Awareness of Mental Training Strategies among Amateur Boxers in Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to determine the state of awareness of mental training strategies across gender, competition levels, and sports experience among amateur boxers in Kenya. Mental training strategies are the basic meta-cognitive processes used to control learning and the use of mental skills in sports. The mental training strategies included in the assessment tools are relaxation, goal-setting, self-talk, and imagery. The meta-cognitive awareness test (MAS) has two dimensions of knowledge, which are the cognitive domain and the cognitive regulative domain. Five BA-K branches, 12 clubs, and 147 boxers, comprising 120 males and 27 females, competing in the BA-K boxing league, were randomly selected, and the final sample of the study was formed. Boxers were selected based on their availability during data collection. Independent t-tests and one–way ANOVA were used to compare differences in the means of awareness and the use of mental training strategies. The means of regulative awareness was highest for goal setting, followed by relaxation and imagery, while self-talk had the least. The mean of both cognitive and regulative awareness was inadequate (<3.5) on a scale of 1-5. This indicated that mental skills were not given priority throughout training. The finding that boxers had the highest cognitive awareness in goal-setting suggests that coaches should put more emphasis on goal-setting as a foundation for learning other mental strategies. The result of this study will be used by coaches to improve training approaches based on competition level and sports experience of boxers and to improve performance in boxing.