Applying Psychological Thinking To Sports Essays

Sports—which involve emotion, competition, cooperation, achievement, and play—provide a rich area for psychological study. People involved in sports attempt to master very difficult skills, often subjecting themselves to intense physical stress as well as social pressure. research has expanded into numerous areas such as imagery training, hypnosis, relaxation training, motivation, socialization, conflict and competition, counseling, and coaching. Specific sports and recreational specialties studied include baseball, basketball, soccer,

THE USE OF MENTAL IMAGERY REHEARSAL IN SPORTS SKILL DEVELOPMENT: In sports, mental imagery is used primarily to help the athlete get the best out of him / her training and in competition. To help an anthlete compete better by bringing best out of him. The developing athlete who makes the fastest progress and those who ultimately become their best make extensive use of mental imagery rehearsal. They use it daily as a means of directing what will happen in training and as a way of pre experiencing their best competition performances.

Most unethical decisions are intentional done with some type of motive behind a corporation or persons actions. However, this article discussions for unintentional ways that unethical situations present themselves, which are concerned with four different types of bias.

The current institutional structure of intercollegiate athletics is attempting to maximize educational quality and athletic excellence simultaneously. Each of which will inevitably impinge on one another. Universities claim that their athletes are amateurs who are attending college for academic achievement and play sports in their free time.

Many athletes would agree that they have felt butterflies in their stomach or a sudden rush of adrenaline before an important game. This feeling can either translate into legendary performances or monumental failures. According to Sharon D. Hoar (2007), to fully comprehend anxiety’s effect on performance, one must understand the discrimination between two unique sets of sources: trait and state anxiety, and cognitive and somatic anxiety. Anxiety symptoms are numerous and unique to every athlete. Hoar suggests that athletes might report cognitive symptoms (eg. Inability to focus), somatic symptoms (eg. Sweaty palms), or both. The author discusses a variety of sources of anxiety and argues that it can have both positive and negative effects

Being psychologically prepared for sports is a large part of success. The way an athlete thinks affects the way he or she feels and how he or she performs. Professional baseball player, Carl Hubbell understood the mental aspect. “I had no chance of controlling a ball game until I first controlled myself” (Hall). Serious athletes and teams, such as Tiger Woods and the Chicago Cubs, have hired professional sports psychologist who are considered equally as valuable as physical trainers.

It has been identified that through sports psychology one can improve their physical ability and performance. Sports psychology is the study of how the mind, mental states and behaviour effect sporting performance. There are several sport psychology techniques, which have helped me become a better volleyball player. These techniques include planning for performance, controlling arousal levels, mental rehearsal and concentration.

The word athletics comes from the Greek word “athlos,” and it means “contest” or “task.” The two articles, “The Effect of IAAF Kids Athletics on the Physical Fitness and Motivation of Elementary School Students in Track and Field” by Blatsis Petros, et. al., and “Sport Psychology: the Ultimate Spring Board of Excellence” by Jitendra Mohan, are both written in different sub disciplines of athletics, and therefore, the purposes of the articles differ. The articles are based on the similar topics, but the authors wrote the articles for different disciplines; therefore, the articles differ in language, structure, and the reference style they use.

Sport or exercise psychologists use imagery as a method to train athlete’s skills such as visual perception skill, attention and regulating emotions (Smeeton, Hibbert, Stevenson, Cumming & Williams, 2014; Williams & Cummings, 2012). There are researches suggested that when imagining the movements or performing the actual movement, similar brain activities was showed and with this finding, sport psychologists can use imagery to train athletes as essentially there is no difference between imagery training and physical training according to previous studies (Homles & Calmels, 2008, Wriessnegger, Steyrl, Koschutnig & Müller-Putz 2014). Individuals can use using information sheet, videos, equipment that required for specific sport to help an individual

In earlier days sports psychology was mostly concerned with developing assessment methods that would identify those people with the potential to become serious superior athletes. Today the focus is on psychological training, exercises that strengthen the mental skills that will help athletic performances on the path to excellence. These skills include mental imagery and focus training. If an athlete is serious about becoming the best he or she can possibly be, the most essential ingredient is commitment to practice the right things. It takes incredible commitment to reach the top: a commitment to rest and train the body so it can perform under the most demanding conditions and a commitment to train the mind to

The extreme Texas summers are torture to anyone trapped in the sun with no purpose, yet it was the only time of the year I looked forward to something. Blazing summers meant baseball season. The season nearing its end, brought 11 losses and no wins for my team. Our final game would create a perfect play that would make that season so memorable. Everything felt different that day, as if there was a purpose for me being there, as if there was some sort of meaning behind it.

Psychological momentum occurs when either a cognitive, affective, physiological, or behavioral change occurs (positive or negative) that has an impact on player output (Cox, 2007). It is not uncommon for athletes to have experienced this phenomenon. Plenty of research seems to suggest that psychological momentum (PM) is a very part of athletics. Problems researching the subject may reside in the fact that PM is an arbitrary and subjective occurrence. What may motivate one player might not have any affect on another (or may create a negative shift in player output). This could create difficulties with introducing an independent variable and subsequently measuring the results. Regardless, it is likely

Mental factors are extremely important in relation to success in sport and the adherence of a physically active lifestyle. Mental factors such as confidence and efficacy hold place in such a way that limits and enables athletes to commit or quit an activity. Mental factors limit ones ability to motivate self to work towards a goal that is set fourth either by a team or an individual client seeking fitness achievement. If an athlete or client is not mentally prepared then they may fall short of achieving their process or even outcome goals. This disparity can leads to the cease or demise of ones athletic and or fitness career.

“Sports are for fun, but they also offer benefits and lessons that carry over into all aspects of life”. This well-known anonymous quotation conveys the message that sport is the game which has some rules and custom. It is not only for fun and entertainment, but there are also some benefits of playing sports and which gives some important lessons for life. Every kind of physical sports is healthy because it involves running, jumping, stretching, mind skills and much more. There are so many sports available in the world nowadays, but we can categorize them by the numbers of players, the three main categories are individual sport, dual sport and team sport.

The importance of strength training was collaborated along with task orientation in a study that consisted of 90 athletic males and 43 athletic females. According to the article, strength training has been one of most influential and beneficial aspects in initiating tasks in sports. In other words, task orientation was significantly high in terms of accomplishing and maintaining standardized, individualistic performance in sports. In fact, the study reveals that individuals high in task orientation tend to judge success as means of, giving absolute effort, performing to their best of ability, working together as team mates and taking pleasure in their sport; according to the participants who worked out in the strength training program. In