Sport Psychology Interventions Flashcards
Psychological Skills Training or Mental Training
Refers to systematic and consistent practice of mental or psychological skills for the purpose of enhancing performance, increasing enjoyment, or achieving greater sport and physical activity satisfaction.
Sport psychologist
The term “psychologist” is governed by state regulations. Use of the term without being licensed is illegal in most states. Licensure requires a PhD, postdoctoral experience, and passing of a national exam.
Studies how psychological factors influence sports, athletic performance, exercise, and physical activity.
Mental skills coach
The term “sport psychology consultant” has been used broadly to refer to those practitioners who received their sport psychology training in physical education or exercise science departments. Some argues that even the term “psychology” is governed by state law and that the title “mental skills coach” is probably safer.
Flow
A state in which people are so involved in activity that nothing else seems to matter.
*Skill of individual must meet challenge of situation
Mental skills
-Mental skill tools can be taught and learned
-Learning of mental skill tools requires well- developed learning progressions and systematic practice repetitions
Psychological Skills Training (3 phases)
- Education phase: Athletes recognize the importance of mental skills and their impact on performance.
- Acquisition phase: Athletes acquire various psychological skills and learn to employ them.
- Practice phase: Athletes implement skills in practice and competition.
Education phase: performance profiling
A method that allows athletes to understand what qualities are
needed to be successful in their sport.
Stage 1: Ranking and defining the most important qualities
Stage 2: Plotting your own performance profile
Stage 3: Generating action points
Stage 4: Identifying barriers
Benefits of performance profiling
-Helps athletes identify the qualities associated with successful performances
-Helps athletes identify their strengths and weaknesses.
-Enhances an athlete’s motivation
-Allows athletes to monitor their own progress.
-Facilitates a discussion between the coach and athlete
-Helps athletes set action points
Goal setting
-Goals direct attention, mobilize effort, foster persistence, and promote the development of new learning strategies.
-Goals enhance self-confidence and satisfaction.
-Team goal setting is effective for enhancing cohesion levels.
3 Types of Goals
- Performance goals: Goals that focus on improvement and attainment of personal performance standards.
- Process goals: Goals that focus on specific behaviours in which athletes must engage
throughout a performance. - Outcome goals: Goals that focus on social comparison and competitive results.
SMART goal setting
Specific
Measurable
Adjustable
Realistic
Timely
Imagery
-An experience that mimics real experience. It differs from dreams in that we are awake and conscious when we form an image.
-Incorporates sight, sound, smell, touch, and kinesthetic senses
-The more polysensory the image, the more real it becomes
5 Functions of imagery (under 2 levels)
General level:
Motivational- 1) mastery, 2) arousal (images relating to physiological arousal and emotions)
Cognitive- 3) strategies (images of strategies/game plans/routines
Specific level:
Motivational- 4) goals
Cognitive- 5) skills
Recommendations for using imagery
-Incorporate into daily routine
-Five minutes once or twice a day
-Systematic increase in difficulty
-Positive rather than negative
-Be in good mood
-Less-skilled athletes need encouragement
-All ages can benefit
Self-talk
Verbalizations or statements that are:
-Addressed to the self, multidimensional in nature
-Have interpretive elements associated with the content of the self-statements
-Serve at least two functions:
1. Instructional
2. Motivational
Instructional self-talk
The overt or covert speech that individuals use for skill development, skill execution, strategy development, and general performance improvement.
Motivational self-talk
The overt or covert speech that individuals use for:
1) Mastery: building self confidence, staying focused being mentally ready
2) Arousal control: psyching up, relaxing
3) Drive: increasing effort, achieving potential
Arousal regulation
-There is a relationship between arousal and performance.
-Athletes use a number of techniques to regulate their arousal levels:
1) To reduce arousal
2) To increase arousal
Techniques to reduce arousal (5)
- Breathing: Diaphragmatic breathing increases oxygen.
- Progressive Relaxation: Involves tensing and relaxing specific muscles.
- Meditation: Allows for deep relaxation of the mind.
- Autogenic Training: Focuses on feelings associated with limbs and muscles.
- Biofeedback: The use of feedback from own body signals to improve performance.
Techniques to increase arousal
- Pep talks
- Bulletin boards
- Pre-competitive workouts
- Verbal cues
- Breathing
- Imagery
- Music
Attention and attention control
Attention: A multidimensional construct having at least two components:
1. A limited resource (i.e., difficult to perform two tasks simultaneously)
2. Selectively processes specific information while ignoring other information
*Poor performance often attributed to losses of concentration or becoming distracted
Choking
-The phenomenon of “choking” occurs as physiological arousal continues to increase to the point of causing an involuntary narrowing of an individual’s focus and to the point of causing attention to become more internally focused.
-This results in alterations in perception (time is speed up) and movement execution which affects the individual’s timing and coordination
Choking model
Situations leading to choking->
Attentional changes: narrowing of attention, internal focus of attention
Physiological changes: increases in muscle tension, increases in heart rate
*both lead to performance problems (e.g. rushing, disturbance to fine muscle coordination and timing, inability to focus, fatigue and muscle tightness)
Focus strategies*
- Mindfulness
- Controlling distractions
- Attentional cues and trigger
- Parking distractions
- Performance routines
- Competition plans
Mindfulness
-Emphasizes awareness and acceptance of internal and external states, and involves non-judgmental, present moment, and task-relevant awareness.
-Associated with improved athlete mental health, reduced athletic injury, and overall improved athletic performance.
Controlling distractions
- Factors in training and competitive environment
- General living and environmental factors
- Previous preparation factors
- Relationships
*Take time to visualize/feel/anchor effective responses to past and future situational demands and distractions. See and feel yourself with the appropriate mental skills.
Control (circle of control vs. concern)
-Circle of control: preparation, focus, mindset, arousal, sleep/recovery
-Circle of concern: referees, atmosphere, the other teams actions, coach’s decisions (when losing control, start to choke and worsen performance, worry about others and not yourself)
*all you can control is yourself and your own actions/mindset
Parking distractions
Attentionaly setting aside distractions and narrowing focus on performance relevant cues.
Parking
-Establish an appropriate parking image which has personal meaning and can be comfortably used.
-Spend time away from training rehearsing the images involved.
-Practice the skill in a relaxed state during training in order to develop a degree of competence and familiarity.
-Practice the skill in pressurized training situations
-Implement the skill in competition.
*“park” all other distractions by using a specific image to enhance focus and performance
Performance routines
Top performers know exactly how to manage their time activities and personal space prior and during competition or performance to produce the right kind of feelings and focus.
*a lot of the game/match is actually spent preparing/recovering/thinking rather than playing
-Tennis example: non-playing time is 80-90% of total match time. Players’ patterns of thinking and acting between points plays significant factor
-Top competitors more disciplined, more precise patterns, less negative feelings and emotions
*specific routines/habits, whatever works for individual person
