Repetitive thinking in sports

Due to the promising effect of self-compassion interventions in sports, it was the main goal of this study to investigate, if two aspects of repetitive thinking, worry and rumination, mediate the possible relation of self-compassion on competition anxiety of women and men in different types of sport (team- vs. individual sport). Two hundred and ninety-three athletes participated, 127 were soccer players, 103 handball players, and 63 athletes practiced an individual sport. They completed four questionnaires of sport competition anxiety, rumination, worry, and self-compassion. The results show that for both rumination and worry, women had higher values than men and individual athletes had higher values than athletes from team sport. Self-compassion did not differ between women and men of different kind of sports. The result of a mediation analysis demonstrates that the relation between self-compassion and the somatic anxiety aspect was mediated by worry.