Pressure situations in sport can be a source of anxiety for athletes (Craft, Magyar, Becker, & Feltz, 2003). Research indicates that a brief mindfulness training can improve math performance under pressure (Brunye et al., 2013); however, no known studies have examined the effects of mindfulness practice on an athletic performance under pressure. Therefore, this experiment investigated the effects of a brief mindfulness training on basketball free-throw shooting under pressure. Participants were 32 college-aged (Mage = 21.29), male competitive basketball players. Participants shot 20 free-throws in a low-pressure phase, then were pairmatched by free-throws made and randomly assigned to mindfulness (n = 16) or control (n = 16) conditions. Pressure was induced before participants listened to a 15-minute mindfulness or history of basketball recording. Next, free-throws made and free-throw shot quality were recorded for 20 free-throws. A mixed ANOVA revealed that during the high-pressure phase, the experimental groups` free-throw shooting average (M = 70.6%) was not statistically significantly different from the control groups` (M = 61.6%). Results of an ANCOVA revealed that the mindfulness group`s shot quality was higher than the control group`s during the high-pressure phase and approached a statistically significant difference when controlling for trait mindfulness (F = 2.33, p = .051, .p2 = .13). During the high-pressure phase, the mindfulness group reported statistically significantly lower levels of cognitive anxiety (t = 2.06, p = .048) and somatic anxiety (t = 2.67, p = .014) than the control group. Although the brief mindfulness intervention did not have a statistically significant effect on performance, the findings are discussed in terms of practical significance. The mindfulness group`s significantly lower anxiety indicates that mindfulness training may improve athletes` subjective experience during pressure situations.
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