It is thought that physical, physiological, and psychological issues may affect athletic performance and success in sports. Evaluating the stated issues with a holistic approach is important to support athletic performance development in many ways (Bozkurt, 2009).
From physical states, balance is the process of maintaining the position of the body's center of gravity in the desired position on the base of support. It relies on rapid, continuous feedback from visual, vestibular, and somatosensory structures, followed by smooth and coordinated neuromuscular actions (Hrysomallis, 2011). Balance is one of the important parameters for health and athletic performance. To perform the targeted movement at an optimal level, the work of the central nervous system and the skeletal muscle system in harmony is related to balance (Günay, Şıktar, & Şıktar, 2019). Studies have shown that balance-enhancing training improves postural and neuromuscular control in athletes (Hübscher, Zech, Pfeifer, Hänsel, Vogt, & Banzer, 2010), increasing balance performance also contributes to increased athletic performance (Boccolini, Brazzit, Bonfanti, & Alberti, 2013), reduces the risk of falling and injury (Brachman, Kamieniarz, Michalska, Pawlowski, Slomka, & Juras, 2017). Studies on the balance of athletes have mostly been evaluated with physical and physiological parameters. However psychological evaluation or association is very limited. Considering that balance is directly related to the risk of falling and injury (Hrysomallis, 2007), we can consider that the risk of falling injury is affected by psychological factors such as stress, ambition to win, low motivation, and deteriorated concentration, albeit indirectly. We can reach clearer information on the subject by conducting studies examining the relationship between balance and psychological factors in the literature. Our current knowledge on this subject is limited. An important way to enhance performance is mental training such as imagery, arousal control, and self-talk (Bühlmayer, Birrer, Röthlin, Faude, & Donath, 2017). Mindfulness, which is one of the new generation mental training, is the awareness that occurs in the present moment, without judgment, for conscious attention to the experiences that occur moment by moment (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). There is evidence that increased mindfulness is associated with increased perceived performance (Moen, Federici ve Abrahamsen, 2015).
It has been stated that the ability to initiate and maintain the action in static and dynamic balance tasks in a fixed position or motion is associated with the level of cognitive awareness, those with higher awareness perform better, and there is a positive relationship between awareness and performance (Rosenstreich, Levi, & Laslo-Roth, 2018). Bühlmayer, Birrer, Röthlin, Faude, and Donath (2017) concluded that with mindfulness or mindfulness-based practices, improvements were observed in the psychological and physiological performances of athletes over the age of 15 and that it had a positive contribution to performance, especially in branches that require attention and concentration such as dart shooting and archery.
It can be thought that there may be a relationship between balance and mindfulness parameters, as they are important factors in the development of athletic performance and include similar psychological components such as attention, awareness, coordination, and motivation. As a result of the literature review, the limited number of studies examining the relationship between balance and mindfulness in athletes shows the importance of the study. The current study may contribute to the field by looking at the subject of athletic performance holistically in terms of physical and psychological aspects.