Prior researchers have suggested various interventions to alleviate choking under pressure, such as pre-performance routine (PPR) or hemisphere-specific priming, mainly for individual, self-paced sports. This study extended this line of research to team sports (e.g., beach volleyball). 53 skilled beach volleyball players were assigned to one of four groups, including three intervention groups (PPR, hemisphere-specific priming, and a combination of both), as well as one control group. Participants performed 10 serves, aiming at a target on the beach volleyball court, in a pressure-free pretest followed by another 10 serves in a posttest under pressure. To induce pressure, the posttest performance was video-recorded and participants were told that the recordings would be broadcasted in a German television documentary. Analyses of performance accuracy revealed no significant differences between the intervention groups and the control group. On a descriptive level, however, all intervention groups improved and the control group worsened performance, with non-significant results. These results indicate that the effectiveness of PPR and hemisphere-specific priming in team sports is not as high as in individual sports. The type of sport may thus moderate the effect that choking interventions has on performance. An additional explanation may be that these interventions are especially effective for tasks based on accuracy, whereas a good beach volleyball serve is a combination of accuracy and speed of serve. Researchers may therefore focus on testing choking interventions in different types of sports and different sport tasks to determine their effectiveness.
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Prior researchers have suggested various interventions to alleviate choking under pressure, such as pre-performance routine (PPR) or hemisphere-specific priming, mainly for individual, self-paced sports. This study extended this line of research to team sports (e.g., beach volleyball). 53 skilled beach volleyball players were assigned to one of four groups, including three intervention groups (PPR, hemisphere-specific priming, and a combination of both), as well as one control group. Participant...
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