Can psychological well-being scales and hormone levels be used to predict acute performance of anaerobic training tasks in elite female volleyball players?

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between pre-training psychological well-being assessment scales (General Health Questionnaire-28-GHQ-28, Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2-CSAI-2, Sport Competition Anxiety Test-SCAT, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-S-STAI-S, Oviedo Sleep Questionnaire-OSQ and Psychological Characteristics Related to Sport Performance-PCSP), and pre-training stress hormone concentrations (cortisol-C, total testosterone-TT, free testosterone-FT, adrenocorticotropic hormone-ACTH and testosterone/cortisol-T/C ratios), on acute neuromuscular performance (ANP) in female volleyballers. Forty elite female volleyballers (27 ± 4 yrs.; 178.3 ± 8.5 cm; 67.9 ± 7.2 kg) participated. Bivariate correlations were performed between psychological assessments and hormone levels with ANP. All psychological scales presented at least one significant (p < 0.05) relationship or prediction of ANP. Contrastingly, among hormones, the only significant relationship was between TT/C ratio and Overhead Medicine Ball Throw (r = 0.34; p < 0.05). Therefore, our data shows that results of general and sport-specific psychological well-being scales prior to training are more consistently related to performance in elite female volleyballers than pre-training stress hormone concentrations.