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The relationship between training intensity and training effort: the chain mediation of cognitive exhaustion and
Mengyuan Kong1, Zhongjun Chen2, Yuanyuan Hao3
1College of Physical Education and Health Management, Henan Finance University, Zhengzhou, China.
Introduction:
Training control is an important component of competitive training management, but excessive control intensity may impose psychological costs on athletes and weaken their sustained engagement in training. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory, Self-Regulatory Resource Theory, and Emotion Processing Theory, this study examined the relational mechanism linking training control intensity, cognitive exhaustion, emotional blunting, and training engagement.
Methods:
Cross-sectional questionnaire data were collected from 768 athletes. Confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multigroup analysis were used to test the proposed chain mediation model and examine whether the hypothesized pathways varied across gender and sport type.
Results:
Training control intensity was positively associated with cognitive exhaustion, which was further associated with higher levels of emotional blunting. Emotional blunting was negatively associated with training engagement. Cognitive exhaustion and emotional blunting together formed a significant chain-mediated pathway between training control intensity and training engagement. Multigroup analyses showed that gender moderated the path from training control intensity to cognitive exhaustion, whereas sport type moderated the paths from cognitive exhaustion to emotional blunting and from emotional blunting to training engagement.
Discussion:
These findings suggest that training control should be understood not only in terms of management efficiency but also in relation to athletes' psychological resource depletion and emotional responsiveness. Excessive control intensity may undermine training engagement through a sequential process involving cognitive exhaustion and emotional blunting. In practice, coaches should avoid overly frequent corrective control, provide clearer explanatory feedback, and remain attentive to athletes' cognitive and emotional states in high-intensity training contexts.
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