Post-competition psychological recovery in elite adolescent athletes: a technology-scaffolded perspective

In tightly scheduled competitions, elite adolescent athletes often face compressed recovery windows while their self-regulatory capacities remain under development. This developmental mismatch creates a practical regulation gap in the hours following competition, as heightened emotional activation delays downregulation and psychological recovery, thereby affecting subsequent performance. To address this challenge, the current perspective suggests that digital technologies can serve as external scaffolds to facilitate athletes' psychological recovery during critical post-competition windows. We propose a technology-scaffolded regulation framework that conceptualizes recovery as a hierarchical process progressing from physiological anchoring to emotional reframing and cognitive recharging. Within the framework, virtual reality, conversational AI, and related technologies are considered potential supports that may reduce cognitive burden and extend recovery assistance when self-regulation is most fragile. This framework establishes a foundation for future empirical research on technology-supported psychological regulation and offers practitioners a structured pathway to deliver precise support during critical post-competition recovery windows.