Professional and recreational athletes require an optimal blend of physical and mental training. Physical activities improve the athlete's fitness level, skill, endurance and coordination. Mental or psychological techniques increase an athlete's confidence and concentration, while minimizing fear, fatigue, anxiety and stress. An athlete's mental state may make the difference between winning or losing an event.
Four C's
Concentration, commitment, control and confidence are the "four C's" of athletic performance, says sports coach Brian Mackenzie of United Kingdom Athletics, the United Kingdom's National Governing body for Track and Field Athletics. In an article on his Sports Coach website, Mackenzie explains that mental imagery, centering exercise and relaxation techniques assist the athlete in mastering these four C's.
Trigger Words
Inclement weather conditions, public announcements, opponents and an athlete's significant others can break her concentration. Consider the Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy movie "Pat and Mike." Hepburn plays Pat, an outstanding athlete, who performs brilliantly, except when her demoralizing fiance watches her game. Tracy plays Mike, her coach, who teaches her to ignore her ego-deflating boyfriend. Trigger words, which help an athlete re-focus on their game, help easily distracted athletes. Words that describe the technique, such as stand tall smooth, elbows or stay forward are most helpful. Sports coaches advise athletes to say these trigger words to themselves when they find that they are breaking concentration.
Visualization
Copper Mountain ski instructor Stephen Hultquist often talks about skiing in the theater of the mind. He describes visualization, a technique used in all types of sports. During the 1983 New York City Marathon, for example, the New York Road Runners Club hired a Columbia University sports psychology team to conduct marathon training workshops. The marathon course features several confidence-breaking hills. The coaches told the participants to imagine that the uphills were actually downhills. Other visualization techniques include imagining perfect performance. Golf Jack Nicklaus, according to the Sport Coach website, was apparently a proponent of this technique. He never hit a practice shot without a clear image of his desired technique, and of where he wanted the ball to go. The visualization method supposedly trains the brain to create the neural patterns associated with the task, according to an article on the Vanderbilt University website.
Posture Adjustment
In the movie "Anna and the King of Siam," Anna tells her son that when she feels afraid, she "holds her head erect." Actors call this acting from the outside-in, a technique used when the actor can not identify with their character's personality and emotions. By assuming the character's physical personality or posture, the actor gains insight and empathy into the character's emotions. Ski instructor and theatrical director Michael Martorano of Colorado uses this approach on the slopes. A timid skier shifts her weight toward her heels, and moves her hips toward her ski tails. Her body language expresses a fear of the descent, which quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This backseat position minimizes the skier's control of her skis, making it impossible to shape her turns, avoid obstacles and stay upright. Instructors may ask this type of student to observe the posture, stance and alignment of a professional skier. In mimicking a professional's body position, the athlete may experience a new-found confidence and control
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