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The psychological consequences of the lockdown in the sport context have been well studied. However, few studies investigated athletes' perceived stress during the rebooting in sport training and competitions; moreover, no investigations examined the relationship between perceived stress and interoceptive awareness. To mind this gap and support the enactment of appropriate behaviours for practising sports in a unique situation, we compared athletes' perceived stress data collected during the rebooting in sport activities with normative data and with those collected during the first Italian lockdown. Furthermore, we examined the impact of interoceptive awareness towards positive and negative stress by means of regression analyses. The IPSS-10 and the MAIA questionnaire were administered to 220 athletes. Findings suggest that athletes were experiencing a detrimental situation despite the resumption of sport activities but when comparing rebooting phase with the lockdown, female athletes began to feel greater financial security thereby reducing their perceived stress. Athletes who scored high especially for body trusting - the experience of one's body as safe and trustworthy - could regulate their perceived stress levels by increasing positive and reducing negative stress. Athletes could engage in mindful activities related to the body to reduce their perceived stress levels and better deal with an unprecedented situation.

We explored implicit coordination mechanisms underlying the conceptual notion of "shared mental models" (SMM) through physiological (i.e., breathing and heart rates) and affective-cognitive (i.e., arousal, pleasantness, attention, self-efficacy, other's efficacy) monitoring of two professional jugglers performing a real-time interactive task of increasing difficulty. There were two experimental conditions: "individual" (i.e., solo task) and "interactive" (i.e., two jugglers established a cooperative interaction by juggling sets of balls with each other). In both conditions, there were two task difficulties: "easy" and "hard." Descriptive analyses revealed that engaging in a dyadic cooperative motor task (interactive condition) required greater physiological effort (Median Cohen's d = 2.13) than performing a solo motor task (individual condition) of similar difficulty. Our results indicated a strong positive correlation between the jugglers' heart rate for the easy (r = .87) and hard tasks (r = .77). The relationship between the jugglers' breathing rate was significant for the easy task (r = .73) but non-significant for the hard task. The findings are interpreted based on research on SMM and Theory of Mind. Practitioners should advance the notion of "shared-regulation" in the context of team coordination through the use of biofeedback training.

This study aimed to compare the weekly natural log of the root-mean-square difference of successive normal inter-beat (RR) intervals (ln RMSSD Weekly ) and its coefficient of variation (ln RMSSD CV ) in response to 5 weeks of preseason training in professional male futsal players. A secondary aim was to assess the relationship between ln RMSSD Weekly and ln RMSSD CV . The ln RMSSD is a measure of cardiac-vagal activity, and ln RMSSD CV represents the perturbations of cardiac autonomic homeostasis, which may be useful for assessing how athletes are coping with training. Ten futsal players had their resting ln RMSSD recorded prior to the first daily training session on four out of approximately five regular training days · week -1 . Session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) was quantified for all training sessions. Despite weekly sRPE varying between 3455 ± 300 and 5243 ± 463 arbitrary units (a.u.), the group changes in ln RMSSD Weekly were rated as unclear (using magnitude-based inference), although large inter-individual variability in ln RMSSD responses was observed. The ln RMSSD CV in weeks 4 and 5 were likely lower than the previous weeks. A large and significant negative correlation (r = -0.53; CI 90%: -0.36; -0.67) was found between ln RMSSD and ln RMSSD CV . Therefore, monitoring individual ln RMSSD responses is suggested since large inter-individual variations may exist in response to futsal training. In addition, higher values of ln RMSSD are associated with lower oscillations of cardiac autonomic activity.

Our purpose was to test the multi-action plan model assumptions in which athletes' psychophysiological patterns differ among optimal and suboptimal performance experiences. Nine professional drivers competing in premier race categories (e.g. Formula 3, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge) completed the study. Data collection involved monitoring the drivers' perceived hedonic tone, accuracy on core components of action, posture, skin temperature, respiration rate and heart rate responses during a 40-lap simulated race. Time marks, gathered at three standardised sectors, served as the performance variable. The A1GP racing simulator (Allinsport, Modena) established a realistic race platform. Specifically, the Barcelona track was chosen because of its inherently difficult nature characterised by intermittent deceleration points. Idiosyncratic analyses showed large individual differences in the drivers' psychophysiological profile, as well as distinct patterns in regards to optimal and suboptimal performance experiences. Limitations and future research avenues are discussed. Action- (e.g. attentional control) and emotion (e.g. biofeedback training)-centred applied sport psychology implications are advanced.

Grounded in achievement goal theory and self-determination theory, this cross-sectional study examined the relationship between perceived motivational climate and individuals' motivation as well as the mediation effect of psychobiosocial states as conceptualised within the individual zones of optimal functioning (IZOF) model. Young students (N = 167, age range 14-15 years) taking part in physical education classes completed measures of teacher-initiated motivational climate, task and ego orientation, motivation and psychobiosocial states. Simple and serial mediation analyses indicated that a perceived mastery climate and individuals' task orientation were related to intrinsic motivation and identified regulation through the mediation of pleasant/functional psychobiosocial states. In contrast, a perceived performance climate was related to external regulation and amotivation through the mediation of unpleasant/dysfunctional psychobiosocial states. Regression analysis results also showed that discrete psychobiosocial states accounted for a significant proportion of variance in motivational variables. Taken together, findings highlight the role of psychobiosocial states as mediators of the relationship between motivational climate and an individual's motivation, and suggest that educators should consider a wide range of individual's functional and dysfunctional reactions deriving from their instructional activity.

We examined the three-way interactions among competence (actual and perceived), individuals' dispositional goal orientation (task/ego), and perceived sport motivational climate (mastery/performance) in the prediction of pleasant psychobiosocial states (i.e. emotion, cognition, motivation, bodily reaction, movement, performance, and communication) as conceptualized by the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning model. The sample consisted of 320 Italian youths (160 girls and 160 boys) aged 13-14 years who were involved in individual or team sports. The assessment included a perceived competence scale, a goal orientation questionnaire, a motivational climate inventory, and pleasant psychobiosocial descriptors. An actual competence scale was also administered to coaches asking them to assess their youngsters. Moderated hierarchical regression analysis showed that perceived competence, actual competence, and task orientation were the strongest predictors of pleasant psychobiosocial states. Moreover, actual competence and perceived competence interacted in different ways with dispositional goal orientations and motivational climate perceptions in the prediction of psychobiosocial states. It is therefore recommended that both constructs be included in motivational research.

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of emotions on athletic performance within the frameworks of the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF) model and the directional perception approach. Intensity, functional impact, and hedonic tone of trait and state anxiety, self-confidence, idiosyncratic emotions, and bodily symptoms were assessed in high-level Italian swimmers and track and field athletes (N = 56). Three standards of performance (poor, average, and good), derived from retrospective self-ratings across one to three competitions (a total of 90 observations), were used as independent variables in the analysis of variance of intensity, intra-individual, and direction scores of anxiety, self-confidence, idiosyncratic emotions, and bodily symptoms. Subsequently, intra-individual scores were categorized as near to or distant from optimal/dysfunctional zones and entered as the independent variable in the analysis of direction scores. The results provided support for the predictions stemming from both the IZOF model and the directional approach, as well as help in interpreting direction of anxiety and other idiosyncratic emotions within the IZOF framework. Athletes tended to perceive emotional levels approximating an individual's optimal zone as facilitative-pleasant, and emotional levels approximating an individual's dysfunctional zone as debilitative-unpleasant.