Multidomain preparation practices among national- and international-level South African 5000-m runners: A cross-sectional survey

Clinton Deon Swanepoel; Charl Jacobus Roux; Heather Morris-Eyton

doi:10.58524/jcss.v5i4.1494

Authors

Clinton Deon Swanepoel University of Johannesburg, South Africa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9758-7332
Charl Jacobus Roux University of Johannesburg, South Africa https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1574-4611
Heather Morris-Eyton University of Johannesburg, South Africa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2803-6940

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58524/jcss.v5i4.1494

Keywords:

Athlete monitoring, Coaching , Distance running, Multidomain preparation, Sports nutrition

Abstract

Background: Championship 5000-m preparation involves running, recovery, psychological, strength, coaching, individualisation, nutrition, and technical/tactical/technological practices. These domains are usually described separately, leaving a scientific gap in how they coexist within the same championship cohort.

Aims: To provide a simultaneous eight-domain description in national- and international-level 5000-m runners in a South African championship cohort and examine how domain summaries depend on alternative response-coding boundaries. The profile is intended for contextual review, not to identify optimal practices or intervention priorities.

Methods: Sixty-four of 81 eligible athletes (42 men, 22 women; 25.5 ± 3.1 years) completed the same nine-section questionnaire, electronically or with in-person facilitation, between mid-October 2025 and March 2026. Operational coding converted 124 retained indicators into eight equal-weight, participant-level descriptive domain percentages. Means were accompanied by 20,000-resample bootstrap 95% confidence intervals; Friedman analysis was exploratory and omnibus only.

Result: Fixed-code domain means ranged from 58.4% to 78.5%. Running-specific training (78.5%) and coaching (78.2%) had the largest descriptive means, while technical/tactical/technological preparation (58.4%) and nutrition/fueling (63.1%) had smaller means. Within-athlete rank distributions differed globally (Friedman χ²(7) = 104.18, p < .001; Kendall’s W = .233). Broader and stricter five-point boundaries also retained global heterogeneity but altered absolute domain values and ordering.

Conclusion: Domain percentages are specification-dependent descriptive summaries, not validated adequacy scores or a fixed hierarchy. Item-level patterns may support contextual athlete-coach review and hypothesis generation, but the cross-sectional data do not establish which practices should be changed or whether changing them improves performance.

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