Comparison of Mental Toughness and Sense of Coherence in Natural and Steroid Bodybuilders

Bodybuilding has attracted a lot of people in recent years, but despite the popularity of using unauthorized and steroid drugs, it has caused many problems for athletes. The purpose of the present study was therefore to compare mental toughness and sense of coherence in natural and steroid bodybuilders.

This study was a descriptive and causal-comparative study. The statistical population consisted of all natural and steroid bodybuilders in Rasht in 2019 from 120 individuals (60 natural bodybuilders and 60 steroid bodybuilders) they were selected purposefully and included questionnaires on sport mental toughness Sheard, Golby & Van Wersch (2009) and Sense of coherence Antonovsky (1993) responded. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance by SPSS 24 software.

The findings of this study showed that there was a significant difference between the components of mental toughness and sense of coherence in the two groups (P<0.01). Natural bodybuilders had higher levels of Confidence (24.93, P<0.001), Constancy (15.60, P<0.006), Control (14.43, P<0.001), and sense of coherence (21.88, P<0.001) compared to steroid bodybuilders.

The results obtained from this research show that the abuse of steroid drugs has a significant impact on the psychological and physical aspects of bodybuilders. For this purpose, it is necessary to prevent possible injuries by providing proper information and providing psychological services to professional athletes.