The Psychology of Athletic Preparation

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The Psychology of Athletic Preparation
PerformanceThe Mental Management of Physical
ResourcesCh. 10
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• Role of sport psychology is to help athletes
  achieve more consistent levels of performance at
  or near their physical potential by carefully
  managing their physical resources through
  appropriate psychological strategies techniques
• Ideal performance state- ultimate goal of every
  athlete
• State is marked by psychological physiological
  efficiency- employing only amount of psychic
  physical energy required to perform the task

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Definition of Key Concepts in Sport Psychology

• Athlete- someone who engages in social comparison
  (competition) involving psychomotor skill or
  physical prowess (or both) in an
  institutionalized setting, typically under public
  scrutiny or evaluation
• Athletic competition involves comparing oneself
  to others and putting ego self-esteem on the
  line in a setting bound by rules regulations

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• Psychologically well prepared athlete is
  characterized by efficiency of thought deed
• Efficient athlete adopts task relevant focus, not
  wasting attention on task-irrelevant processing
  such as worrying, catastrophizing, thinking
  about other things, such as critical audience or
  coach

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• Sport psychology- subdiscipline of exercise
  science that seeks to understand influence
• 3 major goals
• Measuring psychological phenomena
• Investigating relationships between psychological
  variables performance
• Applying theoretical knowledge to improve
  athletic performance

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Anxiety State Trait

• State anxiety- subjective experience of
  apprehension uncertainty accompanied by
  elevated autonomic voluntary neutral outflow
  increased endocrine activity
• Can be positive, negative, or indifferent,
  depending on athletes skill level, personality,
  or difficulty of task
• Experience of apprehension uncontrolled arousal

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• Trait anxiety- personality variable or
  disposition relating to probability that one will
  perceive an environment as threatening
• Primer for athlete to experience state anxiety
• Arousal- intensity dimension of behavior
  physiology
• Nonanxious state- arousal is under control
• Anxious state- arousal relatively uncontrolled

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• If arousal too high during state anxiety
• Skeletal muscle are tense
• Heart is racing
• Negative thoughts intrude
• Lack of physical psychological efficiency comes
  from uncertainty of present or anticipated event

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• 3 factors usually present
• High degree of ego involvement, in which athlete
  may perceive threat to self-esteem
• Perceived discrepancy between ones ability
  demands for athletic success
• Fear of consequences of failure (loss of approval
  from teammates, coach, family, peers)

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• Cognitive anxiety- relates to psychological
  processes worrisome thoughts
• Somatic anxiety- relates to such physical
  symptoms such as tense muscles, tachycardia,
  butterflies
• Stress- any disruption from homeostasis or mental
  physical calm

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• Stressor- environmental or cognitive event that
  precipitates stress
• Distress- negative stress
• Comprises cognitive somatic anxiety
• Eustress- positive stress
• Comprises psychic energy physiological arousal

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Attention and Skill

• Attention- processing of those environmental cues
  that come to awareness
• Selective attention- ability to inhibit awareness
  of some stimuli in order to process others
• Suppresses task-irrelevant cues in order to
  process task-relevant cues

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• Emotion can change order in which brain
  structures executes commands to working muscles
• Frustration can bring subcortically controlled
  mvmt to conscious level (start forcing mvmt)
• Thinking about one set of thoughts actively
  precludes attending to other worrisome thoughts
  because of limited capacity of working memory

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• Using key phrases to focus on task relevant cues
• This strategy can reduce distractions, which
  deter optimal effort
• Can promote mental consistency during preparatory
  phase, which can promote physical consistency

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Cue Utilization

• At low levels of arousal, attentional width is
  very broad, both relevant irrelevant cues can
  come to athletes awareness
• As arousal increases to moderate levels,
  attentional width progressively decreases
• Allows more focus
• At high levels of arousal, so much shrinkage of
  attentional capacity may occur that task-relevant
  cues are elminateed

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Attentional Style

• Broad external attenional focus- ability to
  effectively manage many environmental stimuli
  simultaneously
• Overloaded by external stimuli- tendency to be
  confused because of intake of too many stimuli
• Broad internal attentional focus- ability to
  effectively manage many internal stimuli

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• Overloaded by internal stimuli- tendency to be
  confused because of intake of too many stimuli
• Narrow attentional focus- ability to effectively
  narrow attention
• Reduced attentional focus- tendency to reduce
  attention so that task-relevant info is lost

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How the mind affects the athletes physical
performance

• Distinct physical links between the psyche
  soma, or mind body
• Relationship provides basis for psychosomatic
  disorders how athletes psychological state
  affects his or her physical state subsequent
  performance

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• 3 pathways from brain spinal cord to athletes
  physical apparatus (bones, muscles, nerves,
  vasculature, glands)
• Connections via voluntary nervous outflow to
  skeletal muscles
• Autonomic efference to various organs blood
  vessels that subserve metabolic needs of muscles
• Brain influences various endocrine glands of
  body, which release hormones such as
  testosterone, cortisol, thyroxin, so on, which
  can affect physiological state via anabolic
  catabolic processes

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Ideal Performance State

• Characteristics athletes typically report about
  this state
• Absence of fear- no fear of failure
• No thinking about or analysis of performance
• Narrow focus of attention concentrated on
  activity itself
• Sense of effortlessness- involuntary experience
• Sense of personal control
• Distortion of time space, in which time seems
  to slow

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• Ideal performance state represents everything
  that sport psychology attempts to promote
• Absence of negative self-talk, strong feeling of
  efficacy, adaptive focus on task-relevant cues
• Mental/psychological efficiency concept-
  attentional allocation or shift in allocation to
  process only cues cognitive activity that
  relates to athletic performance

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Motivational Phenomena

• Intrinsic motivation- desire to be competent
  self-determining
• Achievement motivation- relates to athletes wish
  to engage in competition, or social comparison
• Whoever is higher in achievement motivation will
  be better because they have appetite for
  competition

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• McClelland et al. theorized that all people have
  opposing personality traits within themselves
• Motive to achieve success (MAS)
• MAS-dominated person is intrigued by situations
  that are either uncertain or challenging
• Motive to avoid failure (MAF)- desire to protect
  ones ego self-esteem
• MAF-dominated person is comfortable in situations
  where it is easy to achieve success or extremely
  difficult ( not expected to win)

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• Positive negative reinforcement in coaching
• Experiences are stored in long-term memory
  (subconscious) where they are powerful
  determinants of how an athlete interprets a
  practice or competitive situation

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• Positive reinforcement- act of increasing
  probability of occurrence of given behavior by
  following it with an action, object, or event
  such as praise, decals on helmet, or prizes
• Negative reinforcement- increases probability of
  occurrence of given operant by removing an act,
  object, or event that is typically aversive such
  as sprints at end of practice
• Operant- target behavior (proper footwork,
  hustle, etc.)

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• Punishment is designed to decrease occurrence of
  negative behaviors such as mistakes or lack of
  effort
• Positive punishment- presentation of act, object,
  or event following behavior that could decrease
  the behaviors occurrence
• Negative punishment- removal of something valued
• Revoking privileges, playing time

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• Reinforcement is better because it focuses on
  what athletes should do what they did right
• Increases task-relevant focus rather than worry
  focus
• Also builds long-term memories of success,
  self-esteem, self-efficacy, confidence

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Influence of arousal on performance

• Inverted-U theory- states that arousal
  facilitates performance up to an optimal level,
  beyond which further increases in arousal are
  associated with reduced performance
• 4 factors relating to inverted-U theory
• Skill level, task complexity, personality, trait
  anxiety

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• Skill level- more skill athlete has, better they
  can perform during states of less or greater than
  optimal arousal
• In beginning stages of learning skill, athlete
  has to think about actions
• Task complexity- conscious decision making
• Simple skills can tolerate higher degree of
  arousal because of fewer task-relevant cues
• For more difficult skills, arousal should be kept
  low to maintain attentional width

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• Personality- extroverts differ neurologically
  from introverts
• Extroverts are sensory reducers
• Introverts are sensory augmenters, or increasers
• All things being equal, extroverted player can
  handle more arousing, or critical, game
  situations
• Trait anxiety- people with high levels of trait
  anxiety tend to flood attentional capacity with
  task-irrelevant cognitions, such as thoughts of
  failure, catastrophe, or ego-oriented concerns
• In important situation, could compromise players
  selective attention
• Those with low trait anxiety can better handle
  higher levels of pressure

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• Optimal functioning theory- different people
  perform with very different levels of arousal
• Athletes recall arousal with several performances
  that differ in quality
• Measured by standardized psychometric instrument
• Ranges from low/20 to max/80
• Athlete monitors state prior to competition
  makes adjustment to fall into this zone
• Athlete should then be able to concentrate
  prepare physically

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• Catastrophe theory- when increases in
  physiological arousal occur in presence of
  cognitive anxiety, sudden drop (rather than
  gradual decline) occurs in performance
• Self-efficacy- perceived self-confidence about a
  given task in a specific situation
• Sense of success that an athlete feels he/she
  embodies or can control
• Anxiety arousal are outcomes, rather than
  determinants

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Mental management of physical resources
Controlling psychological processes

• Association- carefully monitor efforts
• Efficient management of athletes mental
  physical resources
• Dissociation- distract oneself in attempt to
  reduce perceived thoughts of pain fatigue
• Most powerful determinant of confidence sense
  of preparation is quality physical practice in
  which number of positive experiences are stored
  in long-term memory

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Goal setting

• Process whereby progressively challenging
  standards of performance are pursued with a
  defined criterion of task performance that
  increases likelihood of perceived success
• Process goals- those over whose achievement the
  athlete has control
• Success strongly related with effort
• Practice form, technique, workout

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• Outcome goals- ones over which athlete has little
  control (winning primary focus)
• Short-term goals- increase likelihood of success
  because they are relatively close to athletes
  present ability level
• Increase confidence, self-esteem, self-efficacy

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• Long-term goals- athlete may be more aroused
  psychologically physiologically during practice
  by perception that todays activity is another
  step on ladder to personal, long-term dream

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• Effective behavioral coaching- coach specifies
  components of given skill charts athletes
  success with each part until whole skill is
  mastered
• Why goal setting affects performance
• Goals direct athletes attention by prioritizing
  efforts
• Goals increase effort because of contingency of
  success on goal attainment
• Goals increase positive reinforcement through
  feedback given to athletes

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Physical Relaxation Techniques

• Diaphragmatic breathing- focuses thought on
  breathing to clear mind therefore increase
  attentional capacity
• Basis stress mgmt technique precursor to all
  other mental training techniques
• Can decrease neural stimulation to both skeletal
  muscles organs, resulting in sense of deep
  relaxation
• Breathing through abdomen instead of chest
• Inhalation takes place in 3 stages lower abs,
  midchest, upper chest

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• Progressive muscular relaxation (PMR)-
  somatopsychic technique by which psychological
  physical arousal are self-regulated through
  control of skeletal muscle tension
• Going through series of alternate muscular
  tension relaxing phases, athlete learns to
  become aware of somatic tension thereby control
  it able to reduce tension at will
• Relaxed body will promote relaxed mind

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• Autogenic training- attentional state that simply
  focuses on sense of warmth heaviness for
  particular limb or muscle group
• If injured high muscular tension is
  uncomfortable
• Mental imagery- cognitive psychological skill in
  which athlete uses all senses to create mental
  experience of an athletic performance
• Perspective of image can be internal (1st person)
  or external (3rd person)
• 1st person more specific to skill execution

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• Hypnosis- induced state of hypersuggestibility in
  which positive suggestions relating to
  performance potential can be planted in
  subconscious mind
• If athlete has mental block in terms of viewing
  ability
• Athletes realization that he/she can perform at
  such a high level can profoundly alter his/her
  self-concept , indirectly, future performance

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• Systematic desensitization- hybrid of cognitive
  somatic techniques that allows athlete to replace
  fear response to various cues with relaxation
  response
• Helps athlete initially confront or reduce fear
• Uses PMR mental imagery
• Imagining different scenes that are associated
  with the fear which brings about anxiety then
  being able to use PMR to instill a relaxation
  response to the same fearful situation

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Use of arousal control techniques

• Athlete should employ arousal reduction
  techniques when performing new skill or one that
  is complex in nature
• Athlete should employ arousal enhancement
  techniques when executing simple skills or ones
  that are well learned
• Purpose is to allow athlete to perform with
  unburdened mind while matching their mental
  physical intensity to demands of task