Mental training of a national archery team: Xu 2023

Sixteen archers from the Chinese national team, 8 men and 8 women chosen from the 102 in the qualifiers for the Tokyo Games, followed a five-month psychological preparation programme combining mental techniques, psychology lectures and cultural activities. Mean age was 22.83 (17.60 to 30.50) and mean training history 10.13 years. The design has three phases: observation in December 2019 and January 2020, the programme from February to June 2020, and observation without the programme in July and August 2020. Each month the athletes completed three questionnaires: mood (POMS), athlete burnout (ABQ) and state confidence (SSCI).

On average, mood disturbance went from 123.94 to 118.40 during the programme and to 115.44 afterwards; only the last value differs significantly from the start. Burnout fell from 13.13 to 12.22 and then to 12.02, with both differences significant. Confidence rose from 88.63 to 90.70 and then to 93.61, again with a significant difference only after the programme. Individual responses varied: one athlete, labelled C, got worse on all three measures.

The athletes rated the programme 3.81 out of 5 overall, with values between 3.16 and 3.30 for its separate parts; the coaches gave it 4.44. From the interviews the authors draw a single theme, "gains", with three sub-themes: technique, knowledge and vision.

The programme was delivered by the first author, a doctoral student in sport psychology with five years' experience with national teams, who lived with the team at its training base in Sichuan, under the supervision of three academics. Sessions were weekly and lasted 60 to 90 minutes. The technical part included five relaxation sessions with a biofeedback system based on heart rate variability, which awards scores through archery games, plus imagery, goal setting, coping with adversity and confidence work. The knowledge part included five lectures and 90 short articles sent through WeChat between 1 February and 1 May 2020. The cultural part included a speech contest about the speaker's sporting role model, a thank-you letter and a reading group built around classical Chinese poetry.

The questionnaires were filled in at the end of a technical training session during the final week of every month. For each athlete the authors calculate a non-overlap index between phases (NAP), counted as weak up to 0.31, medium up to 0.84 and strong above that; on the phase means they use repeated-measures analysis of variance. After each lecture the psychologist interviewed the athletes, transcribed the interviews and analysed them with reflexive thematic analysis.

There is no control group, and the programme coincided with the start of the pandemic, the team living in isolation and the postponement of the Tokyo Games, announced in March 2020. The authors themselves acknowledge that the changes may have other causes, such as the relationship with the psychologist. The clearest improvements come after the programme ended, whereas a three-phase design expects a return towards baseline: the authors read this as a lasting effect, but it makes it harder to attribute the change to the programme.

The baseline phase has only two measurements, and the text also says monthly monitoring ran from February to August 2020, which does not square with a baseline in December and January. The analysis of variance is reported with degrees of freedom (1 and 15) that do not fit three phases. For mood the text mentions strong effects in 14 athletes, but the values listed show two athletes at 1.00 during the programme and eight afterwards, short of 14 even with both phases combined. The psychologist ran the programme, conducted the interviews and transcribed them, which favours positive answers. The average differences are small: just over one point of burnout on a 5 to 25 scale, 8.5 points of mood on a 74 to 234 scale. Finally there is no shooting score at all, as the authors admit, suggesting it for future work.

This is an account of psychological work with an elite national team during an exceptional period. Mood, burnout and confidence improved slightly on average, mostly after the psychologist had left the team, and shooting scores were not examined. For a coach or psychologist the interest lies in the description of a programme combining mental techniques, education and cultural content, which the athletes received fairly well and the coaches more warmly.

One finding deserves attention even though the authors mention it only in passing: out of sixteen athletes, one got worse on everything. The same programme, in the same team, can affect people differently, and the group average does not show it.