Sports psychology -A brief introduction & advantages
Introduction
In the clutch moments of the game, as the clock winds down the ball is in your hands, you dribble and consider the possibilities of what happens next, the weight of the responsibility hits, your shoulders begin to droop, all the work poured in culminates into this last shot. The hope that all the sweat of hard work would evaporate and bring down the rains of success seems distant. You freeze with the ball in your hands, unable to do anything as the clock runs out.
Game Over
A little while later you get past the fog of disappointment that engulfs you and past the screams of hundreds of people calling you the dreaded term “choker” and wonder why did you choke, what makes other people not crumble under the pressure? How can I get an edge over my competitors? Athletes for years have gone knocking on different doors to get these answers, the field of sports psychology has some.
The saying “sports are played with the body and won with the mind,” gained newfound prominence and vindication through the field of sports psychology. A concise definition of it is provided by
The American Psychological Association, “Sports psychology addresses the interactions between psychology and sports performances including the psychological aspects of optimal athletic performance, the psychological care and well being of athletes, coaches and sports organization and the connection between physical and psychological functions.” In simpler terms, it is the scientific study of people concerning sports and the application of that knowledge to become a better athlete and optimizing one’s athletic potential.
Importance and Advantage of Sports psychology
(1)Improve athletic performance
Mental imagery and visualization
One of the biggest advantages and the one most advertised is that it can help you improve your athletic performance, especially using the absurd sounding techniques of visualization and mental imagery, this seems to be one of those sports-related myths. However, athletes such as Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps and Tiger Woods stand by these techniques. Michael Jordan said, “I visualized where I want to be, what kind of player I wanted to become. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there.”
Imagery has been defined as, “using all the senses to re-create or create an experience in the mind .” There are two types of imagery, internal and external. Internal means that the athlete visualises himself performing the task in a first-person perspective and external imagery means the athlete imagines himself by a third-person perspective, it is responsible for the intensification of cognitive and motor skill and also used as a motivational tool as athletes imagine positive outcomes in these situations.
The difference between imagery and visualization needs to emphasised, visualization is forming mental images, for example, one would see a static image of oneself going up to the line and knocking down a free-throw. Mental imagery is not just restricted to the image and is much more lucid, for example in imagery one would feel the rubbery texture of the ball in one’s hand, hear the thud of the court and hear the sound of the ball swishing through the nylon, mental imagery helps in giving a more believable and an active visual leading to better performance. This occurs because the parts of the brain that are activated when one is imagining oneself shooting a free throw are the same brain parts which are activated when one is shooting a free throw. It also works in preserving an athlete’s skills when he/she is not practising.
That is activated when one is visualising shooting a free throw are the same parts that are activated when one is shooting a free throw. It helps the athlete be better prepared by helping plan strategies and can also maintain performance levels when the activity is not performed.
(2)Increasing Motivation and Drive
Lack of motivation is a common phenomenon noticed in athletes especially when playing a large number of games during a season. It’s tough to not fall into the trap of, “Why do we need to practice” or hearing one say, “why does it matter, we are going to lose anyway,” when faced by a seemingly undaunted task. To understand how to increase motivation we have to briefly look at what is motivation and its types. Motivation can be simply defined as, “the direction and intensity of one’s effort.” There are two types of motivations, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is motivation which comes from internal factors, such as children start playing a particular sport because they enjoy it or, so they can make new friends. Extrinsic motivation comes from external factors, such as the fame, money that one can get if one wins a championship.
There must be a healthy balance formed between both these motivations, an athlete will regularly face choices on which motivation to act, the way he handles himself goes a long way in determining his success in the sport. For example, increased reliance on extrinsic motivation means that your ability to come back from an injury or a loss decreases as you lose motivation to play if there is no reward. Sports psychology aims to provide a right combination of these two to maximise your hunger to succeed, this is done by creating small subgoals achieving small goals helps as the person continues to be encouraged by his constant and continuous success. Coaches play a big part in this by being communicative and encouraging and focusing more on the techniques rather than the result.
In conclusion, sport psychology is a highly fertile and untapped field whose techniques have shown its positive effects on athletes, enabling them to increase the efficiency of their work and enhance their capabilities.
