Excessive training loads have been identified as a risk factor for injury among athletes, although psychological monitoring may help to ameliorate this risk. As part of an investigation of injury prevention, the present study assessed relationships between perceived stress and recovery, mood responses, and physical training load for 60 athletes (male = 31, female = 29) from basketball, golf, hockey, and rowing over a period of up to 16 weeks. Training duration and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were recorded daily while the Brunel Mood Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Recovery-Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ) were completed weekly. Training load was calculated as training duration x RPE. Collectively, psychological indices predicted 24.3% of training load variance. Best predictors were RESTQ scores for physical complaints, success, social recovery, physical recovery, emotional exhaustion, and self-efficacy. Younger athletes reported more positive mood responses, less perceived stress and more positive RESTQ scores. Females reported higher training loads, more positive RESTQ scores, and more positive mood responses. Type of sport differences were identified for almost all psychological indices. Results showed that psychological indices are reflective of training load and may play an important role in injury prevention.

The conditioning of athletes may be described as a multi-level (psycho-socio-physiological) interaction of stress and recovery events which stimulate change in performance. Cognitive Behavioural Stress Management (CBSM) has previously demonstrated favourable changes in biological stress indicators, consistent with reductions in sports injury, and accelerated recovery following surgery. However, the effects of CBSM on the conditioning process (including the interactions of stress, recovery and performance change) remain speculative. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a time-limited CBSM program on athletes’ conditioning through assessment of stress, recovery and performance indicators. Thirty-two Collegiate rowers (mean 20.0 years, range 18 - 29 years) preparing for the 2007Australian Rowing Championships volunteered for stratification into 16 intervention-control matched pairs. The study spanned 17 weeks with one week of baseline assessment followed by three weeks of CBSM training and 13 weeks of continued practice and monitoring for the intervention group and for the control group. The intervention group was provided with six 1-hour sessions of instruction on the regular use of CBSM methods in response to daily stressors. The control group was offered the intervention at the end of the study. Salivary cortisol was measured weekly at the same time and same day of the week. Perceived stress, recovery and performance readiness were assessed through the Recovery Stress Questionnaire for Athletes, time to complete a maximal 2000m ergometer time-trial and a training log. Data are being analysed using SPSS, and results will be available for presentation.

Objectives: To establish injury rates among a population of elite athletes, to provide normative data for psychological variables hypothesised to be predictive of sport injuries, and to establish relations between measures of mood, perceived life stress, and injury characteristics as a precursor to introducing a psychological intervention to ameliorate the injury problem.Methods: As part of annual screening procedures, athletes at the Queensland Academy of Sport report medical and psychological status. Data from 845 screenings (433 female and 412 male athletes) were reviewed. Population specific tables of normative data were established for the Brunel mood scale and the perceived stress scale.Results: About 67% of athletes were injured each year, and about 18% were injured at the time of screening. Fifty percent of variance in stress scores could be predicted from mood scores, especially for vigour, depression, and tension. Mood and stress scores collectively had significant utility in predicting injury characteristics. Injury status (current, healed, no injury) was correctly classified with 39% accuracy, and back pain with 48% accuracy. Among a subset of 233 uninjured athletes (116 female and 117 male), five mood dimensions (anger, confusion, fatigue, tension, depression) were significantly related to orthopaedic incidents over the preceding 12 months, with each mood dimension explaining 6-7% of the variance. No sex differences in these relations were found.Conclusions: The findings support suggestions that psychological measures have utility in predicting athletic injury, although the relatively modest explained variance highlights the need to also include underlying physiological indicators of allostatic load, such as stress hormones, in predictive models.

Excessive training loads have been identified as a risk factor for injury among athletes, although psychological monitoring may help to ameliorate this risk. As part of an investigation of injury prevention, the present study assessed relationships between perceived stress and recovery, mood responses, and physical training load for 60 athletes (male = 31, female = 29) from basketball, golf, hockey, and rowing over a period of up to 16 weeks. Training duration and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were recorded daily while the Brunel Mood Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Recovery-Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ) were completed weekly. Training load was calculated as training duration x RPE. Collectively, psychological indices predicted 24.3% of training load variance. Best predictors were RESTQ scores for physical complaints, success, social recovery, physical recovery, emotional exhaustion, and self-efficacy. Younger athletes reported more positive mood responses, less perceived stress and more positive RESTQ scores. Females reported higher training loads, more positive RESTQ scores, and more positive mood responses. Type of sport differences were identified for almost all psychological indices. Results showed that psychological indices are reflective of training load and may play an important role in injury prevention.