Purpose: mental toughness as a set of values, approaches, perceptions and inherent emotions acquired through experience with sports in general or a specific sport in particular as a procedure adopted by the individual to examine and respond to conflicts, challenges and pressures. The aim of study is to reveal effectiveness of mental toughness training on Elite Athlete Self-Concept and performance level of certain throwing for youth wrestlers.
Methods: twenty youth wrestler's participated in this study (mean +/- SD age, 15 +/- 2.1 years), divided into two groups (experimental group -10 youth wrestlers) and (control group -10 youth wrestlers), the experimental group participated in the mental toughness program to 3 times per week for (3) months . A swimming specific adaptation of the Elite Athlete Self-Description Questionnaire (EASDQ) instrument was designed to measure six physical self-concept factors: Skills; Body; Physiological Competence (aerobic); Physiological Competence (anaerobic); Mental Competence; and Overall Performance. The control group participated only in the traditional program only; the adapted questionnaire will be referred to as the Elite Swimmers Self-Description Questionnaire (ESSDQ). In addition, All participants completed The MTQ48 (Clough et al., 2002), which used to measure mental toughness. This instrument was developed following qualitative work investigating elite athletes, coaches and sport psychologists’ perceptions and understanding of mental toughness in applied and theoretical contexts. Responses are made for the 48-items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree; to (5) strongly agree. The tests was measured before and after the mental toughness program.
Results: The results indicated that, improvement significantly for factors of Elite Athlete Self-Description Questionnaire (EASDQ) instrument after the mental toughness program, and the researcher founded relationship between Elite Athlete Self-Description Questionnaire (EASDQ) instruments And Psychological Performance Inventory (PPI), no improvement in performance level of certain throwing.
Conclusion: These data show that mental toughness program which suggestion from the researcher was affectedness on Elite Swimmers Self-Description, but failed to improve performance level of certain throwing.
|
