Sakhare Nitin et al.; International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology © 2018, www.IJARIIT.com All Rights Reserved Page | 403 ISSN: 2454-132X Impact factor: 4.295 (Volume 4, Issue 6) Available online at: www.ijariit.com Effect of progressive muscular relaxation technique and autogenic relaxation technique on pre competitive state anxiety and self-confidence in athletes Dr. Nitin Sakhare drnitinsakhare12@gmail.com Nav Yuva Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Physiotherapy, Kardha, Maharashtra Kalpana Sharma drkalpanas@gmail.com Nav Yuva Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Physiotherapy, Kardha, Maharashtra Anjali Syal anjalisl@yahoo.com Nav Yuva Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Physiotherapy, Kardha, Maharashtra ABSTRACT Pre-test and Post-test control group design. Participants: 45 subjects were selected on the basis of their CSAI-2R score, they were randomly allocated to one of the three groups. Group 1 (progressive muscular relaxation) group 2 (autogenic relaxation) group 3 (control). Intervention: Progressive muscular relaxation technique and Autogenic relaxation technique for 15-20 minutes. Main outcome measures include somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety, self-confidence. There was a significant reduction in somatic anxiety and cognitive anxiety and improved self-confidence found in both groups 1and 2 than group 3 (p < 0.05) whereas no significant difference observed in group 1 and group 2. From the result of the study it was concluded that relaxation technique is an effective intervention for reducing pre competitive state anxiety and improving self-confidence in athletes. As both progressive muscular relaxation and autogenic relaxation technique were significantly effective in reducing competitive state anxiety and improving self-confidence than the control group. Keywords— Cognitive, Somatic, Autogenic, CFA, PMR 1. INTRODUCTION Sport for leisure can be both fun and thrilling but when competition sets in, it may no longer be so. With competition, the first thought that comes to mind is the pressure, tension, stress or anxiety. There can be tons of pressure in any sport, it can come from the expectations of the coach, friends, and supporters who expect you to win. It can also come from within a person, sometimes we can be very hard on ourselves. We push ourselves to excel and this further ad to the stresses that come with playing in the competitive sport. Coakley (1994) define competition as “a social process that occurs when rewards are given to people on the basis of how their performance compares with the performance of other doing the same task or participating in the same event”. 14 Today’s sporting arena is highly competitive. Sports competition is well known for placing an extremely high demand on the athlete and that ever-increasing demand put the athlete in a stressful condition. Which cause the athlete to react in both physical (somatic) and psychological (cognitive) manner that can negatively affect their performance. 27, 70, 78. “Anxiety is a normal response for threat or to a psychologically stress and it is experienced occasionally by everyone it is a reaction by an individual to a stressful situation” (Spiel Berger 1972) 74 . Anxiety detracts from one’s overall psychological well-being and is defined as the surfacing of a negative form of cognition characterized by worry, self-doubt and apprehension 56 . Researchers classify anxiety into two type trait anxiety and state anxiety. Trait anxiety is the characterized of our personality of general anxiety whereas state anxiety is our response to a particular situation, it is a temporary reaction (Spiel Berger 1972). 74 Pre-competitive state anxiety is the state anxiety that occurs prior to a competitive situation. It has been one of the most thoroughly examined topics in sport and performance psychology. This is mainly due to the perceived detrimental effect of anxiety on performance. The relation between anxiety and sports performance has attracted much research attention over the past 20 years and