Changes in brainwave and dart-throwing performance based on educational self-talk

So the purpose of this study was to determine the effect of educational self-talk on brain wave changes and performance in throwing skills. 30 male students of beginners in dart sport were selected voluntarily with age range of 19 to 25 years that were all right-handed and were randomly divided into two groups of self-education and control. The study included pre-test-intervention-retention stages. In the pre-test phase, participants performed 10 dart throws and brain wave information (alpha and theta wave) was recorded by a biofeedback device. In the acquisition phase, participants practiced 60 darts throwing attempts over two days. At this stage, the training self-talk group received dart-based training instructions (using keywords such as wrist and target), while the control group did not receive any instructions and at the end of each session, 10 throws were performed as a performance test.The retention phase was performed 24 hours after the last intervention session and the participants performed 10 darts throws again. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance with repeated measure and analysis of covariance at the significant level of 0.05. The results showed that educational self-talk exercises decrease theta wave, and increase alpha wave length .Also, training improved performance in both groups, but the educational self-talk group had a relative advantage over the control group . The findings of this study showed that self-talk improves performance by positively affecting on brain waves (alpha and beta waves) and it can be considered as a psychological strategy for beginner participants to improve dart throw performance.