The Effects of Stress on Free Throw Percentage

Abstract

Many athletes involved in competitive sports tend to focus and give most of their attention to the physical aspect. Research has shown that athletes who train their minds and bodies have more success within their sport. Athletes can experience tremendous amounts of stress during competition that can hinder their performance. In basketball, many of these stressful situations involve close games where free throws can either cause a team to win or lose. Considering that free throws are a huge component of basketball that account for make or break game time situations, there has not been much research done to study the effects of stress on free throw percentage. Like many other sports, basketball is a game that evokes various emotions in players, staff, and fans. For athletes, it is very easy to lose focus on the task at hand due to the distractions, the pressure, and the responsibility that comes with shooting free throws in competition. Basketball is a team sport, but when it comes to free throws, there is only one player shooting the ball. Athletes must train mentally for various aspects of a game, such as free throws in both stressful and non-stressful situations to have success during competition. The physical component of sports is very important, but it is imperative to develop strong mental skills to handle adversity. This study was designed to observe and analyze the mentality of these athletes while performing a physical task to determine if there is a difference in free throw percentage due to stress during competition.