Developing Mental Meughness In Sports

For some athletes, sports can be a good way to cope with stress. When they hit the court or the field, they feel as if all of their worries from that day vanish. But for others, sports can be how a person identifies his or herself and where they derive most of their self-esteem. So that moment when you realize something in your body or your mind isn’t right, you push through it and tell yourself it will go away. But sometimes the pain gets worse. So you have two

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,

Our thoughts, diet/nutrition, exercise, rest, environment and physiology have a positive or negative impact on us which affects how well we perform and feel. In the world of sports, this is very easy to demonstrate because the mind/body connection provides you with immediate feedback. When you are positive, your performance excels. When you are negative, your performance is adversely affected. With various types of distress, or

There are over 450,000 athletes competing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) level across 24 different sports in the United States (NCAA, 2012). What psychological qualities separate the successful student athlete from the non-successful student athlete (i.e., a student athlete who completes their eligibility and graduates, or gets drafted into the professional level)? We know sport psychology and mental performance training can assist athletes in achieving peak performance by teaching confidence, goal setting, imagery, mental toughness, how to deal with pressure, relaxation, positive self-talk and more (Shemake, 2014). This study aims to identify if certain student athletes posses some of these characteristics without

This study takes a different approach when it comes to improving and maintaining the mental health of the athletes when injury is involved. Some may consider being mentally tough to be a positive attribute of an athlete. However, having too much “mental toughness” may be detrimental to certain athletes. Since mental toughness is related to positive coping methods and injury response, it is more likely that these athletes who have high mental toughness to participate through an injury. This may cause further

The ultimate quest for sport psychologists is to establish what psychological factors produce the winning formula or to try to establish a profile of the successful athlete. Within the psychological framework attempts, to determine the "ideal athletic personality" have only been marginally successful (Morgan 1980, in White, 1993). One of the categories observed in order to understand and move towards the 'ideal athletic personality' is that of Psychological Skills Training (PST), "It is contended that mental skills training is a significant part of sport psychology and is of particular importance to athletes and coaches" (Rushall, 1995, p0.3).

Few within the realm of competitive athletics would argue with the importance of being mentally prepared prior to an athletic competition as well as the need to maintain that particular mindset during a competitive contest. Nevertheless, recent research has shown that many athletes, coaches, and sporting administrators are still quite reluctant to seek out the services of a qualified sport psychologist, even if they believe it could help. One of the primary reasons for this hesitation appears to be a lack of understanding about the process and the mechanisms by which these mental skills affect performance. Unlike the “harder sciences” of sport physiology and biochemistry where athletes can see the tangible results in themselves or other athletes (e.g., he or she lifted weights, developed larger muscles, and is now stronger/faster as a result) (Gee, Chris J (2010): 386-402.) Using sports phycology has been found to give athletes multiple benefits, such as improvement, and that athlete being able to understand how to develop a growth and or positive mindset. Lastly another way that has been found to improve athletes is taking mental repetitions for their sport. One of the keys to Jeff’s improvement over the years, and certainly a key to him making a roster in the NFL, is his ability to take mental reps. The champion mindset recognizes

Analyzation of factors that affect the players overall performance and participation but also the improvement the player could make during activity. Preparations are psychological need for most players as such they have different types of preparations which involve the mindset of the individual, having a positive attitude towards your actions and mistakes can lead to increase in performance in which players tend to maintain high level of self-motivation. Players tend to set goals for them in which they can achieve in a certain amount of time; these goals may include techniques or even fitness challenges. Positive mental imagery is a technique the player uses the illustrate to himself he’s skills and how he will apply them to the game, without maintaining concentration this would cause the player’s anxiety to go unstably high causing a defect in his technique. Motivation is a large factor regarding a player’s performance; this motivation can be passed on Extrinsic or Intrinsic.

Sports changes a person physically, but it can also change them mentally. In the beginning of the school year, I was just a freshman, your average athlete, trying to get in shape. Yet the struggle I went through when I had sprained my ankle, I learned to never give up, even in the darkest moment. I healed and became one of the hardest workers on the team, thanks to this great fall. And this is how it began….

competition, you have to be mentally tough. We can look into each sport and debate which one of them are mentally tougher than the other. Baseball players have a split second to determine whether to swing or not. NASCAR drivers are driving at an excessive speed of 200 mph and are inches away from one another. Superstar basketball players are playing 30 plus minutes a game in a three to four game stretch or a golfer lining up a putt in hopes of it going in. The debate can go on. No matter what sport a person plays, if you are playing in the elite level of competition, you have to be mentally tough.

According to James Loehr, a famous sport psychologist, mental toughness is defined as the ability to constantly maintain a perfect performance state during the heat of competition (Loehr, 1986). Since then, Goldberg (1998) has well-defined mental toughness as the ability to stand high in the face of difficulty, and being able to rebound from repetitive setbacks and failures. Fletcher and Fletcher (2005) defined mental toughness as the ability to manage with various

The human body is capable of extreme and intense activities that allow us to push our bodies beyond limits. The dedication and determination that these athletes undergo to train their body and to such high-risk conditions is on the rise. The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler, addresses psychological reasoning on how athletes break the limits of ultimate human performance. This book focuses on the psychology of these extreme athletes which helps understand their perspective. Kotler’s book is a reliable source because he is a New York Times best selling author and award winning journalist. It is reasonable to consider him an expert in understanding the human condition because of his graduate degrees and his extensive research on this

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

Those within the sports world who have high levels of mental toughness are more likely to be more successful competitively than those of a lower scale.

Mental toughness is not a new concept in sport, but is generally misunderstood. Coaches design programmes to develop mentally tough athletes, predominately in professional sport, to separate elite performers from good performers (Gould, Jackson, & Finch, 1993) as physical talent itself is not the only component that can lead an athlete to success (Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2008).