Resilience and recovery-stress in competitive athletes

Resilience is an important construct in sport because athletes must constantly withstand a wide range of stressors to attain optimal performance. The aim of this study was to analyse how the resilient profile influences the recovery-stress levels of competitive athletes. Participants were 235 subjects (126 males and 109 females, M age = 20.7 years, SD = 4.3) who practiced different sports. They were evaluated on two occasions coinciding with the beginning of the last competitive mesocycle and after the most important competition of the season. Recovery-stress and resilience levels were studied by using the Spanish adaptations of the Recovery-Stress Questionnaire for Athletes (RESTQ-Sport) and the Resilience Scale. Resilience related positively to recovery factors and negatively to stress factors of the RESTQ-Sport. No significant difference was observed in resilience scores between evaluations performed during the last mesocycle or competition, but values for the different RESTQ-Sport stress factors increased during the second evaluation. Athletes with high resilience attained higher scores in recovery factors and lower scores in stress factors. Our results suggest that a higher level of resilience influences positively recovery-stress processes.