Investigation of the effects of imagination practices on success motivations in elite boxers

Sport is the unity of enjoyable activities that have been with human beings since their existence, within the framework of certain rules, with a competitive environment. Imagination is creating an experience in the mind using all the senses. That is, an image must be created in the mind without external stimuli, and if possible, it must be an image that includes all the senses. Shadow boxing, which elite boxers do in their training, is an individual imagery exercise. It is an imaginary training against the opponent that the boxer visualizes in his mind.‎ Purposse: The aim of this study is to examine the motivation levels of elite boxers in sports depending on the type of imagery they use. Determining the relationship between the variables of imagination and motivation in sports, while supporting the missing resources in our country, contributing to the literature is another aim of our research. Material and Method: Relational scanning model was used in our study to examine the success motivation levels of the visualization applications used by elite boxers, which is the aim of our research, and to determine the relationship between them. ‎The universe of the research consists of elite boxers throughout Turkey. The sample of the research consists of the athletes who are randomly selected among these elite boxers, whose athlete age is at least 5 years, and who have participated in at least 20 national and international competitions. Demographic information form, ‎Imagination in Sports Inventory and Sports-Specific Achievement Motivation Scale were used as data collection tools in the research. ‎Demographic information form was prepared by the researcher, and in this 5-item form, questions were included in order to investigate the demographic information (gender, age, category, sports age, nationality status) of the participants. Results: As a result of the analysis of the research data, it was found that the success motivation levels of the athletes were high. In addition, there was a statistically significant difference between genders and sport-specific motivation levels, that males had higher scores in the total scores of the scale, there was no statistically significant difference between their genders and their level of imagery in sports, and there was a difference between the age variable and the sport-specific motivation and imagery levels of elite boxers. It was determined that he did not come. There was a significant difference between the duration of doing sports and the sport-specific motivations of elite boxers in the sub-dimension of Approaching Success and the total scores of the scale. According to this, the sports-specific motivation of the athletes who do sports for 7-9 years is higher than the groups of those who do sports for other periods.‎ Conclusion: Athletes' success motivation levels are high and moderate positive correlations were found between their success motivation and imagination levels.