Youth Players Basic Need Satisfaction, Enjoyment and Pleasure within daily team sport training sessions, and the relationships with Physical Load Engagement: An intensive within-person longitudinal study

Youth team-sport training sessions provide repeated opportunities for skill development, yet little is known about how athletes’ momentary psychological experiences relate to their physical engagement in training. Fifty adolescent female handball players (M = 14.57, SD = 1.03) completed brief questionnaires before and after 11–12 consecutive team training sessions, while physical load (PlayerLoad™) and high-intensity events (> 1.5 m/s²) were recorded via inertial measurement units during training. Bayesian within-person analysis revealed temporal stability in basic need satisfaction, sport enjoyment, and feelings of pleasure before and after training. Before and after training, basic needs satisfaction was associated with sport enjoyment and pleasure. Pleasure before training was associated with physical load during training, which was further associated with pleasure after training. This highlights that youth athletes’ basic need satisfaction and affective experiences are intertwined with their physical engagement in training, underscoring the importance of creating need-supportive training environments that foster both positive affect and meaningful behavioral involvement for athlete development in youth sport.