Abstract

Sports skills can be developed fully only by physical and mental training. Many coaches attempt to correct poor performance by having an athlete simply put in more practice time. Often, however the real problem is not a lack of physical skills but mental skills. Athletes need to improve or enhance concentration, confidence, motivation and mental preparation. These skills can be developed through psychological skills training. To achieve this purpose, 30 male students were selected as subjects from polytechnic college in Andhra Pradesh. Subjects were divided into two groups namely experimental group and control group. Under experimental group one was mental imagery training group consisting of 15 students and the other one was goal setting training group consisting of 15 students. Control group consisted of 15 students. Each group had 15 subjects at random. The duration of the training programme was 12 weeks. The data was collected prior and immediately after the training programme. The data was statistically analysed by using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). There were significant improvement in the performance of shootingball players due to the mental imagery training programme and goal setting training programme.