The benefits of instructional and motivational self-talk during tennis service

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on precision and power during tennis service of novice tennis players. Self-talk is defined as "(a) verbalizations or statements addressed to the self; (b) multidimensional in nature; (c) having interpretive elements association with the content of statements employed; (d) is somewhat dynamic; and (e) serving at least two functions; instructional and motivational, for the athlete" (Hardy, 2006).The hypotheses were: both forms of self-talk will improve performance, instructional self-talk will result in a greater increase in skill precision and motivational self-talk will result in a greater increase in service speed. Speed and accuracy of participants' serves were measured. Two one-way analyses of variances were conducted to look at the relationship between the change in speed and precision of participants' tennis service from pre- to post-intervention. The self-talk interventions did have an impact on serve speed, motivational self-talk resulting in higher speeds than the control group and instructional self-talk resulting in lower speeds (the ANOVA was significant (?= .05), F(2,257) = 19.151 , p =.00). However, self-talk interventions did not have an impact on serve precision (the ANOVA was not significant (?= .05), F(2,257) = .907, p = .405.). The current findings support the results of Hatzigeorgiadis et al. (2010) motivational self-talk improves performance on power tasks involving gross muscle movements.