Effects of Mindfulness for Performance Programme on Actual Performance in Ecological Sport Context: Two Studies in Basketball and Table Tennis

Karima Tebourski, Marjorie Bernier, Manel Ben Salha, Nizar Souissi and Jean F. Fournier ()
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Karima Tebourski: Activité Physique Sport et Santé, Observatoire National du Sport, 1003 Tunis, Tunisia
Marjorie Bernier: Faculté des Sciences du Sport, CREAD, EA 3875, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, 29238 Brest, France
Manel Ben Salha: UFR STAPS, LINP2, Université Paris Nanterre, 92001 Nanterre, France
Nizar Souissi: Activité Physique Sport et Santé, Observatoire National du Sport, 1003 Tunis, Tunisia
Jean F. Fournier: UFR STAPS, LINP2, Université Paris Nanterre, 92001 Nanterre, France

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: Mindfulness For Performance is a programme that has been developed over 15 years. It aims to help athletes maintain effective attentional focus regardless of the disruptive sensations and thoughts induced by the performance situation. It is inspired by Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Acceptance Commitment Therapy programmes and has been adapted to the specificities of sport. It is composed of three steps: (a) psychoeducation and identification of the focus of attention, (b) mindfulness and acceptance training, and (c) integrating skills acquired into training and competition. This article reports the effects of MFP in two studies in national basketball players and in young table tennis players. The first study showed that mindfulness skills and free-throw accuracy during basketball games increased more in the experimental group than in the control group. Table tennis results revealed that participants who showed the highest percentage of adherence to the programme benefited more from MFP training in terms of performance outcome (i.e., accumulated points collected from published results compared with the baseline phase) than participants who showed weaker percentages of adherence to the programme. Both studies provided some evidence on the effects of MFP on specific performance indicators (i.e., free-throw accuracy in basketball and ranking points in table tennis), but this needs to be confirmed by further research measuring other relevant performance indicators. The impact and conditions of adherence also deserve more consideration.

Keywords: Mindfulness; performance; basketball; table tennis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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