Diurnal Variation of Short-Term Repetitive Maximal Performance and Psychological Variables in Elite Judo Athletes

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of time of day on short-term repetitive maximal performance and psychological variables in elite judo athletes.Methods: Fourteen Tunisian elite male judokas (age: 21 ± 1 years, height:172 ± 7 cm, body-mass: 70.0 ± 8.1 kg) performed a repeated shuttle sprint and jump ability (RSSJA) test (6 m × 2 m × 12.5 m every 25-s incorporating one countermovement jump (CMJ) between sprints) in the morning (7:00 a.m.) and afternoon (5:00 p.m.). Psychological variables (Profile of mood states (POMS-f) and Hooper questionnaires) were assessed before and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) immediately after the RSSJA.Results: Sprint times (p > 0.05) of the six repetition, fatigue index of sprints (p > 0.05) as well as mean (p > 0.05) jump height and fatigue index (p > 0.05) of CMJ did not differ between morning and afternoon. No differences were observed between the two times-of-day for anxiety, anger, confusion, depression, fatigue, interpersonal relationship, sleep, and muscle soreness (p > 0.05). Jump height in CMJ 3 and 4 (p < 0.05) and RPE (p < 0.05) and vigor (p < 0.01) scores were higher in the afternoon compared to the morning. Stress was higher in the morning compared to the afternoon (p < 0.01).Conclusion: In contrast to previous research, repeated sprint running performance and mood states of the tested elite athletes showed no-strong dependency of time-of-day of testing. A possible explanation can be the habituation of the judo athletes to work out early in the morning.

The effects of residential environment on the condition and fitness of soccer players in the summer

“…Interestingly, stress and mood scores differed between groups, and players felt the most stress and negative feelings at the 30°C condition. These results were consistent with the results of a previous study, where despite changes in stress and mood scores, no differences in fitness levels were found ( Chtourou et al, 2018 ). As mentioned earlier, differences in stress and mood scores according to residential conditions may be closely related to sleep quality.…”

“…Players might be more sensitive to psychological responses than physical responses. For example, physical fitness of elite players such as total time of repeated sprints, fatigue index, and jump height was not changed in afternoon training compared to morning training, but difference in psychological variables such as rate of perceived exertion, vigour scores, and stress was observed ( Chtourou et al, 2018 ). These results indicate that differences in residential environment in the summer affect sensitive psychological factors but are considered to be sufficient long-term stimuli to change physical fitness factors.…”

Time-of-day variation on performance measures in repeated-sprint tests: a systematic review

“…Following the examination of titles, abstracts and keywords of all these manuscripts, 21 academic studies were deemed potentially relevant to the topic and subsequently retained for full-text analysis. After additional full-text analysis, 10 studies were deemed eligible and included in the systematic review and met the inclusion criteria (Aloui et al 2013;Chtourou et al 2018;Giacomoni et al 2006;Lopes-Silva et al 2019;Pullinger et al 2014Pullinger et al , 2018aPullinger et al , 2018bRacinais et al 2005Racinais et al , 2010Zarrouk et al 2012). Upon further inspection of the 384 articles present in their bibliographical references, none of these studies met the inclusion criteria and hence were deemed ineligible.…”

“…In the running studies, three used the Woodway Force 3.0 non-motorized treadmill to assess repeated-sprints, while one used an over ground indoor PVC running surface (Table 1). Further, three studies used sprint durations of 3-s (Pullinger et al 2014(Pullinger et al , 2018a(Pullinger et al , 2018b, one study used sprint durations of approximately 5-s or 25-m distance (Chtourou et al 2018), and six studies used sprint durations of 6-s (Aloui et al 2013;Giacomoni et al 2006;Lopes-Silva et al 2019;Racinais et al 2005Racinais et al , 2010Zarrouk et al 2012). The number of sprint repetitions varied from 5 to 10 and the duration of recoveries varied from~20 to 30-s (Table 1), and were either passive (n = 5), active (n = 1) or not reported (n = 4).…”

“…Two studies included in this review did not find any repeated-sprint performance variables to show a significant difference between the morning and evening conditions. The study performed by Chtourou et al (2018) tested repeated-sprint performance of 14 elite male judokas in the morning vs. the afternoon. These authors suggested that the observed discrepancies between their findings and other studies were related to the training level of their participants and/or the differences in the involved muscle groups used in running compared to cycling (Atkinson et al 1993;Glaister et al 2008).…”