The Effect of Jacobson’s Progressive Muscle Relaxation Method On The Competitive Anxiety Level Of Jordanian Muay Thai Athletes

Competitive anxiety has an impact on an athlete’s performance development because it decreases the ability to concentrate before an upcoming event or competition. It is very important to find strategies to overcome the anxiety of an athlete. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the effect of Jacobson’s progressive muscle relaxation method (PMR) on the competitive anxiety level of Jordanian Muay Thai athletes. A sample of 20 Muay Thai athletes participated in the study, then they were divided randomly into experimental group (n=10) and control group (n=10). The experimental group was exposed to a three-week PMR intervention consisting of 3 sessions per week. Sport Anxiety Scale-2 was used to measure the competitive anxiety level pre and post intervention for both experimental and control groups. The SPSS package was used to analyze the data. Results revealed no significant differences in the level of competitive anxiety after applying the intervention, the level of anxiety was decreased by (13.6%) which means that this method had little but no significant effect on decreasing the anxiety level of Muay Thai athletes. As the present study adopted a three-week intervention, in contrast with most of the previous studies that implemented interventions extended for longer periods, future research may shed light on the effect of the psychological intervention period on the significant effect of PMR on anxiety.