Investigation of Athletes Mental Training and Exercise Addiction Levels

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between mental training and exercise addiction in exercising athletes. The study group of the research consisted of a total of 243 university students, 94 (38.7%) female and 149 (61.3%) male, studying at the Faculty of Sports Sciences. ''Personal Information Form'', ''Mental Training Inventory in Sport'' and ''Exercise Addiction Scale'' were applied to the participants as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, firstly, it was checked whether the research group had a normal distribution (skewness and kurtosis values). Since normal distribution was not obtained, Mann-Whitney U test were used. In the findings, it was found that male athletes were higher than female athletes in the sub-dimensions of mental performance skills, exercise addiction and postponement of individual social needs and conflict (p<0.05). When the differences between departments were analyzed, no significant difference was found in athletes' mental training and exercise addiction scores (p>0.05). When the relationship between mental training and exercise addiction was examined, it was seen that there was a positive moderate relationship (p<0.05). As a result, it was concluded that the mental training and exercise addiction levels of the participants differed according to gender, but did not differ significantly across different departments they studied.