Changing the level of mental health and fundamental movement skills on pencak silat athletes through game-based circuit training

Purpose: The decline in mental health and fundamental movement skills of athletes in the COVID-19 era has become a crucial issue and limited research on the effects of game-based circuit training towards changes in mental health levels and fundamental movement skills was a gap in this research. This study aims to investigate the effects of game-based circuit training in changing mental health levels and fundamental movement skills. Material and methods: This study adapted a quantitative approach with experimental methods. The participants in this study were pencak silat athletes at the Makassar State University located in Indonesia (n=40). Participants were divided into 2 groups, an experimental group that received game-based circuit training (n=20) and a control group that only did their usual daily training (n=20). Instrument that used to measure mental health was depression, anxiety and stress while fundamental movement skills used the gross motor development test. Data was analyzed with IBM SPSS to find the normality, mean and standard deviation. Meanwhile, Paired sample t-test was used to test differences in mental health and fundamental movement skills scores in the experimental and control groups. Results: This study has obtained several findings. First, game-based circuit training was proven to significantly change mental health levels (p<0.05). Second, game-based circuit training could also change the level of fundamental movement skills became better (p<0.05), but different results were shown in the control group which had no effect on mental health and fundamental movement skills (p>0.05). Conclusions: This research has a great contribution to the development of sports, especially in pencak silat and provide solutions for coaches and athletes in maintaining the quality of mental health and fundamental movement skills through game-based circuits.


Introduction
All countries in the world are currently experiencing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.Based on data, COVID-19 has disrupted all activities, such as market, offices, schools and universities must be stopped [1,2], postponed and cancelled sport competitions at national and international level [3,4,5], prohibited training in public places [6,7,8], until training restrictions among athletes and coaches [9,10].All of these regulations have a negative impact on several aspects, such as a decrease in physical health [11] until mental health [12,13,14).Previous studies reported that mental health disorders occured globally [15,16,17].In addition, policies on lock down or stay at home during the pandemic caused 52% of athletes experienced depression and increased the risk of mental health disorders [18].In addition, the data reported that another impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused fundamental movement skills decreased significantly [19].
Mental health is a psychological state associated with feelings of anxiety, depression and stress [20,21].A person who has a good mental health will not experience mental disorders.On the other hand, a person who has a bad mental health has the potential to trigger symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress [22,23).The World Health Organization defines mental health as a state of well-being, in which the individual can cope with the normal stresses of life or free from mental illness [24,25].Data reported that COVID-19 has attacked mental health of all people in the world and it is a global problem that must be addressed immediately [26,27,28].Athletes who have mental health disorders would experienced performance decline [29,30], whereas athletes with good mental health levels would obtain more optimal performance [31].This is in accordance with a recent report which highlighted that mental health problems can impact sports performance decline in Tokyo Olympic athletes [32].
Fundamental movement skills is a global issue that is considered crucial and related to three basic movements, namely locomotor skills, stability skills and manipulative or object control skills [33,34].The data shows that most of people experience a decrease on fundamental movement skills during the current COVID-19 pandemic [35,36].In addition, Ma et al [19], reported that the level of fundamental movement skills among young people worldwide was still low.Several factors that cause the decrease on fundamental movement skills were lockdown and stay at home policies [37,38].Improving the ability of fundamental movement skills has the potential to create an active lifestyle [39] and the basic capital for engaging in physical activity [40], physical education and sports.For example, when the fundamental movement skills is low, it will cause athletes difficult to learn and develop skills in sports [41,42].Considering the importance of mental health and fundamental movement skills aspects for athletes to be successful in sports, therefore it is needed an appropriate and effective training through game-based circuit training.
Game-based circuit is a training that uses 6 to 12 posts or workstations [43], each post contains an exercise, activity or game.The activity types that can be applied in the post such as push-ups, sit-ups, squat-jumps to physical activities, games/sports or the use of weights.Each post was performed within a predetermined time for example 1-5 minutes after completion then proceeded to the next exercise.The duration of circuit training ranged from 20 minutes to 60 minutes [44].Previous studies had shown that circuit training was beneficial for increasing sport motivation [45], strength [46], physical fitness [47].Research on circuit training has been widely conducted internationally [48,49,50], but it had not investigated about this effect on mental health and fundamental movement skills and limited previous studies on the effects of game-based circuits on changes in athlete's mental health and fundamental movement skills levels which underlying the urgency in this research.This research contributes to the training development in the sports field, so that the mental health and fundamental movement skills levels of athletes will be increase in the current pandemic crisis era.The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of game-based circuit training on changing the mental health and fundamental movement skills levels of athletes.

Participants
Participants that involved in this study were pencak silat athletes at the State University of Makassar (Indonesia) (n=40) and they were selected using a random sampling technique.Considering the relationship between researchers and participants,

Procedures
This study adapted the quantitative type by using experimental methods.This research was conducted from October to November 2022 at the State University of Makassar (Indonesia).This study followed the guidelines of the World Medical Association Code of Ethics (Helsinki Declaration for humans).The first meeting was held on October 1, 2022, all participants took a pre-test (mental health and fundamental movement skills tests).The second meeting on October 4, 2022, the experimental group carried out a game-based circuit training program while the control group only carried out their usual daily activities until the 13th meeting (October 29, 2022).In the 14th meeting (1 November 2022), all participants carried out post-test activities, namely the mental health and fundamental movement skills tests.Game-based circuit training program was held on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 02.00-03.00p.m.This research was carried out strictly by implementing the COVID-19 health protocol, all participants and the research team were checked for body temperature and used hand sanitizers.Gamebased circuit training programs are presented in Table 2.

Fundamental Movement Skills
Instruments that used to measure fundamental movement skills was Gross Motor Development Test.These test items included locomotor and object control tests [1].TGMD-2 were completed with performance criteria.For example, criteria for locomotor motion: if running, leap, jumping, horizontal jump was according to the assessment norms, then it got score from 1 to 4, while if it did not according the assessment norm it got score of 0. There were three performance criteria for catching: a) the preparatory phase in which the hands were in front of the body and the elbows were bent, b) the arms were outstretched while reaching the incoming ball, and, c) the ball was caught only with hands.Each student tried two trials for each movement skill and it was assessed based on performance criteria.The total score of the children (the sum of their individual scores) was calculated [35].This instrument has a Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.87 and a validity coefficient scale of 0.85 in this study.

Data Analysis
Data obtained from the mental health and fundamental movement skills tests results were processed through IBM SPSS version 25.0 (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp), with the following steps: (i) testing data normality (Kolmogorov-Smirnov), (ii) descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation), (iii) while the Paired Sample t-test was used to test the difference in the pretest-posttest scores on mental health and fundamental movement skills in the experimental and control groups.The level of significance was p<0.05 [52].

Results
The normality test result was normally distributed (Table 3).Table 4 shows the statistical descriptive tests results.While the Paired sample t-test test result shows that game-based circuit training had a significant effect on changes mental health and fundamental movement skills levels which became better in elite athletes (p<0.05)(Table 5) and amateurs (p<0.05)(Table 6) , but there was no significant effect in the control group (p>0.05).

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of game-based circuit training in changing the mental health and fundamental movement skills levels of pencak silat athletes.
This study has obtained several findings.First, the effect of a game-based circuit training program could change the mental health level became better in the experimental group.This is because circuit training provided a variety of game activities at each workstation, so that athletes felt happy and their mental health level gradually decreases [53].For example, athletes who initially had high levels of depression, anxiety and stress began to decline because they enjoyed the program presented and forgot all the problems they experienced [54].According to Mujriah et al [1], activities in form of game had a positive value to change the affective and psychomotor domains became better.Basically, physical activity which interesting, fun, noncompetitive characteristics [23] and presents a wealth of motion has the potential to have a positive impact in changing the quality of mental health [55,56,57].The result of this study was in line with a study conducted by Saavedra, Kristjánsdóttir, Gunnarsson, & García-Hermoso [58], who reported that the application of circuit training to 47 participants was proven to reduce levels of depression, anxiety and stress.However, different findings were shown in the control group, the athletes did not experience significant changes in their mental health.
Second, the circuit training also has the capability to change fundamental movement skills levels became better in athletes in the initially low experimental group.This is because the games included in each workstation provided motion experiences for athletes, so that their fundamental movement skills slowly developed [50].Previous studies reported similar findings, the game-based activities, such as ball games, basic movements games positively increased the fundamental movement skills level [59].Basically, the main advantage of a game-based circuit was attracted athletes to be more interested and actively involved in the training process [57].In addition, another advantage was their willingness to continuously perform the exercises in the workstations until the specified time was completed [44].Different results were found in the control group which showed no changes in fundamental movement skills levels.

Conclusions
Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that the game-based circuit training program which included lifting box, jump over old tires, throwing old tires, throwing ball into the basket, running to take the flag and kicking the ball into the target, had been proven could provide a positive effect on changing the mental health and fundamental movement skills level of martial arts athletes.This research contributes to the development of training in pencak silat, and athletes can use this training continuously.Apart from that, this study still has limitations in terms of only included one type of sports, so the effect of game-based circuit training on athletes from other sports such as soccer, basketball, volleyball, handball, swimming or other is unknown.In terms of future work, it would be interesting to compare circuit training with tabata training.
Health, sport, rehabilitation Health, sport, rehabilitation Здоров'я, спорт, реабілітація Здоров'я, спорт, реабілітація Здоровье, спорт, реабилитация Здоровье, спорт, реабилитация 2023 9(3) 53 they were recruited by sending invitation letters via WhatsApp.There were 40 out of 60 pencak silat athletes who were sent an invitation letter, responded and showed interest to involve in this research.Participants were divided into 2 groups, the experimental group (n=20) who received a game-based circuit training program and the control group (n=20) who did their daily training or did not participate in any program.Detail characteristics of participants is presented in

Table 2
Game-based circuit training program of pencak silat athletes

Table 3
Normality test calculation of pencak silat athletes

Table 6
Differences in pretest-posttest scores on mental health, fundamental movement skills for amateur pencak silat athletes