Changing the level of mental health and fundamental movement skills on pencak silat athletes through game-based circuit training

Abstract

Purpose: The decline in mental health and fundamental movement skills of athletes in the COVID-19 era has become a crucial issue and limited research on the effects of game-based circuit training towards changes in mental health levels and fundamental movement skills was a gap in this research. This study aims to investigate the effects of game-based circuit training in changing mental health levels and fundamental movement skills. Material and methods: This study adapted a quantitative approach with experimental methods. The participants in this study were pencak silat athletes at the Makassar State University located in Indonesia (n=40). Participants were divided into 2 groups, an experimental group that received game-based circuit training (n=20) and a control group that only did their usual daily training (n=20). Instrument that used to measure mental health was depression, anxiety and stress while fundamental movement skills used the gross motor development test. Data was analyzed with IBM SPSS to find the normality, mean and standard deviation. Meanwhile, Paired sample t-test was used to test differences in mental health and fundamental movement skills scores in the experimental and control groups. Results: This study has obtained several findings. First, game-based circuit training was proven to significantly change mental health levels (p<0.05). Second, game-based circuit training could also change the level of fundamental movement skills became better (p<0.05), but different results were shown in the control group which had no effect on mental health and fundamental movement skills (p>0.05). Conclusions: This research has a great contribution to the development of sports, especially in pencak silat and provide solutions for coaches and athletes in maintaining the quality of mental health and fundamental movement skills through game-based circuits.