The Effect of Different Imagery Methods on Balance in Female Students of University of Tehran

The concept of imagery is to make an image of successful movement skill or a relaxing image in mind with no body training and external experience. The aim of the present study was to compare the effect of traditional and PETTLEP mental imagery methods on static and dynamic balance. The statistical population consisted of all female University of Tehran students who had general physical education course (1) in the first educational semester in 1389-1390. 54 participants (Mean age 21.94±1.89 yrs) attended voluntary in this study. First, they completed the Revised Movement Imagery Questionnaire (MIQ-R: Hall & Martin, 1997). Afterwards, pretest of static balance (Stork Balance Test) and dynamic balance (Modified Bass Test of Dynamic Balance) were performed. Participants were randomly assigned to three (n=18) groups (Physical training, Traditional imagery and PETTLEP imagery) and trained for 12 weeks (20 min/week). Finally, posttests of static and dynamic balance were performed under the same condition as the pretest. Retention test was performed 24 hours later and transfer test 30 minutes after the retention test. One-way ANOVA test showed no significant difference in static balance, dynamic balance and imagery ability scores in pretest among groups (p>0.05). Although ANOVA with repeated measures illustrated that although all three groups improved significantly in static and dynamic balance (P<0.05), there were no significant differences in posttest among them (P>0.05). Overall, results showed PETTLEP imagery was an effective method but not sufficiently efficient in dynamic balance.