Effects of Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Transcendental Meditation Treatment on Rifle Shooting Performance

It has become necessary to place a greater emphasis on psychological and mental training methods in competitive shooting sports to achieve top performance. The widely held thought that tends to associate shooting with aggressive manners is totally mistaken. On the contrary, the shooting sport demands calmness, concentration combined with physical fitness. Shooting is a learned skill that is developed through physical and psychological practices. In this study a total of 39 male, national level rifle shooters were selected. They were divided into three groups i. e. transcendental meditation, progressive relaxation/imagery and control group. The result of the study indicated that the progressive relaxation group showed significant improvement pre to post experiment on the rifle scores and transcendental meditation group showed non-significant improvement on the rifle scores. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of transcendental meditation and progressive muscle relaxation treatment on rifle shooting performance. Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Anxiety, Transcendental Meditation, Shooting Performance.