Investigation of the relationship between mental training and anxiety levels of active football players

The aim of this study was to examine the mental training and trait anxiety levels of competitive football players in terms of age and sports year. Examining the relationships between the phenomena and to examine the mental training levels of the participants according to their anxiety clusters was the another aim. The study was designed as a quantitative cross sectional method. 160 competitive football players from Ankara, who were selected according to the purposeful sampling method, voluntarily participated in the study. In the study, "Mental Training in Sports Scale" and "Trait Anxiety Scale" were used as data collection tools. SPSS 23 package program for Windows was used to evaluate the obtained data. The reliability of the scales used in the study for the sample group was determined by Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient. In order to test the hypotheses determined in the study, the normality values of the data were examined first and according to the normality results, Spearman Correlation and Mann Whitney U tests were used at 95% confidence interval. Non-hierarchical cluster analysis method was used to determine the anxiety clusters of the participants. According to the Spearman Correlation analysis results, no significant relationship was found between the participants' ages and sports year and their trait anxiety and mental training levels, while negative correlations were found between the participants' anxiety levels and their mental training levels. According to the Mann Whitney U test results, no significant difference was found between mental training levels according to the anxiety clusters formed by the participants. In conclusion, the present study showed that age and sports year variables do not affect mental training and trait anxiety in football players, however, as the level of mental training increases, trait anxiety decreases.