Anticipatory cortisol, testosterone and psychological responses to judo competition in young men

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Abstract

This study compares the anticipatory hormonal and psychological responses of 17 male judo players to an official competition with the data obtained during eight resting sessions carried out at the same time of day, throughout an entire sports season. Testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) levels were determined 1 h and 30 min before competition, and mood, anxiety and expectancies were also evaluated. C levels and anxiety scores were concurrently higher before the contest than in resting conditions; however, non-significant correlations between them were found. The anticipatory T response was not significant for the whole group. However, one group of subjects did display T increases, higher C levels, and higher motivation to win scores than the other group. Furthermore, this group also obtained a better outcome. Thus, this hormonal pattern and its relationships with psychological variables suggest an adaptive psychobiological response to a competition. Results are discussed in the context that neuroendocrine response to competition is associated with cognitive appraisal.

Introduction

Competition is a challenging situation which usually stimulates intense responses from participants, and sport contexts have been shown to be a useful setting for studying standardized competitiveness. Their value, especially in adolescent and young men, in attempting to find parallels with the social/competitive aggression displayed in other species, has been argued by several authors (Mazur and Booth, 1998, Salvador et al., 1999). A number of studies have tried to confirm in humans the differences in testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) response, depending on the outcome (victory or defeat), found in other species. However, these attempts have had contradictory results. In this context, complex psychological processes related to emotional and/or cognitive interpretation of the situation have been claimed to be more important for hormonal responses than the outcome itself. Thus, androgenic response has been associated with the involvement of the subject in the situation, with T showing positive correlations with motivation to win (Suay et al., 1999) and internal attribution (Serrano et al., 2000), but negative correlations with external attribution of the outcome (González-Bono et al., 2000, González-Bono et al., 1999). On the other hand, C has been related to the state-anxiety experienced during the contest (Harris et al., 1989; O’Connor et al., 1989, Serrano et al., 2000).

From an endocrinological point of view, the response to competitive situations is elicited even before the competitive activity starts. The organismic control of resources, including hormonal responses, in order to adjust to changing anticipated demands, has strongly been emphasized within the framework of the ‘allostasis’ (Schulkin et al., 1994). In fact, the existence of an anticipatory C response prior to stressful events of a physical nature has long been recognized (Mason et al., 1973, Sutton and Casey, 1975). More recently, it has been reported that this anticipatory response to competition includes elevations of C (Passelergue and Lac, 1999, Suay et al., 1999, Filaire et al., 2001a) and of T (Booth et al., 1989, Mazur et al., 1992, Suay et al., 1999). This response is different from that observed in anticipation to other psychologically stressful situations, in which C increases are accompanied by T decreases (Schulz et al., 1996). It has been suggested that this elevation of T has a preparatory purpose, which is specific to competitive settings (Booth et al., 1989). However, it has been pointed out that this anticipatory rise, while present in the aggregate, is not highly reliable across subjects (Mazur et al., 1997). In several studies, heightened T before competitive situations has not been found (González-Bono et al., 1999, Filaire et al., 2001b, Passelergue and Lac, 1999).

It has been stated that every anxiety-arousing situation is characterized by its being perceived as a threat, by its being only partially controlled and by uncertainty about the outcome and/or its consequences (Sapolsky, 1994). Sports competition meets these three characteristics, including both physiological and psychosocial stressors. Hence, it can be considered as an anxiety-arousing situation. The different expectations and mood states prior to the contest could also play an important role in the hormonal anticipatory response. In fact, some studies focusing on psychoendocrine responses to competition have shown that T is positively associated with motivation to win (Suay et al., 1999) and positive mood (Vigor) assessed before competitive encounters (Salvador et al., 1991), although another study failed to find significant associations with anxiety (Filaire et al., 2001a, Filaire et al., 2001b). Furthermore, it has been reported that the subject’s expectation determines the positive or negative effects of anxiety on performance (Carver and Scheier, 1988) and that self-confidence can moderate the effects of physiological arousal and cognitive anxiety on performance (Hardy, 1990). In a previous study, self-efficacy scores before the contest were related to C response depending on outcome (Suay et al., 1999). Hence, the association between anticipatory hormonal responses and psychological dimensions is not a clear, simple result, suggesting a fairly complex description of relationships.

It is worth noting that the hormonal response prior to competition has been established within a broad time range. Hormonal increases have been reported the day before the contest (Mazur et al., 1992), 1 h before (Eubank et al., 1997), during the 15 or 10 min prior to the competitive event (Booth et al., 1989, Suay et al., 1999) or immediately before (Sutton and Casey, 1975, Passelergue and Lac, 1999, Filaire et al., 2001a, Filaire et al., 2001b), and generally using just one sample. An ample period has the inconvenience of introducing other potentially confounding factors (for instance, hours of sleep or meals), whereas a very short interval involves including the effects of the ‘warming-up’ prior to the competition. On the other hand, the values obtained in the contest have been compared with resting basal values sampled on just one, perhaps non-representative day, on some occasions at different hours of the day.

Keeping all this in mind, this study focuses on hormonal and psychological anticipatory responses of judo players to a real contest (not organized ad hoc, for experimental purposes). Due to the high inter-individual hormonal variability, intra-subject designs are better for evaluating the hormonal responses. Therefore, in addition to hormone levels on the day of the contest, we also studied measures on non-competitive days at similar times of the day, so as to establish the subjects’ basal levels more accurately. Our main goal was to verify the anticipatory hormonal and psychological responses to competition during the period immediately preceding the contest. For this purpose, we employed two samples in order to better characterize the response, but avoided the potential contaminating effects derived from warming-up. A second aim was to study the relationships between T and C levels and some relevant psychological variables assessed before the competition, such as expectations, anxiety and mood. In accordance with previous research, in which we found an anticipatory hormonal response to competition (Suay et al., 1999), we expected that C levels would be higher and subjects would feel more anxious before the contest than in the resting situations studied. Moreover, we expected that T would be positively related to the motivation to win and positive mood, whereas C would be positively correlated with anxiety and negative expectations to win. A non-directional hypothesis is formulated concerning T changes.

Section snippets

Sample

The sample composed of 17 young male judo fighters. All subjects reported being drug free, which presumably could affect hormonal levels at the time of the study. They signed informed consent forms, approved by the local Medical Ethics Committee, in order to take part in the investigation. Subjects participated in laboratory tests to evaluate their maximum physical fitness. Their main general characteristics are shown in Table 1.

Procedure

At the beginning of the study, an ergometric cycling test was

Statistics

MANOVAs with two within-subject factors (‘moment’: first and second sample in each session; and ‘session’: eight levels corresponding to the eight RSs) were used to study hormonal stability in RSs. MANOVAs with two within-subject factors (moment: the two saliva samples; and session: competition vs. mean values of the RSs) were used to compare hormonal levels in competition and non-effort situations. When the results were significant, repeated measures ANOVAs with the appropriate within-subject

Reference values and stability of hormones in RSs

T levels measured in the RSs varied in a range of 128.56–311.20 pmol/l (202.88±34.32 pmol/l). Values are similar to those measured in other studies (Dabbs et al., 1991). The MANOVAs did not show any significant effect of the factors moment or session on T levels in the RSs. C oscillated between 4.84 and 16.74 nmol/l (9.49±1.24 nmol/l), which was within salivary C reference values (Aardal and Holm, 1995). When only the C levels measured in the RSs were considered, the MANOVA showed a significant

Discussion

The wide set of reference saliva samples, provided throughout 16 weeks at the same times at which the contest took place, allows us to appreciate that hormonal levels were quite stable in resting conditions (RSs), and that C levels were significantly higher in competition, thus confirming previous reports about the existence of an anticipatory C response to this type of situation. C levels in the second sample (Comp-C2) were lower than in the first one, collected 30–40 min before (Comp-C1). So,

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the General Sports Service of the Valencian Government for the use of facilities to carry out the medical checkup sessions and Dr Carlos Sanchis for his collaboration. We are also grateful to Ms Miriam Phillips for the revision of the English text. This study was supported by grant no. DEP90-874 from the Spanish Committee for Scientific and Technical Research.

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