The research was investigated by the survey of 1,250 Taekwondo athletes who belong to the elementary school, junior school, high school, college, and semiprofessional team from June 1, 2003 to Feb 28, 2004. All of them are enrolled on the Korea Taekwo...
The research was investigated by the survey of 1,250 Taekwondo athletes who belong to the elementary school, junior school, high school, college, and semiprofessional team from June 1, 2003 to Feb 28, 2004. All of them are enrolled on the Korea Taekwondo Association (KTA) and regularly participate in national or local championship competitions. They answered to survey questions that described stress factors, coping skill, and social supports. Analyzed results on the factors the athletes' stress and injuries are as follows:
1. Overall mean of subject's age was 17.73±3.88 years. The mean period of training Taekwondo was 5.81±3.28 years.
2. Results of positive and negative life event stress indicated that the injured athletes (-47.33±41.26) had higher negative life event stress score than the non-injured athletes (-57.32±46.37).
3. The analysis of factors affecting life event stress through Pearson's product correlation indicated that the life event stresses were significantly attributed to injury experience and heterosexual love issues. The correlation coefficients between life event stress and injured experience was r = 0.299 (p <0.01) and between that and heterosexual love issues were r = -0.217 (p <0.05). This result explained that the rate of injuries during athletic activity significantly increased according to increase of levels of age from elementary school to semiprofessional team and negative heterosexual love issue significantly increased as well with increase in levels of ages.
Results indicated that the correlational coefficient between injury and changes of personal environments was r = 0.246 (p <0.05) and that coefficient between injury and hetrosexual love issues was r = 0.299 (p <0.05). This explained that the athletes who experienced injuries showed higher positive stress levels associated with athletic injury and heterosexual love issues than the non-injured athletes had.
4. In the study of social support survey, results indicated that athletes tended to make a lot of friends as they got older, which significantly increased the social support level. As well the increase in competition experiences with peer group significantly contributed to the increased social support (p <0.01).
5. The result of Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI) indicated that elementary school athletes showed higher coping skills level resulted from the higher motivation level of accomplishment than any other factors. Junior high school athletes had better abilities to get out of from their anxiety than any other factor. Coping skills of college athletes and semiprofessional athletes indicated overall higher level of coping abilities than any other groups but they showed very low coping ability to issues related to coach (p <0.01).
6. The frequency of absences in practices and competitions caused by injury was significantly influenced by the age and period of training experiences from elementary school athletes to semiprofessional ones (p <0.01).
7. The Pearson product correlation analysis indicated that the correlation between stress and injury was significant (r=0.112, p <0.01).
This explained that the higher level of negative life stress is likely to induce the occurrence of injury during athletic activity.
Summarily, the increased negative stress during life events is significantly likely to result in athletic injuries. Athletes are likely to obtain social support from friends by making friends through athletic competitions and their school lives.
Recommendations
This study investigated that the effects and relationships of stress and injury on Taekwondo athletes of elementary school, middle school, high school, and semi-professional team. Followings are suggestions resulted from this analysis in order to provide research issues for further studies.
1. The study has focused on analysis of factors affecting Taekwondo athletes' stress and injuries. Now it is very necessary to find out the methods or techniques for relieving or reducing Taekwondo athletes' stress.
2. It is necessary to investigate the study of stress and injury more deeply at future further study with increase in quantitative and qualitative approaches. Especially the specified questionnaires for each individual group such as elementary, junior high, high school, college, and semi-professional are needed because some of questionnaires was not appropriate for certain groups.
To say summary from results above, Taekwondo athletes have higher vulnerability to injuries when stresses build up as well as the anxiety induced by stress produces the deterioration of athletic performance. Therefore, coaches have to try to understand athletes psychological status or mood when they are coaching. It is very important for coaches to make athletes feel comfortable without psychological stress or anxiety at practice or competition for better performance.