A comparison of the mental toughness of players in team and individual sport during periodization

[摘要] English: The contribution of psychological skills on performance enhancement and mental toughness attributes and development is still limited within the sport context, even though it has numerously been proven to be an important factor that influences the success of sport achievement outcomes. No concise agreement towards the prescription of the development and improvement of mental toughness has been designed in order to improve the athletes' mental toughness during their annual training programs. The aim of this dissertation was to explore the differences in mental toughness of rugby players during periodization phases, as well as the differences between the rugby forwards' and backs' mental toughness. The differences between the mental toughness of golf players and rugby players have also been explored during periodization phases.Data from rugby players and golf players, who participate in sport on a university and regional level, had been obtained by means of the Psychological Performance Inventory that was completed by all players during the preparatory, competition, and transition periodization phases. Differences in mental toughness of rugby players between preparatory, competition and transition periodization phases were analysed using a repeated measures mixed linear model with periodization phase, team and group (forwards versus backs) as fixed effects, and fitting an unstructured covariance matrix to the repeated measures of mental toughness. From this model, mean values for each group and phase, as well as differences between mean values between periodization phases together with associated p-values and 95% confidence intervals were calculated. The data on mental toughness were compared between rugby players and golf players through a one-way analysis of variance with group (rugby vs golf) as factor, allowing for different residual variances for the two groups. The results indicated that significant differences had been found amongst rugby players with regards to their attitude control (p=0.00) that revealed significantly higher values during competition phase than during the preparation phase. When the components of mental toughness had been compared for the competition phase and the transition phase, significant differences were found for overall mental toughness (p=0.01), motivation (p=0.04), and attitude control (p=0.05), with the latter phase having scored lower than the competition phase. No significant differences were found between the mental toughness components of the preparation phase compared to the transition phase. The mental toughness of forwards and backs revealed no significant differences, although a tendency occurred where the backs obtained higher mean values for all of the mental toughness components. Significant differences had only been found for negative energy control between the golf players and rugby players. Negative energy control differed significantly (p=0.03) where the golf players portrayed much better values during the transition periodization phase than the rugby players' negative energy control values.This is the first study designed to explore mental toughness of rugby players and golf players during periodization phases, and could be the foundation for future studies to the further investigate which mental toughness components seems to be dominant during specific periodization phases �?and which components still have room for improvement, while comparing the physical performances and parameters of the athletes as well �?in order to facilitate with the development of training guidelines that enhances athletes' performances and help them to achieve their goals.

[发布机构] University of the Free State