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Fix-It Mentality: Recover from Performance Errors Faster

Concentration, Growth Mindset, Resilience, Sport Psychology

“Volleyball is a game of mistakes” is a common phrase in volleyball. In fact, Karch Kiraly, the former U.S. women’s national team volleyball coach, has been quoted many times saying that he loves watching his athletes struggle and make mistakes because it is the path to learning and improving.

Performance errors and setbacks are a part of a every sport, for every athlete, at every level. We all understand this concept and yet oftentimes have a difficult time recovering from the previous play and shifting the focus to the next one. If you find yourself worrying about the future, or dwelling on past mistakes during games, try this.

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Understanding Your Athletic Identity

Resilience, Self-care, Sport Psychology

What athletes and coaches give up.

Let’s be real, athletes and coaches make a ton of sacrifices both on and off the field. We dedicate so much time to conditioning and training, scouting opponents and watching video, mentally preparing, traveling to compete, and recovering in the training room. Throughout our athletic careers, we are conditioned to make great physical, emotional, and social sacrifices to compete at the expense of our mental and physical health.

What does it mean to have an athletic identity?

Your athletic identity is the degree to which you identify with your role as an athlete competing in your sport (Giannone, Haney, Kealy, & Ogrodniczuk, 2017). It’s basically a framework for an athlete’s self-concept. Sometimes, being an athlete can become such a big part of who you are that it overshadows other aspects of yourself and life can feel unbalanced.

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What is Sport & Performance Psychology?

Concentration, Confidence, Goal Setting, Imagery, Self talk, Sport Psychology

Sport & performance psychology combines evidence-based research with applied strategies to help athletes, coaches, and performing artists learn how to perform at their optimal level consistently, increase enjoyment and improve overall mental wellness.

Mental toughness is an athlete’s ability to perform their best in every competitive situation, regardless of the environmental obstacles or adversity faced (Burton & Raedeke, 2008). Mental toughness is not a single skill, but rather an entire set of mental skills that contribute to consistent optimal performance under pressure in competition. Mental skills are sport-specific psychological skills that contribute to an athlete’s ability to optimally perform (Weinberg & Gould, 2019). Below are a few examples of key mental skills foundational to sport & performance psychology.

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Using Imagery to Reduce Stress, Overcome Injury and Achieve Your Optimal Performance Level

Imagery, Injury

At some point in your career, you will experience an athletic injury. Every runner does eventually. Athletic injuries that disrupt your training routines and prevent you from running regularly are unavoidable. What many runners fail to realize is that an athlete’s mental outlook and stress response during the physical rehabilitation process significantly impacts both the recovery process and the risk of reinjury. Using sport psychology techniques to supplement your physical therapy process will result in more motivation, improved communication with your physical therapist, a better understanding of your injury, increased control over your recovery process, and ultimately a reduction in injury susceptibility.

What types of sport psychology techniques can injured runners benefit from the most?

One of the most widely used and powerful sport psychology techniques to support injury recovery is the use of imagery. Imagery is a mental training tool in which athletes use all their senses to mentally rehearse, create, or re-create an experience in the mind.

The difference between visualization and imagery is that visualization only engages the sense of vision, while imagery is a polysensory experience, meaning all senses are engaged including visual (what do you see?), auditory (what do you hear?), physical touch (what do you feel?), olfactory (what do you smell?), gustatory (what do you taste?) and the kinesthetic (what does the movement in your body feel like?).

“Visualization, for me, doesn’t take in all the senses. You have to smell it. You have to hear it. You have to feel it, everything.”
Emily Cook, Olympic Aerialist Skier

Runners can use imagery to mentally prepare for difficult race conditions, imagine desired race results, or refine your running technique. Injured runners can use imagery techniques to imagine the injured body part healing, reduce muscle tension, manage pain, decrease stress or re-injury anxiety, increase motivation for rehabilitation exercises, and imagine successfully returning to running.

Creating an Imagery Program

Holmes and Collins (2001) created the PETTLEP program to provide a framework for athletes to practice and integrate imagery into training. PETTLEP is an acronym for the model’s following seven key elements: physical, environment, task, timing, learning, emotion, and perspective. When designing and implementing imagery into your recovery program, runners should consider the following PETTLEP guidelines.

Your imagery should reflect the physical movement of running and the exact environment in which you plan to run in the future (i.e.. the New York Marathon). You should imagine the identical movement and task that you want to execute, in addition to the timing of the skill for the exact duration of time it takes to execute that skill. The learning element should be in alignment with your developmental stage of learning. Your imagery should incorporate as many race emotions as possible to make it feel real. Lastly you should engage in imagery using either an external or internal perspective, depending on whichever you find most effective.

External vs Imagery Perspectives

When practicing imagery, there are two different vantage points: external imagery and internal imagery. External imagery is viewing the action from outside of one’s body such as taken from the perspective of a video camera behind, above, or on the side of the runner. Alternatively, internal imagery is viewing the action from inside one’s body through your eyes. There is no right or wrong way to picture it. Both external and internal perspectives are effective. However, if you are having trouble with controllability or vividness, it might be helpful to try an alternative perspective when using imagery.

Controllability & Vividness

When practicing imagery, the two primary factors that impact the effectiveness are controllability and vividness. Controllability is one’s ability to imagine or control exactly what you desire to see in your mind. Vividness refers to the level of detail and clarity that the image contains. It is important to remember that imagery, like all mental and physical skills, takes time to learn and master. The more you practice, the better you will improve, and the more effective the imagery will become.

Mental Performance Consulting

Imagery is just one of many mental skills rooted in sport psychology that can help runners return to running. To learn more mental skills and sport psychology techniques to mitigate injury anxiety, manage stress, overcome injuries and help you achieve your optimal performance level, consult with a sport psychologist or mental performance consultant. Mental performance consulting is a non-clinical alternative to traditional talk therapy using mental skills and sport psychology techniques to enhance performance, overcome obstacles, and increase enjoyment.

Originally published on Custom Performance.

References

Arvinen-Barrow, Monna, & Walker, Natalie (2013). Imagery in Sport Injury Rehabilitation. (1^st ed.). Routledge.

Holmes, P.S., & Collins, D.J. (2001). The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologist. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13, 60-83.

Vealy, Robin S. & Forlenza, Samuel T. (2015). Understanding and Using Imagery in Sport. In J.M. Williams and V. Krane (Eds.) Applied sport psychology: Personal growth to peak performance. McGraw Hill Education. https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/applied-sport-psychology-personal-growth-peak-performance-williams-krane/M9780078022708.html

Scott, M. W., Wright, D. J., Smith, D., & Holmes, P. S. (2022). Twenty years of PETTLEP imagery: An update and new direction for simulation-based training. Asia Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2(2), 70–79. https://doi-org.uws.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.ajsep.2022.07.002

Weinberg, Robert S. & Gould, Daniel (2019). Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology (7^th ed.). Human Kinetics.

Williams, J. M. & Krane, Vikki (2015). Applied sport psychology: personal growth to peak performance. Seventh edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/applied-sport-psychology-personal-growth-peak-performance-williams-krane/M9780078022708.html

Breaking Down Team Cohesion

Uncategorized

In sports team cohesion is the tendency for a group of athletes to remain united in pursuit of team goals in the face of adversity.

Carron & Hausenblas (1998) offer a conceptual framework for team cohesion that includes the environment (i.e., group size), leadership (both peer and coaching behavior), team (i.e., roles), and personal factors (i.e., satisfaction). This framework is based upon Carron’s (1985) two principles of group integration and the individual’s attractive to the group (Burke et al., 2014). The principle of group integration is the concept that each athlete has a unique perspective about the closeness or bondedness of the team (Burke et al., 2014). The concept of an individual’s attractive to the group reflects the athlete’s personal benefits of being on the team or how each athlete’s individual needs are being met by other team members throughout the course of a season (Burke et al., 2014).

Both group integration and the individual’s attractive to the group ultimately impact whether the team sticks together over time. The factors that contribute to a team members motivation for group integration or attractiveness to the group can be broken down into the two categories of either task or social factors (Burke et al., 2014). Task factors represent a team’s objectives or goals (Burke et al., 2014). Social factors consist of social relationships and activities within the team (Burke et al., 2014).

Questions to Ask

As a sport psychology consultant, I primarily evaluate the quality of trust in the relationships between players to players, and between players to the coaching staff. I would also examine the quality and strength of team leadership.

Are there clear leaders on the team?
Are the leadership roles and responsibilities clear?
Do those leaders have the respect of their teammates and serve as a communication conduit between the team and coaches?

It’s also critical to examine the individual sport satisfaction and burnout levels of the players.

Do the players enjoy practicing and competing together?
Do they share common goals?
Do they enjoy being with one another outside of the gym or competition realm?
Do the athletes show respect one another’s differences?

Assessments

The Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) created by Widmeyer, Brawley, & Carron (1985) can be used to evaluate the level of team cohesion by assessing how the team members relate to and work together (Aoyagi et al., 2008). The Athlete Satisfaction Questionnaire (ASQ) by Riemer & Chelladurai (1998) can also be used to evaluate athlete satisfaction (Aoyagi et al., 2008).

Closing

One important factor about team cohesion to keep in mind is that team cohesion alone does not necessarily always result in optimal or desired performance. A group of athletes could have a high level of team cohesion, but low levels of motivation or lack leadership and ultimately perform poorly. Successful teams require both cohesion and leadership to achieve optimal performance results.

References

Aoyagi, M., Cox, R., & McGuire, R. (2008). Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Sport: Relationships with Leadership, Team Cohesion, and Athlete Satisfaction. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 20(1), 25–41.

Burke, S.M., Davies, K., & Carron, A.V. (2014). Group Cohesion in Sport and Exercise Settings. In Mark R. Beauchamp, & Mark A. Eys. (2014). Group dynamics in exercise and sport psychology: Vol. Second edition. Routledge.

LGBTQ+ Supportive Counseling

LGBTQ+, Therapy & Counseling

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