Abstract:

The object of the research was to survey effect of mental practice in learning of a new skill. Today, the world of athletics is changing in such performance is using various mental techniques to improve athletic performance is more widespread than ever. No doubt, among different mental techniques, the role of mental practice is more obvious and professional athletes evidently appropriate some time for it. But much research hasn't been done about the fact that to what extent mental practice can be effective in learning new skill. Methods: The subjects were 200 students of Technical university of Mashhad Shahid Montazeri that from among all these subjects 64 were selected. These subjects were taking the general course of physical education in the second term of 2010. They were dividing into four groups: 1 control 2 Physical practice 3 Mental practice 4 Mental – physical practice. After being taught the skill of performing the test “Three steps jump – shot “of handball they were evaluated in different times. The analysis of the collected information by SPSS and excel software showed: The average age of subjects was 19 and the average tallness of subjects was 174 cm. Some ways of practice among the four examined groups in acquisition and retention of skill stages were obviously different from one another p ≤0.05 . Based on the results of performed in this research, physical practice, mental practice & mental – physical practice affected on the acquisition and retention of skill stages. In addition, mental practice in the retention of skill stage is affected more than physical practice. So, mental practice is a way to reach to high performance.

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