Edinburgh Napier University

  Regular testing can be used to track athletes' changes in performance over time. However, testing should not be limited to physiological characteristics alone, but also encompass perceived psychological status and well-being. Foster (1998) suggests monitoring of subjective well-being may serve to prevent deterioration in the practice of physical tasks. The relationship between psychological and physiological measures in professional team sport is not fully investigated. St Clair Gibson et al. (2003) proposed that fatigue may be the mental representation of physiological changes characterizing emotions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine relationship between psychological self-assessment of well-being and physiological parameters related to muscular performance in a professional rugby union team. 15 male professional rugby union players (26.5 ± 5.8 years; 102.6 ± 13.4 kg; 186.1 ± 9.5 cm) participated. On a weekly basis over a competitive season players completed a perceived well-being questionnaire related to manifestations of fatigue, and 3 jump squats. Vertical displacement, velocity, power, force and force impulse were calculated for each jump. Time series analysis indicates no relationship between measures of well-being and muscular performance on an individual basis. However, analysis of mean team data does show the existence of a relationship in some cases.