Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2001 June;41(2):269-74

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Urine catecholamine concentrations and psychophysical stress in elite tennis under practice and tournament conditions

Ferrauti A., Neumann G., Weber K., Keul J.

From the German Sport University Cologne, Institute of Sports Games, Cologne and * Department of Physical Performance Medicine, Centre of Internal Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

Background. The pur­pose of the ­study was to spec­i­fy and ­define the dif­fer­enc­es of psy­cho­phys­i­cal ­stress in ­elite ten­nis ­players ­under prac­tice and tour­na­ment con­di­tions.
Methods. Basal, pre- and ­postcom­pe­ti­tion ­urine sam­ples of 26 nation­al­ly ­ranked ­players (NR) ­were ana­lysed for con­cen­tra­tions of epi­neph­rine (EPI) and nor­epi­neph­rine (NE) ­under prac­tice (P) and tour­na­ment con­di­tions (T). Results ­were com­plet­ed by the val­ues ­obtained ­from two inter­na­tion­al­ly ­ranked ­players (IR) com­pet­ing in 6 (­player A) and 5 (­player B) Davis-Cup match­es, respec­tive­ly.
Results. In NR, pre- and ­postcom­pe­ti­tion con­cen­tra­tions for EPI ­were sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er ­under tour­na­ment con­di­tions (T: 1.33±0.65 and 3.66±2.51 µg/100 mg crea­ti­nine vs P: 0.61±0.39 and 0.97±0.59 µg/100 mg crea­ti­nine). The NE/EPI ­ratio ­showed sig­nif­i­cant­ly ­inverse ­results (T: 3.53±1.87 and 3.58±1.59 vs P: 8.08±6.99 and 10.03±6.58), where­as the con­cen­tra­tion of NE did not dif­fer ­between the two con­di­tions. Significant cor­re­la­tions ­were ­found ­between the lev­el of per­ceived ner­vous­ness (ten-­point-­likert ­scale) and the ­postcom­pe­ti­tion con­cen­tra­tion of EPI (r=0.491, p<0.05) and the NE/EPI ­ratio (r=-0.595, p<0.01). Players who ­felt affect­ed by ner­vous­ness in ­their per­for­mance out­come ­showed sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er NE/EPI ­ratios (2.73±1.44 vs 4.49±2.54, p<0.05). The Davis-Cup-Players ­showed ­intra-indi­vid­u­al­ly con­stant but ­inter-indi­vid­u­al­ly dif­fer­ent con­cen­tra­tions of EPI (A= 2.2±0.5 vs B= 7.0±0.8 µg/100 mg crea­ti­nine), NE (A= 7.4±2.2 vs B= 15.5±3.2 µg/100 mg crea­ti­nine) and the ­ratio of NE/EPI (A= 3.7±2.2 vs B= 2.2±0.7).
Conclusions. In ten­nis tour­na­ments, sym­pa­thet­ic activ­ity is ­increased due to a high­er psy­cho­log­i­cal ­stress ­which may ­impair per­for­mance. Practical ­efforts ­should ­focus on psy­cho-reg­u­la­tive meth­ods and psy­cho­phys­i­cal regen­er­a­tion for ­players deal­ing ­with a chron­ic sym­pa­thet­ic hyp­er-acti­va­tion.