Comparisons of Mood States Associated With Outcomes Achieved by Female and Male Athletes in High-Level Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships: Psychological Factors Associated With the Probability of Success

Abstract

Comparisons of mood states associated with outcomes achieved by female and male athletes in high-level judo and Brazilian jiujitsu championships: psychological factors associated with the probability of success. J Strength Cond Res 35(9): 2518-2524, 2019-Moods can be used to predict the performance of athletes in various sports; accordingly, we selected the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS) to evaluate mood states of high-level judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) athletes. The aims of this study were (a) to compare the mood states of high-level female and male athletes in BJJ and judo championships in relation to their performance outcomes and (b) to verify associations between psychological factors and performance in estimating their probability of success. The subjects were 173 grappling athletes (judo, n 5 85 and BJJ, n 5 88), separated into male (n 5 129, 40 winners and 89 nonwinners) and female (n 5 44, 23 winners and 21 nonwinners) groups. Each subject's mood state was assessed 60 minutes before the first match using the BRUMS (tension, depression, anger, vigor, fatigue, and mental confusion dimensions). Descriptive and inferential statistics (including logistic regression and variance analysis) were used to evaluate relations between mood states and performance (i.e., winning/losing), with p # 0.05. Analysis showed significant differences between male and female athletes in vigor and fatigue, and differences between male judo and male BJJ athletes in tension, vigor, confusion, and fatigue. Female judo and female BJJ athletes showed significant differences in depression and vigor. Logistic regression revealed that higher levels of anger and tension increased athletes' chances of performing well in a match by 23 and 13%, respectively. In addition, lower levels of depression increased athletes' chances of better performance by up to 32%. Overall, we observed a significant relationship between mood state and sports performance. Thus, coaching staff and athletes should monitor athletes' mood states before competitions to ensure that they are in optimal condition to perform and use psychological interventions to support judo and BJJ preparation.

Anxiety and Emotional Intelligence: Comparisons Between Combat Sports, Gender and Levels Using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale and the Inventory of Situations and Anxiety Response

“…Simultaneously, it is becoming evident that judo fighter suffering from depression, and post-traumatic stress could display structural anomalies and unusual functional coupling within the hippocampal-prefrontal circuit (Godsil et al, 2013). This overlap might similarly be intertwined with the pathway's evident susceptibility to stress and with its relationship to the amygdala, associated with anxiety and mood disorders (Kirkbride et al, 2012) in judo/Brazilian jiu-jitsu (Brandt et al, 2019) and MMA athletes (Brandt et al, 2018). In consequence, the H-PFC pathway could be a potentially crucial element of the anxiety in judo athletes.…”

“…Preceding authors have developed anxiety traits questionnaires that were especially tailored to sports and was denominated as the sport competition anxiety test (SCAT) used in karate (Terry and Slade, 1995) and judo with higher values for female than male athletes (Wong et al, 2006;Interdonato et al, 2013). Recently, comparisons of mood states, using the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS), associated with outcomes achieved by female and male athletes in high-level judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) championships demonstrated that female judo athletes had higher depression and vigor index than BJJ athletes (Brandt et al, 2019), while the logistic regression revealed that higher levels of anger and tension increased athletes' chances of performing well in a match by 23% and 13%, respectively (Brandt et al, 2019). Overall, authors observed a significant relationship between mood state and sports performance (Brandt et al, 2019).…”

“…Presently, two different lines of study can be found in meta-mood combat sports research. The first one is focused on insightful experience of mood as state, as BRUMS (Wong et al, 2006;Brandt et al, 2019). Much of this investigation is concerned in investigating how a fighter's thoughts may be affected by his/her mood state, and in considerate the various types of mood regulation (Jin, 1992;Terry and Slade, 1995).…”

The Role of Psychological Factors in Judo: A Systematic Review

“…There are contradictory results on the influence of anger on athlete performance. Páez-Ardila et al [ 34 ] showed that judokas with increased anger were those who were defeated, while higher levels of anger improved the chances of better performance in individual and team sports [ 42 , 43 ]. Furthermore, the vigor deficit reduces the probability of winning [ 44 ].…”

Examining the Effects of Mindfulness–Acceptance–Commitment Training on Self-Compassion and Grit among Elite Female Athletes

“…To summarize, compared to male athletes, female athletes appeared to be at an increased risk to report negative psychological emotions (i.e., feelings of inadequacy, negative self-judgment and emotional disruption) and poorer performance [ 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]. Mindfulness-based interventions in general, and MAC, specifically, proved to be useful to counterbalance dysfunctional emotional states [ 1 , 66 , 67 , 68 ] and to improve psychological wellbeing [ 50 , 69 ].…”