Introduction

In today's world, the changes that have occurred in various areas of life have made physical education and sports one of the inevitable necessities. Physical education and sports, which include various aspects of education and training, including the acquisition and processing of motor skills, development and maintenance of physical fitness in order to create health and gain health, etc., have played an effective role in the growth and excellence of humans. Participation in sports activities is also achieved. Measuring the behaviors that coaches present when they are in sports teams and the effects that these behaviors may have on the behavior and motivation of the athletes, can cause the officials to make decisions and plan in the growth and improvement of coach-athlete relationships. also do useful applications. Because conducting research related to the motivational climate of coaches and the mental toughness of athletes has rarely been done, and on the other hand, due to the necessity of the issue of the motivational climate used by coaches during training and competition in order to provide suitable applications, it is more visible than in the past. eats, so it prompted the researcher to examine the relationship between the motivation of coaches and the mental well-being of swimmers in Mashhad.

Method: The research method is descriptive and correlation type, which was implemented in the field. The number of members of the statistical population of this research was made up of female athletes in the field of swimming in the city of Mashhad, according to the announcement of the Mashhad Swimming Board (N=2000). By applying Cochran's formula, the number of members of the statistical sample was estimated to be 322, and after the distribution and collection of questionnaires, 286 questionnaires were completed and were subjected to final analysis. To collect data, the motivational atmosphere questionnaire made by Ronald et al. (2008) and the standard mental toughness questionnaire made by Sheard et al. (2009) were used. Corrective opinions of sports psychology professors were used to determine formal and content validity and to ensure the feasibility of questionnaires. By conducting a preliminary study on 20 swimmers, the reliability of motivational atmosphere and mental toughness questionnaires was obtained as 0.79 and 0.75, respectively. In order to analyze the data, descriptive indices and statistical tests of Kolmogorov Smironov and correlation coefficient, regression analysis and path analysis were used.

Results: The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the coaches' motivational climate and mental toughness (r=0.423, P≥0.001). Also, a significant relationship was observed between the motivational atmosphere of the coaches and the components of confidence, stability and control. On the other hand, the results of the regression analysis showed that the motivational atmosphere of qualified coaches can predict the stability component. Also, the path analysis between motivational climate and mental toughness was positive and significant. Also, the path analysis pattern between the motivational climate of coaches with mental toughness is positive and significant (β = 0.97, T-Value = 18.31).

Conclusion: Finally, it is concluded that due to the increasing growth of communication in sports environments and different relationships at the community level, and on the other hand due to the diversity of different sports fields, the issue of mental toughness should be considered in the community of athletes of different fields. be strengthened effectively to create mental stability among them. In addition, according to the results of the research, it is necessary to implement programs to improve the motivational atmosphere of coaches, in order to increase the possibility of effective and appropriate care in the training and competition environment. By knowing the factors affecting mental toughness, more targeted steps can be taken to strengthen this important variable among team and individual athletes. By creating and increasing the level of motivation on the part of the coaches among the swimmers, it is possible to raise the level of mental toughness among them so that they can increase their performance level to an acceptable level by mentally tolerating the pressure of training.

Research limitations:

Among the limitations of this research is the lack of control over the stressful conditions of the subjects outside of training, the limitedness of the examined sample and as a result the problem of generalizing it to other athletes in different disciplines, the existing research gap in relation to the study of the research variables, the research sample.

Keywords: Mental Toughness, Players' Performance, Results, Volleyball.

Ethical Considerations

Compliance with ethical guidelines

The ethical principles observed in the article, such as the informed consent of the participants, the confidentiality of information, the permission of the participants to cancel their participation in the research. Ethical approval was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Imam Reza University.

Funding

This study was extracted from the M.A thesis of first author at Department of Sport Psychology of University of Imam Reza University.

Authors' contribution

All authors contributed equally to the conceptualization of the article and writing of the original and subsequent drafts.

Conflict of interest

The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all participants of the present study.