Correlations of Clinically Significant and other Subjective Signs of the Body State in Highly Qualified Athletes

Abstract

The study of the subjective signs of athletes in the training process has the same importance as the study of objective characteristics, which helps to identify overstrain states of systems and their underrecovery. The purpose of the study was to determine the connections of clinically significant subjective signs of athletes with other subjective signs of the body state of highly qualified athletes in the pre-competition period. Material and methods. 202 highly qualified male athletes aged 22.6 ± 2.8 years were examined. They were representatives of acyclic sports. Their sport experience was 10.3±3.1 years. The questionnaire together with other research methods were conducted in the morning on an empty stomach in the pre-competition period. Results and discussion. According to the questionnaire signs we identified some things might be clinically significant, namely: unpleasant sensations in the heart, feeling of interruption in the heart work, sweating at rest, headache after sleep, sweating at low loads, the feeling of fatigue after sleep, sweating at the sleep. Unpleasant sensations in the heart and feeling of interruption in the heart work were the most critical from the perspective of overload or underrecovery of cardiovascular system. This was confirmed by their connections with their weekly duration (r = 0.230, р = 0.021 and r = 0.343, р = 0.000, accordingly) and duration of trainings (r = 0.202, р = 0.042 and r = 0.361, р = 0.000, accordingly). There were no other subjective signs with such connections. Noteworthy was the inverse relationship between sweating at low load and the age of athletes (r = -0.249, р = 0.012) and their training experience (r = -0.275, р = 0.005), which is quite understandable from the perspective of formation of adaptation mechanism with increasing training experience. Sweating at low loads is associated with a feeling of heaviness in working muscles (r = 0.230, р = 0.020), and a feeling of fatigue after sleep with feelings of fatigue at rest the day after training (r = 0.250, р = 0.012), feeling of heaviness during training (r = 0.210, p = 0.035) and a headache after training (r = 0.221, p = 0.026). These clinically significant subjective signs had a number of specific links that could be essential for assessing functional and non-functional overstrain in the athlete’s body. Conclusion. In general, the analysis of associations of clinically significant subjective signs of athletes allowed to determine the most important ones for assessing the condition of athletes. The analysis of other subjective signs should be conducted taking into account the data of objective instrumental research