Investigation of the relationship BETWEEN NON-invasive cardiac activities and performance errors of elite orienteering athletes during competition

Orienteering is an outdoor type of sport that requires finding the control points located on the map with different terrain conditions in the fastest and shortest time with the right order as well. Orienteering is a versatile endurance sport that requires physical and cognitive competence while trying to find the best route to reach the goal. Such sports, combined with physical and mental stress, significantly affect the cardiovascular response. However, to the best of our knowledge there is no study that examines the relationship between the psychophysiological conditions of orienteering athletes during the competition and the performance errors made by the athletes. Therefore, the aim of this thesis study is to investigate whether the cardiac activities of elite orienteering athletes change with a non-invasive method before, during and after the mistake made by the athlete during the competition. Forty (17 women + 23 men) elite orienteering athletes between the ages of 18-40 participated in the current study voluntarily. Data were recorded throughout the competition with the Polar H10 chest strap and Polar V800 heart rate monitor. For off-line analysis, heart rate variability (HRV) values were evaluated by using Kubios HRV Premium software in three domain respectively; time domain, frequency domain and nonlinear domain. Significant statistical difference was found in the heart rate and stress index values of the athletes participating in the study during and after the error of the competition (p<,05). In addition, a statistically significant difference was found in the r-MSSD and SDNN values of HRV before and after the mistakes made during the competition (p<,05). When the data were categorize according to gender variable in comparisons between groups by analysis of variance, a statistically significant difference was found in favor of male athletes for HR/HF, LF, HF and SD1/SD2 values (p<,05). As a result, the psycho-physiological changes experienced by the elite level orienteering athletes via their mistakes during the competition may affect their performance accordingly. In line, based on the current findings obtained from the gender variable, especially female orienteering athletes are affected more negatively after making such mistakes during competition. Coaches aiming to improve performance in orienteering athletes should consider monitoring HRV in order to have deeper understanding of psychophysiological changes of athletes. Future research should take individual differences (e.g. personality, gender etc.) into account when performing psychophysiological investigation studies.