The Investigation of the Effect of Mental Skills on Performance and Success in Athletes of Asian Shooting Championships

The results of researches on elite and Olympic athletes showed that achieving and maintaining peak performance during training sessions and competitions needs high levels of physical and mental fitness. So, this study investigated the effect of mental skills on the performance and success of those athletes who participated in the sixth Asian shooting championships. 300 athletes (mean age 26 (SD 2.11) and experience 8 years (SD=3.27) participated in this study. Thomas strategic function questionnaire (TOPS) was used to evaluate subject's mental skills. For data analysis, descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), ANOVA, t test and Pearson correlationcoefficient were used at P≤0.05. The results showed a significant difference between successful, unsuccessful and less successful teams in the subscales of self-talk (P≤0.05 and F=2.69), sports imagery (P≤0.05 and F=3.59) and relaxation (P≤0.05 and F=3.66) that showed a significant effects of three factors of positive self-talk, sport imagery and relaxation on shooter's success. The t test results showed a significant difference in the subscales of self-talk (sig=0.002 and t=2.68), sports imagery (sig=0.000 and t=3.53) and negative thoughts (sig=0.002 and t=2.81) between medalist and other shooters in training sessions.