The Acute Effect of Mental Fatigue on Badminton Performance in Semi-elite Players

Mental fatigue is defined as a psychological state that occurs due to a required cognitive activity. Mental fatigue manifests itself in different ways and is associated with increased error probability and decreased reaction time speed during simple cognitive tasks. The purpose of this research was to investigate the acute effect of mental fatigue on the performance of semi-skilled badminton players.

This research is among semi-experimental research in terms of practical purpose and in terms of methodology. The research design was carried out as a pre-test and post-test as a counterbalance. The sample of the present study included 20 semi-skilled female badminton athletes who were selected as available. The tools used in this research were Stroop Effect, Multidimensional Mental Fatigue, Scale, showing a neutral documentary film and Scott and Fox performance test. First, the participants were given a pre-test, after that they were given a Stroop effect task and after 48 hours of watching a neutral documentary, and after each task, they were asked to perform a long serve badminton performance test.

The obtained results indicated that mental fatigue significantly caused the performance of semi-skilled badminton players to decrease in the performance of long serve badminton, but the neutral documentary show had no significant effect on the mental fatigue of semi-skilled badminton players in the performance of long serve badminton.

It can be concluded that a cognitive task training session causes mental fatigue and can have a negative effect on athletes' performance.