Associations between subjective and objective measures of stress and load: an insight from 45-week prospective study in 189 elite athletes
Kristina Drole, Mojca Doupona, Kathrin Steffen, Aleš Jerin, Armin Paravlic · 2025
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Description
Athletes say they are stressed; their blood tells a related but different story. Kristina Drole and four co-authors tracked both for 45 weeks in a 2025 study of 189 elite male handball players. Each week the players reported perceived stress and hours across training, matches, study, and work. Blood draws five times a season measured cortisol and the testosterone-to-cortisol balance.
More load went with more felt stress, modestly but consistently. Felt stress rose with cortisol and fell as the hormone ratio fell, again weakly. Most athletes individually showed positive stress-load links, though the strength varied widely from player to player. The authors' message for coaches is calibration. Questionnaires and blood markers overlap enough to validate each other, but neither can replace the other. The individual pattern matters more than the squad average.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Kristina Drole, Mojca Doupona, Kathrin Steffen, Aleš Jerin, Armin Paravlic |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 37 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |