"Do, or do not. There is no try" - Yoda, 0BBY
The importance of a strong and focused mind in sport is now widely recognised. Many professional coaches and athletes believe that the awareness of one’s state of mind, as well as a range of effective strategies to mentally prepare for competition and maintain self-belief, can be the difference between winning and losing. This is most clearly evident in the case when the world’s best are in the heat of battle, where the physical characteristics and skill levels are evenly matched. Consider a play-off in golf between the world’s number 1 and 2 ranked players at a major tournament such as the US Open, or a penalty shootout at soccer’s World Cup.
To ensure athletes are adequately prepared for elite competition, coaches and managers will employ the expertise of a sports psychologist, to develop a close relationship with athletes and to help individual athletes recognise potential problems with their current level of motivation, arousal levels, anxiety and stress, especially while competing. Once these are identified, a range of psychological skills can be developed and practised, to help achieve even greater performances in competition. By helping the athlete enhance their motivation and manage anxiety, they increase the likelihood of improved performance.
The ability to maintain concentration for an extended period of time can be challenging. A range of external and internal factors can distract someone from the task on which they are currently focusing. All physical skills require cognitive processing. This could be to:
• read and filter cues received through the five senses into relevant and irrelevant categories
• read and interpret the movement and tactics of opposing players
• be able to make correct decisions that complement the execution of a particular game plan.
Athletes are able to execute many routine skills automatically, with minimal concentration and specific thought. This is achieved through years of training to practise and refine motor patterns. However, the basketballer who executes a technically correct pass that is intercepted because of a poor read of the opposition’s movements has failed to accurately focus on the relevant cues and make a correct decision. Athletes must maintain their concentration and attention on relevant cues, and be able to ignore cues that are largely irrelevant. All sporting scenarios present a unique challenge to the athlete when it comes to maintaining the correct focus.
Generally, athletes have to be able to achieve three things when maintaining their focus:
• select the important and relative cues on which to focus and ignore the rest
• manage their concentration and attention when their focus is either voluntarily or involuntarily shifted
• focus on a number of relevant cues simultaneously if required.
Generally, successful athletes are able to focus more on the process and actual movement skill or team tactic to be executed, and ignore the factors that do not have a direct impact or relevance to the actual execution. This is particularly important prior to executing skills performed in a more stable and static environment, such as a penalty shot, free throw or conversion. However, in these moments the athletes will be more acutely aware of their thought processes, and are more likely to have to combat thoughts of doubt, fear and anxiety. The athlete must be able to stay positive and confident, focus only on the relevant cues and information, and be able to block and ignore the factors that are irrelevant to the impending skill to be performed. Another aspect of concentration and attention is the unique situation where an athlete enters a state of total immersion and focus on the play around them. This is a very satisfying experience that is unique to experienced athletes, where the skill execution itself is second nature. While analysing and moving in a very dynamic and competitive environment, they make decisions and execute skills with little conscious thought. This is evident in soccer, when a team makes a number of quick and successive passes through opponents to score. Players involved are reading the movements of both opponents and team-mates, and making instantaneous and complex decisions on their next move, then executing them with amazing timing and accuracy.
Most professional athletes and coaches recognise the value and power of being mentally strong, even in sports that primarily seem to be physically based, such as weightlifting. Being able to control doubt, fear and anxiety while remaining centred and focused can provide the edge required for victory. Both real and fictitious imagery created in the mind can help athletes achieve both these goals. Athletes can use their imagination and visual memory to improve performance. Two major types of imagery used are mental rehearsal and visualisation. If practised and properly performed, mental rehearsal is a powerful psychological skill and phenomenon that can be used to a player’s advantage, increasing the likelihood of success. It allows the athlete to experience the skill before it has actually occurred. It is most useful for self- paced skills that are under the total control of the athlete. Such sports include golf, archery, long jump, shot put, diving and gymnastics vault. These opportunities also exist within dynamic sports such as a free throw in basketball or a conversion kick in Rugby League.
Athletes should practise this skill in training, to ensure they are able to effectively execute it in the competitive environment. Some key guidelines are:
• The skill should be performed from the athlete’s point of view, as in the first person.
• They should always be successful.
• The skill should be visualised in real time, from start to finish.
• Once rehearsed, the athlete should attempt the skill without delay for maximum effect.
Athletes who routinely use mental rehearsal report decreased anxiety and greater confidence. It also assists them to focus on the skill while ignoring distractions such as their own negative thoughts and heckling from the crowd. One of the greatest benefits of mental rehearsal is the effect it has on the neuromuscular system. Elite athletes have highly refined motor patterns, which helps account for their incredible consistency in skill execution.
Effective mental rehearsal stimulates this precise motor pattern, without resulting in the actual movement being rehearsed. Athletes report being able to almost ‘feel’ this sensation throughout their bodies as they prepare to perform. While also involving role-play and imagining specific mental scenarios, visualisation differs from mental rehearsal primarily through the lack of reality that can exist in the mental image. This depends upon the desired psychological outcome the athlete desires in preparation for competition.
If an athlete were trying to relax, decrease anxiety or arousal levels and trying not to think too much about the impending intensity or stress of competition, they could focus on an image or scenario that calmed them down and allowed them to focus on something unrelated – for example, imagining relaxing on a secluded island in the warm sun. Anything that promotes feelings of calm and relaxation could be used for this. However, if the athlete were seeking to increase confidence and arousal levels, a more stimulating visualisation would achieve this – for example, imagining performing incredible feats such as winning gold, scoring a miracle goal or making a ‘crunching’ tackle would allow an athlete to feel almost invincible. While this may seem to lead to an ‘inflated ego’, a positive impact can be found in the increased confidence and arousal for intense and combative competition.
A unique feature of visualisation is that it can be used while actually performing or training to increase the intensity of effort. An athlete running on a treadmill could imagine that they are running in front of their home spectators in an Olympic Games final. By creating a scenario and role-playing it to ensure incredible success, the athlete can push their body to greater heights as they ignore feelings of pain and fatigue. Some key guidelines for visualisation include:
• It should be practised and rehearsed away from actual competition, prior to using it before or during competition.
• Most images should be from the perspective of a spectator – that is, in the third person.
• Success should always be evident in sporting visualisations.
Athletes should become aware of the specific physiological impact of certain visualisation techniques, and ensure that they do not over- compensate for the desired effect. For example, relaxing too much could lead to feelings of tiredness or lack of focus, whereas an athlete\ may become over-aroused, leading to decreased performance. Athletes need to be aware of anxiety levels, emotional levels, heart and breathing rates as well as feelings of nerves, sweating, or tiredness and lethargy.
Relaxation techniques are used to reduce anxiety and manage arousal levels. There are many techniques available to the athlete, but the more common techniques are: centred breathing, progressive muscular relaxation, listening to music, and mental relaxation.
Centred breathing is the process where an athlete focuses on lengthening their breathing to reduce their respiratory and heart rate. Often used in Yoga, centred breathing is a relaxation technique often beginning with the athlete counting their breath in and out slowly increasing the length of inspiration and expiration. Centred breathing releases anxiety and can decrease arousal levels.
Progressive muscular relaxation is the process where the athlete moves from one end of their body to the other progressively contracting and then relaxing their muscles. Normally the process will begin at the toes, with the athlete contracting the muscles controlling their toes, and then their foot, lower and upper leg, before moving along the torso towards their arms, neck and head. Progressive muscular relaxation relieves anxiety and can decrease arousal levels.
Music has often been used to control athlete’s levels of arousal and anxiety. Music can be used to relax and calm the athlete; as well as to psych them up. Music can increase the athlete’s arousal levels if they are too low for performance or can decrease them, depending on the type of music listened to.
Mental relaxation is the process where an athlete focuses on reducing their respiratory rate and emptying their mind of thoughts and distractions in order to focus on the task at hand. This helps to focus the athlete and receive anxiety before performance.
Elite athletes are highly driven individuals, who aim to be the= absolute best that they can be. The commitment and efforts made during training to fully prepare themselves for competition are arduous and highly taxing, both physically and mentally. Only the most dedicated and self- disciplined of athletes generally go on to achieve greatness.
Consider the following example of a typical training day for an ultra-triathlete:
• Wake up at 4.30 am every morning.
• Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, swim from 5 am until 7 am.
• On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, bike ride instead.
• Each week, swim around 30 kilometres, ride about 800 kilometres and run about
120 kilometres.
• Have a midday sleep before going for an hour’s run in the afternoon.
• Go to sleep by 9.30 pm.
An athlete’s drive, motivation and enthusiasm for training naturally vary; however, it is evident that such training requires the strictest self-discipline and commitment. To assist with this, effective goal-setting can be invaluable in helping athletes stick to strict training regimes and continue to produce the physical efforts required to achieve success and improved performances. Goals are important to help keep athletes accountable to a previously established expectation or standard, and the athlete may have several goals in place at any one time in relation to a range of lifestyle, training and performance factors. These could include the following:
• nutritional goal – adhering to a set nutritional plan as established by a dietician
• lifestyle goal – avoiding alcohol or ensuring that the athlete is asleep by a set time on most nights
• training goal – completing a set volume of training in a set time, such as 40 kilometres of swimming per week
• performance goal – winning gold or finishing the season in the top four.
A number of people should be aware of an athlete’s particular goals, such as their sports psychologist, coach and family. This increases the accountability and likelihood of success. Also, goals should be kept visible, to act as a constant reminder of the intended aim. For example, a poster on a wall, an image as a screen-saver on a phone or writing something on a piece of tape wrapped around the wrist can all serve as such reminders.
A common acronym to help establish effective goals is to use the principles of SMARTER:
• Is the goal specific? Goals should be explicit and clearly defined. There should be no doubt about the standard that the athlete is aiming to achieve. An athlete who says ‘I aim to do well’ is not establishing a definitive level of performance or achievement.
• Is the goal measurable? Generally, goals that are quantifiable (able to be measured in numbers) are more effective in setting a clear expectation of success – for example, decreasing an athlete’s personal best in the 400-metre sprint to below 45 seconds or their weight to 85 kilograms. Performance-based goals are not always able to be expressed using statistics; however, honest reflections from either the athlete or an educated observer such as a coach can still track progress and improvement.
• Is there an action plan to help achieve the goal? Athletes generally set longer-term goals (anywhere from three months to four years in the case of the Olympics). It is hard to connect such distant goals to the short-term demands of today’s arduous training program. Therefore, a range of related short-term and mid-term goals need to be identified and established that will help track the athlete towards their ultimate long-term goal. Often these goals are more training and behaviour based, as the long-term goal is likely to be performance based, such as winning the grand final. Short-term goals could include:
– increasing training intensity by decreasing a weekly 5-kilometre test run by 15 seconds per week
– for this week’s Rugby League game, aiming for a completion rate of 75 per cent
– sticking to an established nutritional plan
– sleeping at least eight hours per night.
• Is the goal realistic? Goals need to be something for which to strive. If the set goal is too easily achieved, then the athlete is not driven to work harder and push themselves. However, goals can be too hard and somewhat unlikely to be achieved because they are outside the athlete’s current level of potential achievement or improvement. When setting a performance goal, athletes must be honest with their current level of development and the level that they could see themselves achieving in a set time. Goals that find this delicate balance between being too easy or difficult to achieve are most effective in helping the athlete reach their potential without disheartening them.
• What is the timeframe of the goal? All goals, whether they are short term (days to weeks), mid-term (weeks to months) or long term(months to years), should have a defined timeframe within which the athlete intends to achieve the goal. This imposes finality on the athlete, and will increase the chances of success.
• Goals should be routinely evaluated using a suitable tool or test. This could be a questionnaire, training log or statistical data from a GPS device. This process should occur at regular intervals throughout the timeframe (such as fortnightly), and should involve the athlete and a coach or trainer who can provide independent assessment. This can allow progressive modifications to the goal to be made if the athlete is either tracking below or above the expected progress level. This ensures the goal stays realistic and achievable.
• When establishing a goal, the athlete should identify potential or set rewards that will be realised if the goal is achieved. These could be the inherent effect of a particular goal, such as personal glory and satisfaction, prizemoney or achieving a number one ranking. However, it could be a personal reward put in place by the athlete, coach or even their family for a particular goal that may not relate to a competitive performance outcome. This could be a holiday, contract extension or monetary reward for a specific achievement. Extrinsic and material rewards are less effective. Athletes being driven by internal factors generally show more resilience, perseverance and commitment. At this point, athletes must be very aware of their self-talk (the internal self-conversation and thoughts). This can lead to further anxiety if uncontrolled and unhelpful, whereas positive self-talk can be beneficial in helping to control feelings of anxiety and increasing motivation.