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

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.

On the within-person associations between mindfulness, stress, mood, and self-reported performance: A daily diary among elite Chinese athletes.

“…Elite athletes with high levels of dispositional mindfulness report lower levels of performance worries (Röthlin et al, 2016) and dispositional mindfulness is positively related to self-rated (Gustafsson et al, 2015) and objective (Gooding & Gardner, 2009) indicators of athletic performance. Furthermore, mindfulness-based intervention studies have demonstrated that mindfulness training is effective for improving athletic performance among elite shooters (John et al, 2011), basketball players (Tebourski et al, 2022), dart throw beginners (Zhang et al, 2016), and student athletes (Glass et al, 2019; Gross et al, 2018).…”

“…Several studies have demonstrated small-to-medium positive associations between dispositional mindfulness and athletic performance (Gooding & Gardner, 2009; Gustafsson et al, 2015). Improvements following mindfulness training have been observed in objective indicators of performance such as free throw shooting in basketball players (Tebourski et al, 2022), shooting performance of shooters (John et al, 2011), and dart throwing performance of beginners (Zhang et al, 2016), as well as self-rated (Josefsson et al, 2019) and coach-rated performance (Gross et al, 2018). However, in another study, the effects of a 12-week mindfulness intervention on athletic performance of elite junior athletes was statistically inconsequential (Moen et al, 2015).…”

Effect of yoga and mindfulness on psychological correlates in young athletes: A meta-analysis

“…Mindfulness offers receptiveness to negative thoughts and coping with negative situations in sports and daily routines [ 1 , 20 ]. Few studies provided evidence of mindfulness practice's effects on specific performance indicators such as free-throw accuracy in basketball and table tennis rankings [ 49 ]. It was also noticed that eight weeks of Bikram yoga improved Mindfulness, cardiorespiratory endurance, flexibility, and balance (p < 0.01).…”

Special Issue: Sport Psychology Interventions for Athletes’ Performance and Well-Being

“…Moreover, Tebourski et al [ 7 ] conducted a study about Mindfulness For Performance (MFP). Inspired by MBSR and acceptance commitment therapy, and regardless of the disruptive sensations and thoughts induced by the performance situation, MFP is conceived to help athletes maintain effective attentional focus.…”