The acute effect of mental fatigue on strength endurance in young kickboxers

This study was conducted to examine the acute effects of Mental Fatigue (MF) on strength endurance in well-trained young kickboxers. A total of 17 female/male athletes (age: 15.76±1.44 years; height: 167.06±8.63 cm; body weight: 62.03±10.63 kg) participated. The Repeated Measurement Design was used. Accordingly, the participants had 3 sessions; pre-preparation, control, and mental fatigue. In the pre-preparation session, demographic information and one repetition maximum (1RM) for bench press (BP) and squat (SQ) exercises were taken. The athletes' strength endurance was performed until 60% of 1RM exhaustion; the number of repetitions (NOR) and movement time (MT) were recorded. In the MF session, the participants were subjected to a 30-minute Stroop task before the strength test. In order to determine the differences in NOR and MT between the sessions and the differences in measurements according to gender, the Paired sample t-test was used. The presence of MF significantly reduced SQ-NOR by 34.5%, SQ-MT by 36.88%, BP-NOR by 22.71%, and BP-MT by 28.27% (p<0.05). Based on gender, MF had a significant negative effect on SQ-NOR, SQ-MT, and BP-MT in women and men and on BP-NOR only in women athletes (p<0.05). As a result of the research, 30-min MF application negatively affects the lower and upper extremity strength endurance performance in young kickboxers. In this respect, young kickboxers should avoid activities that will cause mental fatigue such as using digital screens or solving questions or puzzles for social media purposes for 30 min or more before training and competition, which will prevent possible muscular performance loss.