Research

 

Psychological Aspects

 

 

Anxiety is a negative emotional state with feelings of worry, nervousnesss and apprehension that is associated with the activation of the body.

 

 

Arousal is a feeling or sensation that an athlete feels when playing sport, it increases muscle tension and effects an athlete's coordination positively. 

 

 

Stress is an imbalance between the demands that someone feels or their feelings of capability to meet the demands of the sport.

 

 

Control is the ability for an athlete to maintain emotional control regardless of distraction.

 

Confidence is a belief in one's abilities or where an athlete believes that they can achieve things.

 

Coordination is when an athlete can use more than two parts of their body at the same time in order to achieve a goal successfully. 

 

Techniques Used

 



 

Imagery
 

Is the process by which you can create, modify or strengthen pathways important to the co-ordination of your muscles, by training purely within your mind. It involves all senses; visual, kinesthetic, auditory, tactile, moods and emotions. Imagery allows you to practice and prepare for events and eventualities you can never expect to train for in reality. It allows you to pre-experience the achievement of goals.

 

 

 

Goal Setting

 

 

Creates attention and focus, it provides an incentive to reach further and it affects psychological factors such as anxiety, confidence and satisfaction. Setting goals with the athlete will raise their feelings of value, give them joint ownership of the goals and therefore become more committed to achieving them.

 

Music

 

The use of music increases arousal by narrowing a performers attention this allows the athlete to have an elevated mood state and will bring their levels up to match the requirements of the sport.

 

 

 

Progressive Muscular Relaxation

 

The process of first tensing then releasing muscles aids the body in returning to a correct, more relaxed position. The body responds to anxious thoughts by tensing muscle groups, creating a cycle in which the tense muscles then increase more anxiety. This type of relaxation has been found to lower pulse rate, blood pressure, respiration and decrease perspiration.

 

Self Talk

 

Developing positive self talk is at the heart of many mindfulness-based programs. For an athlete, negative internal messages and thoughts are among the biggest contributors to pre-race jitters and performance anxiety. It’s this connection between the words and the belief that is the ultimate goal of this technique.

Breathing Control

This process involves counting backwards from 10 whilst using a variety of breathing techniques from breathing at a rhythmic pace which enables the athlete to calm down when they are in a situation where they are hyperactive or stress out.