PhD, associate professor O.I. Kolomietz
Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk

Keywords: adaptation, tolerant/ resistive strategy, training process, combined loads, university athlete, heart rate variability.

Introduction. Elite athletes are known to often resort to music of favourite styles and rhythms as one of the key tools in their individual pre-competitive conditioning strategies, although the available empirical data to substantiate benefits of musical accompaniment are very limited in fact [8-11]. We referred to a few fundamental studies [4, 5] that explore the body functionality correction mechanisms to design and test our version of the afferent therapeutic method geared to optimize, on a drug-free basis, the functional, mental and emotional balancing ability of university athletes by audio/ visual effects of the personified musical playlists. To rate the efficiency of the proposed new simple and accessible method, we tested and analyzed the process effects based on the standard Heart Rate Variability (HRV) tests [1, 3, 6].

Objective of the study was to assess the effects of synchronized and personified music content on the university athletes’ functional, mental and emotional balancing ability in the sport education and training process. 

Methods and structure of the study. Subject to the study were 56 qualified university athletes of Ural State University of Physical Culture (Chelyabinsk) who were split up into Group 1 of 30 athletes engaged in cyclic sports and Group 2 of 26 athletes engaged in acyclic sport disciplines.

The athletes were subject to the following two test stages. At the Stage 1 test, HRV data were obtained by the hearth rates being recorded on a permanent basis versus the training workloads followed by the rehabilitation process profiling till the HR were back to the starting levels. In addition, the tests recorded the vegetative state (initial vegetative tonus), vegetative reactivity and vegetative support of activity (VSA) rates. At the Stage 2 test, we used a modern “Firstbeat-sport” Diagnostic System to rate efficiencies of the synchronized and personified music (SPM) content applied for mental/ emotional balancing and HR neurovegetative regulation process optimizing in the subject athletes.

To simulate an acute mental stress under the study, we used the standard “mathematical counting” (MC) psychophysical load test procedure, plus the standard cycle ergometer exercise test procedure to obtain physical performance rating data, with the rated load of 1W per kilo of body mass and with the combined load test time set at 10 min [2].

The HRV data were obtained using the “Firstbeat-sport” Diagnostic System (made by “Firstbeat Ltd., Helsinki, Finland) equipped with a wireless module that gave the means to read, at distances up to 400 m, the process workloads and obtain the training process efficiency and athlete’s rehabilitation process rates on a real-time basis. The data were used to analyze the HR/ respiratory rate variability; HR neurovegetative regulation (rated by the HF-, LF- and VLF-oscillation intensities) rates; oxygen debt rates; maximum oxygen consumption (MOC) rates; rehabilitation rates; training effect ratios; metabolic activity (carbohydrate/ fat utilization) factors; training workload levels; rated pulse zone stay-times; rated metabolic intensity zone stay-times etc. In addition, the subject athletes were tested using the Spielberger-Hanin State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) test and S. Rosenzweig Frustration test.

Study results and discussion. At the Stage 1 test, the athletes were requested to perform the combined-load (math counting plus physical load: MC+PL) tests and the test data were used to split the subjects into two groups. Subjects tested with adequate VSA rates (52% of the sample) and rehabilitation times under 3 min by the combined-load tests were grouped into a Tolerant Adaptation Strategy (AS) Group, including 12 (40%) athletes engaged in an acyclic training process and 17 (65%) – in a cyclic one. The people qualified as committed to the Tolerant Adaptation Strategy are generally assumed to be more resistant to stresses and hypoxic effects and inclined to the functioning economizing patterns [4].

The university athletes tested with the excessive VSA rates and prolonged rehabilitation times of over 3 minutes (48%) were grouped into the Risk Group as committed to the Resistive Unfavorable Adaptation Strategy, including 18 (60%) athletes engaged in an acyclic training process and 9 (65%) – in a cyclic one. The Resistive Unfavorable (stress-deformed) Adaptation Strategy is generally formed to actively resist to extreme stressor(s). It may be highly effective due to the bodily functionality being improved to the maximum and the main metabolic and catabolic processes being enhanced; but its negative effect is that the body is fast drained and the adaptation process comes to failure [4].

In the Stage 2 test, the Resistive Adaptation Strategy Group was further split up into the Study Group (SG) subject to the synchronized and personified music (SPM) contents dominated by the relevant individual rhythms and the Reference Group which training process was accompanied with popular audio-video content selected by the trainees on their own. It is a matter of common knowledge that sensory system stimulation is beneficial for the sport performance stimulation initiatives. It is intuitively natural and spontaneous for a human being to be driven by musical rhythms and, hence, music is widely used to support and coordinate movement sequences on the whole and physical practices in particular. The positive effects of music are due to the sensory stimulation being of direct impact on the cerebral hemispheres activation levels through the brain modulation systems, and this process is known to be crucial for the psychophysical state [7].

Given in Table 1 are the data indicative of the efficiency of the SPM impacts on the HR neurovegetative regulation.

Table 1. Heart rate variations in the HR intensity ranges

Note: *significant difference at p<0.05

The SG was tested with the activity in different HR regulation ranges being optimized on the whole; with the LF/HF index, for instance, found to fall from 2.53±0.27 to 1.51±0.16 that is significantly lower than that in the RG (2.11±0.22, p˂0.05). This effect appears to be due to the activity of the sympathetic sector of the ANS (characterized by intensity of the LF-oscillations) being reduced and the parasympathetic sector activity (correlating with the intensity of the HF-oscillations) being increased. The training process efficiency rates were found to improve on the whole as well, with, for instance, a notable growth of the training efficiency indices in the SG following the SPM test (see Table 2 hereunder).

Table 2. Physical loads versus functionality indices of university athletes as provided by “Firstbeat-sport” Diagnostic System

Note: *significant difference at p<0.05; ** significant difference at p <0.001

Furthermore, 81.5% of the SG athletes following the SPM test showed normotonic responses with adequate VSA rates and normal rehabilitation periods. A variety of changes in the psychoemotional states were found indicative of the transition from the Resistive to Tolerant AS (as demonstrated by the combined-load tests) following the sensory impact course. The Reactive Anxiety Rate in the SG, for instance, was found to fall by 19.7% compared to 4.6% in the RG; the Emotional Balance Rate in the SG was found to rise by 88% versus 21% in the RG. The Tolerance to Frustration Rate (that means the ability to resist to neurotic conditions when facing some barriers when persuing the goal) was found to rise only in the SG, with the Tolerance to Frustration Integrated Rate growing from 61.85±2.22 to 82.51±2.08. This effect appears to be due to the Obvious Frustration Rate falling from 31.30±2.29 to 25.47±2.73 and Frustrating Situation Solving Response (percentage) Rate growing from 27.06±2.35 to 34.91±2.24 (p<0.05). Every of these rates in the RG were found to show only positive trends.

Conclusion. The aggregate rehabilitative psychophysiological and purely physiological effects of the SPM accompaniment appear to come indirectly through activation of the relevant bodily mechanisms that regulate vegetative functions, mental and motor activities, emotions and behavior – and shape up tolerant responses to physical, mental and emotional loads.

References

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Corresponding author: kolomiec_o@mail.ru

Abstract

The article analyzes the effects of synchronized and personified music on the university athletes' education and training process. Modern “Firstbeat-sport” Diagnostic System and the relevant technology was used to rate, on a real-time basis, the athlete’s functionality and control the training process loads and efficiencies and the individual rehabilitation profiles. Based on the performance rates obtained through combined loading and testing methods, 52% of the subject athletes were diagnosed with desadaptive bodily responses. The study demonstrated that the synchronized and personified music as a tool of influence on the movement pace and breathing rhythm may yield a variety of benefits for the training process as it may reduce the athlete’s stress-driven responses to the combined physical and mental loads and increase the training and rehabilitation process efficiency. The rehabilitation process rating analysis following the “mathematical counting” psychoemotional stress tests of the Study Group athletes showed positive normalizing trends with domination of normotonic responses (in 81.5% of the tested athletes), sufficient functionality levels and normal rehabilitation periods, and with the heart rate neurovegetative activity being optimized.