Climbing – between athletic performance and psychological performance

Abstract

" The aim of this research is to investigate different aspects of the functioning of the psychological system of performance climbers in Romania. We look for correlations between the concepts of competitive anxiety, self-esteem, motivation, willingness to take sports risks and age, sport experience and competitive experience, performance level. We also try to find out if the first contacts with the climbing world resulted in a favouring of the environment in which the athlete chooses his/her performance goals. Specifically, we aim to divide climbers into two categories, those with a passion for panel climbing (indoor) and those with a passion for rock climbing (outdoor). We did not distinguish between the bouldering challenge and the difficult challenge. In addition, we want to analyse the level of competitive anxiety of athletes in national climbing in order to objectify again the idea that the coach and sport psychologist must be able to identify, in the crucial moments before and during the competition, which athletes need motivation, which ones are anxious, which ones feel good and which ones can be left alone. We can classify athletes who need relaxation, activation or mindfulness sessions. Objectives: • Identifying the performance level of Romanian climbing athletes at the moment; • Highlighting the motivational dimensions of performance climbers in relation to the practice of the sport; • Investigating the passion for indoor versus outdoor climbing, with implications on the level of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and self-esteem; • Knowing the level of competitive anxiety, with a focus on the fine delineation between being debilitating or facilitating for athletes. Methodology: The research method used was the application of instruments (psychological tests and an opinion questionnaire). The test was administered between January-March 2020, online via google docs, on 28 performance climbers, aged between 13 and 48 years, female and male, juniors and seniors. Results: The climber's personality shines through on the rock (outdoors), where the desirability, and if it exists, is not a social one, but is a genuine desire to push your own limits, to face difficult challenges, to feel danger, to develop your wits and to know where to stop. These concepts correspond entirely to intrinsic motivation and a more mature personality, both in social and sporting terms, from this maturity a fundamental dimension of which is the match between real possibilities and aspirations. Conclusion: Rock climbing involves bringing out the authentic self when you are with yourself, compared to a sports competition held at the panel that highlights a socially constructed self, adapted to the fans, an image and smiles to support your image in the sporting world. In other words, avid rock athletes will train at the panel with low anxiety looking at these workouts only as technical drills for the future challenges they will face at the cliff. They are less reliant on extrinsic motivation when conducting their training on the panel, keeping it somewhere in the background for what they consider their own goals. For those for whom the stakes are to increase the difficulty of their rock routes, those will be the situations where they will have higher anxiety and a higher need to rely on extrinsic motivation as well until they reach the maturity where performance is staked by intrinsic determination"