Athlete’s Mood State before Artistic Gymnastics Competitions

Abstract

The pre-competition mood is one of the main factors that can influence the performance of an athlete and changes in the athlete’s mood may be observed as training becomes more intense because elevated levels of tension, anger and depression increase the likelihood of mental and physical disorders. The hostile negative mood is a predisposing factor for many chronic-degenerative diseases. In this context, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the mood of athletes before artistic gymnastics. The participants were 90 athletes from gymnastics, male (n = 45) and female (n = 45), mean age 15.2 ± 5.23 years (coefficient of variation of 34.40%), assessed by Brunel Mood Scale, adapted by Profile of Mood States (POMS), designed to enable quick measurement of the mood state in adults and adolescents. A portion of the athletes interviewed did not achieve a desirable performance according to the iceberg profile. We observed that the athletes present characteristics of the iceberg profile in the investigated phase. However, of the total of 90 athletes, 64 (71.1%) were in the standard, and 26 athletes (28.9%) did not reach values considered ideal in the force factor, equal or higher than the 60th percentile. In this study, the artistic gymnastics athletes showed the mood profile that favors the performance and health and when analyzing the association between the subjective states of humor and age, we verified that the age did not influence the state of humor.