousness were the largest contributors to the choking model, whilst conscientiousness and perfectionistic self-promotion were the largest contributors to the yips model.

Another dispositional trait relevant to challenge and threat is rumination which is addressed by Kröhler and Berti who used data from competitive athletes from different sports to demonstrate that sports and competition-related ruminative mechanism exists and further that ruminative cognitions are related to the cognitive basis of state orientation.

In another study of personality traits, Frenkel, Brokelmann et al. set out to identify protective factors in stressful situations in risk sports. Specifically, the authors experimentally examined the role of sensation seeking and dispositional mindfulness on the stress response to a risk sport-specific stressor; the Heidelberg Risk Sport-Specific Stress Test HRSST—evaluated in the Research Topic in an additional paper by Frenkel, Laborde et al.

Their results indicate that high sensation seekers perceived the stressor as less stressful, but dispositional mindfulness did not predict anxiety.

Where irrational beliefs and rumination can predispose one to threat, one construct that could be an important protective factor from the negative impact of psychological stress is resilience. Hrozanova et al. reason that stress can deleteriously affect sleep, and that potentially mental resilience may protect individuals against the detrimental effects of stress on sleep.

In their study, the authors investigated the effects of mental resilience, emotional negative affect and cognitive worry reactions to stress, and perceived stress, on the sleep quality of junior athletes. Results revealed that sleep quality was predicted by greater mental resilience sub-components Social Resources and Structured Style, and lower worry and perceived stress.

suggest that close attention should be paid to athletes' abilities to manage worry and perceived stress, and that mental resilience could act as a protective factor preventing sleep deterioration. Relevant to the notion of protective factors, some researchers have suggested that individual's histories of adversity may influence stress reactivity, an idea examined by Wadey et al.

in their multi-study paper. The authors draw upon prominent sport injury, and challenge and threat theory to examine whether preinjury adversity affects postinjury responses over a 5-year period. They found that injured athletes with moderate preinjury adversity experienced less negative psychological responses and used more problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies compared to low or high preinjury adversity groups.

In a follow-up study, Wadey et al. found that athletes with high preinjury adversities were excessively overwhelmed to the point that they were unable to cope with injury, while those with low preinjury adversities had not developed the coping abilities and resources needed to cope postinjury.

As previously stated in this editorial, adaptation to psychological stress is a biopsychosocial phenomenon, and thus, it is pleasing to see works included in the Research Topic that take a psychophysiological perspective on psychological stress.

MacDonald and Wetherell assessed competitive anxiety and salivary diurnal cortisol in elite rowers during two training and two competition weekends. They found that anxiety levels were significantly greater during the competition phase compared with training, and specifically that cognitive anxiety was greater on the day of competition compared with the preparation day.

They also found that the cortisol awakening response CAR magnitude was significantly reduced during the competition phase compared with training, with no differences between preparation and event days.

Importantly, the findings indicate maladaptive responding during a period where maximized functioning is critical, whereby reduced or blunted CARs are typical in chronically stressed populations. Similarly examining acute psychophysiological responses, Guo et al.

examined the impact of high and low coping self-efficacy CSE on the neural activity of athletes' cerebral cortex under acute psychological stress. Results indicate that high CSE athletes were better able to cope with the acute stressor, adjust their behaviors in a timely manner according to the results of their coping, and focus more on processing positive information, demonstrating significantly lower N1 amplitude and significantly shorter N1 latency, compared to low CSE athletes.

In contrast to MacDonald and Wetherell , and Guo et al. Nevertheless, when discussing how to plan a training session or programme, no non-physical factors, such as those highlighted in this survey, are considered.

As illustration, previously the importance of the coach—athlete relationships has been suggested. Jowett and Cockerill, for example, suggested that coach education programmes should not focus only on providing information relevant to physical, technical and tactical skills, but also provide education relating to the fostering of effective relationships with athletes [ 36 ].

A strict biomedical interpretation of training adaptation, which assumes a mechanistic, and therefore predictable, relationship between conducted training and physiological adaptation, is still pervasive within the literature [ 2 , 11 ]. Nevertheless, this survey suggests that many practising coaches may hold contrary beliefs given the rated importance of multiple non-physical factors.

Therefore, it might be beneficial for future studies to look to other research paradigms that integrate these factors. An example of this could be the biopsychosocial model [ 3 ].

It has gained increasing acceptance in medicine due to its acknowledgement of the integrated role of physiological, psychological and social factors in health. From a methodological perspective given the inter-individual difference in response to training stimuli, studies should report individual responses, either within the study results or as appendices available to the interested reader [ 37 , 38 ].

Furthermore, to remain practically relevant, training science should collate, consider and, where appropriate, integrate the perspectives of practitioners who plan and deliver athletic training plans.

Despite this there are limitations that need to be addressed. As previously mentioned, probability sampling was not used in this study, which carries certain limitations with it such as not being able to make statistical inferences and therefore generalise the results from the current sample to the entire coaching population or specific subpopulations [ 19 , 39 ].

It is worth noting, though, that the bar is quite high for statistical inferences to be made [ 40 ]. Due to its exploratory nature, further work is needed. With no surveys discussing these topics, the questions were specifically customised.

This brings both strengths and weaknesses. Whilst bespoke questions provided novel insights, some questions could be strengthened by an increase in detail or follow-up questions. These would be worthwhile pursuing in future research.

Similarly, and inevitably, despite striving for clear expression, some questions may have been misinterpreted [ 39 ]. Finally, this survey was advertised and delivered in English only, and was subsequently unduly biased towards English-speaking participants.

Whether and how coaches integrate non-physical training influences into coaching practice and training plans remains undocumented. Similarly, given the neglect of non-physical factors within the physical training literature, it would be interesting to understand how coaches came to hold these perspectives.

Notably, and perhaps surprisingly, amongst coaches surveyed less than a third explicitly rated physical training as the most important factor in determining sports performance. While there was an almost universal belief that non-physical factors exert an influence on physical training response, there was no consensus on the relative importance of each specific non-physical factor.

In fact, within the training-specific literature it is difficult to find a study that documents, or even acknowledges, the potential role of non-physical influences in the context of training adaptation.

Currently, the science seems mired in a strict biomedical conceptualisation of training theory. Many coaches, in contrast, believe non-physical influences effect training adaptations.

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J Appl Physiol. Voisin S, Jacques M, Lucia A, Bishop DJ, Eynon N. Statistical considerations for exercise protocols aimed at measuring trainability. Exerc Sport Sci Rev. For years, Eastern European training methodologists and coaches have been using training intensity zones as brackets of 1RM to design and analyze strength training programs.

According to most of the strength training methodology literature, the best training zones to elicit maximum strength gains were zones 2 and 1 loads from 85 percent and up. In more recent years, the focus has shifted from zone 1 loads those over 90 percent to zone 3 loads those from 70 percent to 80 percent.

This shift has occurredon the basis of field experience of weightlifters except for the Bulgarian and Greek schools and their North American clones, who have used very high intensities very frequently and, not coincidentally, have had a sad story of positive doping tests , as well as Russian and Italian powerlifters.

That is, analysis of the best weightlifters' programs Roman and powerlifters has shown a concentration of training loads in zone 3. Again, identifying zone 3 as the most important zone for maximum strength development is a fundamental change because almost all classic literature about strength training has indicated that training loads for maximum strength development should be 85 percent of 1RM or higher.

Table 2. From this table, we learn that. From this table, taking into consideration the training methodology, we can infer the following points. Because different types of adaptation can occur, periodization of strength offers a seven-phase approach that follows the physiological rhythm of the neuromuscular system's response to strength training.

The seven phases are anatomical adaptation, hypertrophy, maximum strength, conversion, maintenance, cessation, and compensation. Depending on the physiological demands of the sport, the periodization of strength involves combining, in sequence, at least four of the phases: anatomical adaptation, maximum strength, conversion to specific strength, and maintenance.

All models for periodization of strength begin with an anatomical adaptation phase. Five of the seven possible phases are discussed briefly in the following paragraphs.

The remaining two phases - to be used during the taper and transition periods - are discussed in later chapters. Learn more about Periodization Training for Sports, Third Edition. Previous Next.

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