PhD, Associate professor V.V. Sibirev¹
Dr.Med., Associate professor J.K. Rodygiva^1
1Lesgaft National State University of Physical Culture, Sport and Health, St. Petersburg

Keywords: youth ice hockey, psychophysiological traits, reaction to moving object, nervous system type.

Background. Any athletic functionality rating and functions-forming mechanism assessment study needs to be based on a set of relevant psychophysiological rates [5, 2, 8]. Team sports are specific in many aspects and highly demanding, among other things, to the individual psychophysiological  qualities of athletes including those of importance for the complex psychomotor standards of the relevant sport discipline that determine specific sets of neurodynamic characteristics that are manifested in mental processes and personal traits of the athletes [4, 6]. In the context of the women’s ice hockey popularity in our country being on the rise, the sport specialist tend to give increased priority to the ways to improve the success rates of this relatively young Olympic sport discipline [3]. As demonstrated by the practical sport statistics, ice hockey is less traumatic for girls than figure skating where no protective outfits are applied. It is also important that the women’s ice hockey is basically free of power contacts and more focused on perfection of techniques, skating skills, game thinking and fast acting ability. It should be noted that a variety of psychophysiological  qualities and abilities of skilled women players including the work capacity rate variations, memorizing, attention focusing and game thinking qualities – are still understudied, and this was the reason for us to make them subject for this study.

Objective of the study was to make a comparative analysis of the junior ice hockey players’ psychophysiological qualities as a basis for categorical recommendations for the junior ice hockey education/ training/ competitive system designs.

Methods and structure of the study. The following tests from the “Effectone Studio” software toolkit were used for the purposes of the study:

• “Kaskader” [“stuntman”] Test to rate accuracy of reactions to moving object (RMO);
• “Dyatel” [“woodpecker”] Tapping Test to rate the nervous system strength and work capacity rate variations.

Subject to the study were: Group 1 of 17 girls aged 12.64±0.77 years with formal sport records of 2.5 ±0.32 years from “Pantery" ("Panthers”) junior ice hockey team of Saint Petersburg city; and Group 2 of 12 boys aged  9.79±0,23 years with formal sport records of 3.5 ±0.23 years from “Haski” junior ice hockey team of Murmansk town. Tests under the study were performed in the morning hours of regular training cycles, at rest in a special test room.

Study results and discussion. The reaction to moving object (RMO) test was designed to rate the subject’s reaction to a specific signal by a spatial superimposing of two or more objects. This type of responses is ranked high in the core elementary action sets in ice hockey player’s performance. The RMO test rates are interpreted as indicative of the subject’s ability both to assess spatial interrelations of the test objects and correlate these interrelations with the temporal movement rates in the context of the response time of the process control system on the whole. The RMO tests help identify the individual specifics of the subject’s nervous system (NS) performance standard: when it is dominated by inhibition processes, they manifest themselves in delayed reactions; and when the excitation processes dominate, the tests show an increased proportion of the early/ antedating reactions.

A comparative analysis of the RMO test data showed the RMO test rates being more stable in the boys’ group versus that of their female peers, albeit the data differences were rated not significant enough and, therefore, this finding may be qualified only as a trend. Furthermore, there are reasons to assume that longer sport records of the boys could contribute to the higher training effect detected in the RMO tests.

Both test groups were tested with the nervous process being dominated by inhibition processes as verified by the prevailing numbers of delayed reactions, the delays being found longer in the girls’ group (р≤0.05).

Table 1. Sex-specific reaction to moving object test data, (X±m)

The nervous system typing and performance profiling studies are given high priority in the theoretical and practical research of the competitive performance process. Speed qualities and their rating criteria are commonly interpreted within the psychophysiological domain as the ability to perform a variety of special actions at a highest pace. As provided by the A.A. Ukhtomskiy theory, it is the number of actions performed by a live system for certain time that may be indicative of its lability. The individual speed qualities will generally depend on many factors including weight, amplitude of the moving body segment, subject action location plane, age and sex of the acting subject, morphological and functional traits of the muscular system, lability of the nervous processes, interactions of the nervous centres, etc. It is the central nervous processes that are of major influence on the movement sequence performance speeds [2].

The work capacity rate variation analyses designed to assess the nervous system lability and, hence, rate the junior athletes’ balancing abilities under monotonous physical loads demonstrated the ice hockey playing girls being more adaptive to monotonous work than their male peers (see Table 2). This statistically significant trend found in the study gives the means to design the junior ice hockey training cycles with due consideration for the sex-specific performance variations.

Table 2. Junior ice hockey players’ sex-specific nervous system typing and work capacity rate variation data, (X±m)

Note: *1- refers to the mean-to-weak NS type; 2 – refers to the weak NS type

The nervous system typing study qualified the players of both sexes with mostly the week NS type based on the Tapping Test with the test performance pace falling in the second 5-second test cycle to stay low for the rest of the test time (see Table 2). The nervous system typing test of the girls’ group showed the following breakdown: 57% of the girls’ group was tested with the weak NS type; 28% with the mean-to-weak NS type; and 14% with the strong NS type. The boys’ group was tested mostly (67%) with the weak NS type; and the remaining 33% were tested with mean-to-weak NS type. No statistically significant differences were found between both of the test groups. It should be noted that it is the NS type plus the anatomico-physiological traits of a junior athlete that determine the individual style of the core motor activity and the individual predisposition to certain mental conditions.

Therefore, it is the junior ice hockey players’ inborn individual traits of the dominating weak nervous system type that heavily contribute to the individual styles of the core motor activity and individual predispositions to certain pre-start conditions – that ultimately will determine the degrees of the players’  adaptation to the sport-specific loads. It should be noted that the nervous system typing tests need to be designed on a long-term basis for the reason that the NS formation is known to be completed in adolescence. Junior ice hockey players tested with weak nervous system type are known to be highly volatile in their moods, very sensitive to influences, touchy and quick to take offences [1]. They are more predisposed to lose control in a variety of competitive situations, and they are easily carried away by their emotions and highly inclined to a variety of negative pre-start conditions.

Conclusion. The junior ice hockey players’ ability to assess the spatial interrelations of the test objects and correlate these interrelations with the temporal movement rates in the context of the response time of the process control system on the whole, as verified by the RMO tests, were found more stable in the ice hockey playing boys’ group versus their female peers’ group.

• The higher monotony-tolerance of the ice hockey playing girls, as revealed by the study, gives the grounds for differentiation of the junior ice hockey training cycle designs. Coaches of women’s ice hockey teams may increase the share of the long monotonous training practices in the cycles, whilst the junior men’s ice hockey team coaches are recommended to make the practices as diverse as possible.
• The prevalence of the weak nervous system type in the junior ice hockey players, as found by the tests, requires the motor tasks in the training process being duly individualized and styled by the coaches with due allowance for the NS-type-specific pre-start conditions (like pre-start fever or apathy) that junior ice hockey players of both sexes are equally prone to. 

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Corresponding author: yurodygina@yandex.ru

Abstract. The article gives an analysis of the psychophysiological traits of 9-12 years old ice hockey players of both sexes tested by the reaction to moving object and work capacity rate variation tests and the nervous system typing tests. The statistically significant sex-specific psychophysiological differences found by the study are recommended to be taken into account in the junior ice hockey education/ training/ competitive system designs.