ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1561808
This article is part of the Research TopicTowards a Psychophysiological Approach in Physical Activity, Exercise, and Sports-Volume VView all 9 articles
Investigating the Relationship Between Anxiety, Depression, and Forearm Muscle Deformation in Amateur Athletes Using Time-Series Analysis
Provisionally accepted
Satoshi Shimabukuro1,2,3*
Tamon Miyake3,4
Tomo Akamine1,3
Chihiro Ookubo3
Dai Yanagihara5Emi Tamaki1,3,6- 1Graduate School of Science and Engineering, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan
- 2Okinawa Rehabilitation Welfare College, Okinawa, Japan
- 3H2L Inc., Tokyo, Japan
- 4Future Robotics Organization, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
- 5Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan
- 6Department of Systems Innovation, School of Engineering,The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
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Conditioning involves the regulation of psychological health, physical fitness, and overall wellbeing, all of which are essential for optimal athletic performance. While psychological aspects have been extensively studied, the relationship between muscle activity and psychological factors such as anxiety and depression remains underexplored. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between anxiety, depression, and forearm muscle activity in amateur athletes (age: 28±9 years; sports experience: 13±5 years, play sports with upper extremities). Muscle activity was evaluated using autocorrelation coefficients derived from muscle deformation data collected via a sensor array. Anxiety and depression were assessed using validated questionnaires, and their associations with muscle deformation were analyzed. Muscle deformation suggested a task-dependent relationship between psychological factors. The trend was observed for anxiety and Hand tasks (r = -0.57, p = 0.004, pfdr = 0.05) and depression and random tasks such as HPI randomness (r = 0.46, p = 0.04, pfdr = 0.15) .These findings suggest that chronic psychological stress may impair sustained muscle contraction during cyclic movements and promote fixed motor patterns during random tasks. This study elucidates how anxiety and depression affect muscle activity under different task conditions, providing a basis for optimizing training protocols and psychological stress management strategies in athletic conditioning.
Keywords: Muscle deformation, Sports condition, Anxiety and depression, autocorrelation coefficient, Amateur athlete
Received: 16 Jan 2025; Accepted: 17 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shimabukuro, Miyake, Akamine, Ookubo, Yanagihara and Tamaki. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Satoshi Shimabukuro, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan
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