How stress impacts your athletic performance

Even experienced athletes get excited about competitions and announcing the results. A swarm of negative thoughts swirls in my head, my body becomes tense and seems to stretch into a string, and my heart is pounding at breakneck speed. At such moments, it’s easy to start doubting yourself and think for a long time whether you’re following the right training regime.

So, if you’re feeling stressed before a new workout, be sure you’re not alone. However, dealing with your emotions is still important because they can negatively affect your athletic performance. So here’s how stress can affect your achievements.

6 ways stress affects your athletic performance

1. It may limit your physical performance

When faced with a perceived threat, competition, or thoughts of being unable to handle the load, the body releases stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. This “hit or run” reaction enhances physical capabilities in a critical situation.

However, excess stress hormones can lead to muscle tension and stiffness, which limits the range of motion and flexibility exactly when needed. In addition, the body can divert resources from digestion to prioritize immediate energy needs, which leads to nausea or stomach cramps.

2. It makes it difficult to concentrate and make decisions

Anxiety before a sporting event or going to the gym can cloud mental clarity, which manifests itself in negative internal dialogue, obsessing over past mistakes, or fear of future failures. This reduces concentration and confidence and often leads to bad decisions. To achieve results, you need to stay focused. But stress prevents this: it makes you miss important signals and experience tunnel vision, preventing you from strategically adjusting your pace.

It’s even worse when stress is combined with perfectionism. Such a mixture promotes self-sabotage, that is, behavior that undermines confidence. You start to blame yourself if your training or performance is imperfect, and you also feel discouraged by making the slightest mistake.

3. Makes you feel tired

Fatigue is both a symptom of stress and its consequence. When cortisol levels go through the roof or become chronic, people constantly want to sleep. Drowsiness makes people inattentive and weak, which not only affects results but also contributes to sports injuries.

In addition, some types of activity require quick thinking and a good reaction, which a tired person is unlikely to be able to demonstrate. V I S I T A F R I N I K . C O M.Chronic stress hurts the immune system. You often get sick when she doesn’t work well by skipping workouts and performances.

4. It prevents you from recovering quickly

Stress negatively affects the ability to recover from injuries. The healing process is closely related to the body’s physiological state, and emotional solid stress interferes with key mechanisms involved in tissue and muscle regeneration. In addition, high cortisol levels suppress the immune system, leading to an insufficient fight against inflammation and other damage.

Stress can also exacerbate pain perception, making injuries more severe and prolonging recovery. Anxiety and depression, which arise against the background of emotional stress, further complicate the situation — they negatively affect how you follow the rules of rehabilitation, as well as reduce motivation to recover.

5. Loss of appetite or unhealthy cravings for food

Stress can cause a lack of appetite, which prevents you from following a proper diet and consuming enough calories to grow and strengthen your muscles. Because of this, you feel tired and can’t keep fit and lose weight, especially if you skip meals for a long time.

The coin also has a downside: You can start feeling stressed out. As a rule, it is not healthy broccoli and chicken breast but deep-fried food full of sweeteners and artificial colors. Such a stress reaction can lead to exceeding the required number of calories per day, which will lead to a set of fat mass, not muscle mass, and will gradually negate athletic performance.

6. Causes social anxiety

Maybe you’ve never worried about people looking at you in the gym while exercising. And the fact that your rivals might be stronger than you thought didn’t bother you too much either. The problem with chronic stress is that it can cause social anxiety even in the most calm and confident people.

And this is reflected in the way you interact with others. People can start to annoy you openly, and the coach seems too demanding. And you can also catch yourself thinking that you don’t want to go to training, because you will have to contact other people.