Comparison of the effectiveness of mental, physical and combined mental–physical practices in physical fitness of pre-university boy students of Rasht District 2, Iran

Abstract

This study has been conducted to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of practices in three areas of mental, physical and combined mental-physical in physical fitness of pre-university students of Rasht District 2, Iran. To conduct this study in a cross-sectional and quasi-experimental design, 120 high school students were selected by available sampling method. Three groups of 45 students were randomly chosen and evaluated based on Hall and Martin revised questionnaire. In order to measure and do physical fitness exercises 4×9 running test, sit, bar fix stretch, long paired jump and 54-meter dash were used, also measuring and recording the related scores were performed in two stages of pretest and posttest. The training program consisted of 8 sessions which the physical practice group did the exercise obviously, mental practice group did the task mentally and mental- physical group first did the task mentally and then took a physical one. To analyze the physical fitness differences between mean scores in these groups, multivariate analysis of covariance (Mankova) and Benfroni post method were applied. The result suggested that firstly mental-physical and next mental practice played a significant positive impact on students` physical fitness. Physical exercise has been the worst way. Consequently, to achieve athletic goals and progresses faster mentalphysical method can be used. This method is not only simple, easy, cheap and available, but also it psychologically places the individual in a desirable level in learning in order to participate in races. Keywords: Mental practice, physical exercise, physical fitness, sports.