Effect of sensory motor rhythm neurofeedback on psycho-physiological, electro-encephalographic measures and performance of archery players

Abstract

Neurofeedback is an effective tool in sports psychology to train athletes to enhance performance levels. Archery players are required to concentrate on accuracy during archery performances, which tends to be attained by a peak sensory motor rhythm of the electroencephalography component. The selected subjects of university level archery players have intervened with neurofeedback for four weeks. Measurements were taken to find the effect of neurofeedback training (NFT) on heart rate deceleration, precompetition pleasure level, post-competition pleasure level, pre-competition arousal level, post-competition arousal level, performance level, precision, sensory motor rhthm (SMR)/ theta ratio and SMR epoch mean of archers during competition. Statistical analysis reveals that pre-competition pleasure level (p< 0.05), pre-competition arousal level (p< 0.05), post-competition arousal level (p< 0.01) and SMR/ theta ratio (p< 0.05) showed statistically significant changes [deleted after the effective twelve sessions of SMR neurofeedback training] in the experimental group but not the control group. After twelve sessions of NFT training the experimental group archers were able to regulate the psychological status and EEG components during archery performance. The result of the present study suggests that neurofeedback training improves the archery players' regularity in scoring by enhancing accurate arrow shoot attained by controlling and regulating psycho-physiological and electro-encephalographic measures.