Purpose: This study aimed to examine the influence of pressure on anxiety and basketball free throw. Methods: Fifteen university basketball players who playing in the top level of UBA (age = 20.8±1.3 years old; high = 184.7±6.1 cm; weight= 75.8±7.1 kg) served as participants. They have been training in basketball team for 8.1±2.3 years. Participants performed twenty free shots in situations with and without pressure. In the without pressure situation, we only told the participants how much ball they had shoot; in the pressure situation, we calculated the ball that participants missed in twenty shots, then according to the missed ball, we asked them to do the aerobic training in the same minutes and decrease the experiment allowances. Results: The Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test showed a significant situation effect, Z=-3.52, p=.001, participants scored in higher anxiety level under pressure as compared to without pressure situation. The score of the basketball free throw were not significantly different in the two situations. Kendall's tau-b correlation showed that 9 players exhibited significant correlation between anxiety score and free shot scores under pressure situation. Conclusion: The extra aerobic training and reducing experiment allowances indeed increased the anxiety level. Under pressure situation, 60% of participants showed worse performance in free shots, but 40% of participants' performance remained unaffected.
Purpose: This study aimed to examine the influence of pressure on anxiety and basketball free throw. Methods: Fifteen university basketball players who playing in the top level of UBA (age = 20.8±1.3 years old; high = 184.7±6.1 cm; weight= 75.8±7.1 kg) served as participants. They have been training in basketball team for 8.1±2.3 years. Participants performed twenty free shots in situations with and without pressure. In the without pressure situation, we only told the participants how much ball they had shoot; in the pressure situation, we calculated the ball that participants missed in twenty shots, then according to the missed ball, we asked them to do the aerobic training in the same minutes and decrease the experiment allowances. Results: The Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test showed a significant situation effect, Z=-3.52, p=.001, participants scored in higher anxiety level under pressure as compared to without pressure situation. The score of the basketball free throw were not significantly different in the two situations. Kendall's tau-b correlation showed that 9 players exhibited significant correlation between anxiety score and free shot scores under pressure situation. Conclusion: The extra aerobic training and reducing experiment allowances indeed increased the anxiety level. Under pressure situation, 60% of participants showed worse performance in free shots, but 40% of participants' performance remained unaffected.