PhD, Associate Professor D.N. Makaridin^1
1Tyumen State University, Tyumen

It should be noted that sport theoreticians and practitioners have always addressed sport-specific issues and problems faced in different aspects of training including physical, technical, tactical and theoretical ones, with the issues of mental-functional conditioning being ranked among the most difficult as they are the least studied in fact. The mental-functional conditioning component has always been riddled with many problems and it is still poorly practically and theoretically grounded [1-5].

The training and competitive process specifics in modern martial arts shall be duly addressed by the process actors – that means that the karateka’s competitive activity needs to be customized to the opposition and the competitive environment with its rules and provisions that set a frame for the karateka’s mastery trials and progress. It is the mental and physical fitness that is crucial in the individual competitive performance, and every athlete shall give a special priority to its development in parallel with the technical and tactical skills and physical endurance building components [2].

Competitive activity claims and develops a variety of mental qualities including intellectual qualities that secure quality decision-making; psychomotor qualities pivotal for success of motor skills and actions; emotional qualities contributing to energy supply; volitional qualities needed to overcome barriers for competitive progress; and ethical qualities providing a basis for individual sport motivations. It is the harmonic combination of the individual mental and physical qualities specific for the relevant sport (karate in this case) that secures success in the training and competitive processes, provided the individual drawbacks are duly corrected in the process. Therefore, individual psycho-functional resource may be ranked among the key elements required for success in a sport career.

Objective of the study was to design a psycho-functional resource mobilisation and employment model to facilitate the pre-season training and competitive performance in modern elite karate.

Methods and structure of the study. Rated and analysed in the study was a variety of the elite athletes’ responses ranked by importance for the competitive performance, including the following: complex sensorimotor response rate; simple visual-motor response rate; and simple audio-motor response rate; with the athletes’ mental state tested using Effecton Studio-2006 software for psychodiagnostics including Jaguar software toolkit designed to rate accuracy, speed and reproducibility of responses. Subject to the study were members of the national karate team qualified Masters of Sports (MS) and World Class Masters of Sports (WCMS). The study was timed to the pre-season training period prior to a top-ranking international sport event.

Study results and discussion.  The simple sensorimotor response (SSR) rate provides important data on the individual sensorimotor response speed and stability qualities that are largely determined by natural inborn factors and may be improved only to a limited extent by special training tools. The simple sensorimotor response rating data given in Tables 1 and 2 may be summarised as follows:

• The test execution time of the whole sample varied within 50 s;

• The simple visual-motor response time and simple audio-motor response time varied in the wide ranges of 142-348ms and 215-8151ms, respectively;

• On the whole, the tests performance was rated as low.

Table 1. Simple visual-motor response rates

Table 2. Simple audio-motor response rates

In the complex sensorimotor response (CSR) rating test, the athlete shall identify one or few signals, and respond by one of the response options. The complex sensorimotor response rating data given in Tables 3 may be summarised as follows:

• The test execution time of the whole sample varied within 13ms (152 to 165 ms);

• The complex sensorimotor response time widely varied from 342 to 605ms i.e. was virtually twice different;

• The wrong responses varied from 0 to 4; and

• On the whole, the tests performance was rated low in three cases and high in two.

Conclusion. The study data and analyses showed the need in the athletes’ psycho-functional resource rating studies required for the training process being duly customised to the individual traits and qualities. These individual qualities shall be in special priority at the sport selection and training stages.

1. 
   Grigoryants I.A. Psikhologicheskie rezervy sportivnogo masterstva [Psychological reserves of sport skills]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2003, no. 7, pp. 21-24.

2. 
   Kitaeva M.V. Psikhologiya pobedy v sporte [Psychology of winning in sport. Study guide]. Rostov-on-Don: Fenix publ., 2006, 208 p.

3. 
   Makaridin D.N. Psikhologicheskie rezervy sportivnoy deyatelnosti edinobortsev (na primere karate WKF) [Mental reserve management in competitive martial arts: case study of WKF karate]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2016, no. 12, pp. 65-67.

4. 
   Zagvyazinskiy V.I., Manzheley I.V. Obshchaya panorama pedagogicheskogo issledovaniya po problemam fizicheskoy kultury i sporta [Pedagogical research in physical education and sport: Overview]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2016, no. 3, pp. 3-5..

5. Soloshenko N.B., Alekseeva M.V., Makaridin D.N. Mekhanizmy realizatsii upravlencheskikh resheniy po sovershenstvovaniyu uchebno-trenirovochnogo protsessa sportivnykh shkol g. Tyumen [Management solutions implementation arrangements to improve learning and training process at Tyumen sports schools]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2015, no. 12, pp. 10-12.

Corresponding author: makaridin_d@rambler.ru

AbstractThe study was designed to analyse the psycho-functional resource mobilisation issues, with WKF karate competitors taken for the case study. Rated and analysed in the study was a variety of the athletes’ responses ranked by importance for the competitive performance. Special priority in the study was given to the individual psycho-functional resource mobilisation capacity ranked among the key competitive success factors in particular and the key element of the individual performance on the whole. Every athlete shall take persistent efforts to mobilise and employ own psycho-functional resource to complement and bolster sport techniques, tactics and individual physical qualities improvement efforts.

The study was designed to rate a variety of the elite athletes’ responses including complex sensorimotor response rate; simple visual-motor response rate; and simple audio-motor response rate. Subject to the study were the members of the national karate team qualified Masters of Sports and World Class Masters of Sports. The study was timed to the pre-season training period prior to a top-ranking international sport event. The study data and analyses showed the need for the athletes’ psycho-functional resource rating studies required for the training process customisation to the individual traits and qualities.