Key points in Sport Psychology

The Good: Confidence

The summer prior to my first season coaching, I worked in car sales. The first thing I learned on the job was that confidence is key. Sales are a cutthroat, testosterone filled career field, and if you lack confidence, you will be eaten alive by the ot...

The Bad: Self Doubt

With confidence being an athlete or coach’s best weapon, self doubt will always be the biggest opponent. Self doubt creates a tense mind and as a result, a tense body. The same thing can happen in reverse as well. I have seen an athlete show up to an event with a knot in their shoulder, and as the competition drew closer, the acidic thoughts kept building. I could tell the athlete started thinking they were not going to perform well, and the competition was very good and would be hard to beat. However, as soon as the athletic trainer was able to start working on the tight muscle things turned around. The athlete became so relaxed I almost became worried. He was hopping around and joking with the other athletes, seemingly not taking anything serious. Very similar to how he would be at an easy practice on a sunny day. By the time he warmed up and started throwing, he was launching his throws and eventually set the school record.The second you let the possibility of losing or failing into your head, you probably will. Now don’t get me wrong, every athlete will doubt themselves at some point. After all, confidence is not all-or-nothing. It comes and goes and in different intensities. What makes elite athletes different from the rest is their ability to motivate themselves and block out the corrosive thoughts.

Sport psychology methods to beat self doubt

Remember why you spend countless hours training for your sport…you enjoy it. You and your coach, teammates, fans, and family may have expectations for you, but expectations are not why you do what you do. Living up to those expectations (where self doubt spawns) should always remain second to your love of your sport.

The Ugly: Choking (Conscious/ Subconscious Relationship)

This is a subject that a book could be written on, but I’m just going to touch on the basics. We have all experienced or seen an athlete who was seemingly fine, and then all at once their performance fell apart. Choking can make professionals start ...

Best Practices: Focus and Relaxation

So how do you gain and keep confidence? How do you keep your mind clean of acidic thoughts? How do you keep from choking in competition? By staying focused and relaxed. Sounds simple, right? It can be if you work at it. You have to practice these things like you would any other aspect of your sport.

Focus

Again, you don’t have to over complicate things. Simplify what you need to focus on to one or two things. Viewing all the defects of your performance prior to competition, or even practice, is a sure way to overwhelm yourself and set up for self doub...

Relaxation

Focus alone is not enough to enhance performance. It is still possible to be tense physically and/or mentally while remaining focused. The second piece to the puzzle is relaxation. Relaxation is both a byproduct of confidence and a conductor of confidence. When Joel Smith coached me in javelin, he would say that my throws should look effortless. When you watch professionals in any sport, they tend to make things look easy. Their performance flows smoothly and falls into a rhythm. They do not achieve this by tensing their muscles or being strung out on pre-workout drinks. In fact, many athletes who use pre-competition music will listen to classical or relaxing music, to keep adrenaline low up until competition.One of the best, and most common, routines before a competition or practice is meditation and visualization. Clearing the mind of everything except your upcoming performance and visualizing possible scenarios and outcomes has a two-fold effect. In this meditative state, an athlete is relaxing themselves and gaining focus at the same time, which makes it one of the most beneficial pre-competition habits. Everyone’s pre-competition rituals are different, and you have to find what works best for you. I guarantee that adding visualization to your routine will not hurt your performance, but rather enhance it.

Conclusion

You would never show up to a competition without training physically, so why would you show up without first training mentally as well? Go workout with confidence. Battle against self doubt like you would against a stubborn barbell. Analyze your negative thoughts and emotions as close as you would the movements of your competition. Stay focused on your goals, and enjoy the process of pursuing them as much as the sense of accomplishment you get when you reach them. Do these things on a daily basis and you will find yourself performing on level you never thought possible.By Jake Clark