Associations between self-reported wellbeing and neuromuscular performance during a professional Rugby Union season

Self-reported wellness is often used to monitor fatigue responses to training and competition. Constraints within team sports mean short-form wellness questionnaires are typically preferred to literature-validated documents. This research aimed to assess the relationship between self-reported wellness and neuromuscular performance during a professional rugby union season, and to identify changes in these parameters over a 12-week period. On the first training day each week, prior to activity, 37 players rated 5 wellness subscales ('fatigue/vigour', 'upper-body soreness', 'lower-body soreness', 'mood', 'sleep quality/duration'), on a 1-5 Likert scale (1 representing the lowest wellness), and 5-repetition countermovement jumps (CMJ) were completed following a warm-up. Each week, total wellness, wellness subscales, and 4 CMJ measures for each participant were calculated as change from baseline. Withinparticipant correlations were determined between changes in wellness and CMJ measures, whilst week-to week differences and differences from baseline were assessed using Wilcoxen Signed-Rank tests. Within-participant correlations were compared for players grouped by age, and position. Wellness and CMJ scores fluctuated according to physical stress, persisted beneath baseline throughout, and showed declining trends over 12-weeks. Very large (r = 0.7-0.89)/large (r = 0.5-0.69) correlations were identified between wellness and CMJ variables (positive: velocity, dip, time; negative: duration), and each wellness subscale displayed large/very large positive correlations with CMJ velocity. This was true for all sub-groups, although subtle differences existed between ages and positions. It was concluded that players' subjective wellness is a useful tool, ideally utilised within a broader monitoring scheme, for monitoring ongoing neuromuscular fatigue; which increased from week to week.