User blogs

The Power of Visualization for Athletes

Do you use visualization or imagery with your training regimen? Most athletes do not visualize or might only visualize before important competitions.

Visualization is the process of mentally rehearsing a scene in your mind to learn skills or enhance performance and consistency.

Interestingly, an overwhelming number of Olympic athletes visualize daily and credit visualization as a significant contributor to their successes. 

Why do some athletes avoid visualization when elite athletes take advantage of visualization to take their performance to the next level? Athletes who have doubts about visualization ask the following three questions:

1. Does visualization work? – Absolutely! Many athletes around the globe use visualization to learn new skills, deal with pain, improve their focus, manage competitive emotions, feel comfortable in new competitive environments, overcome adversity, maintain poise, and foster peak performance.

2. How does visualization work? – When you intentionally create images in your mind, you form muscle memory facilitating the replication of those images in practices or competitions. When you successfully visualize positive outcomes, you lessen the anxiety when performing those skills in physical competitions.

3. How do I start visualizing? – Start by getting relaxed with deep breathing or meditation. Visualization is most effective when you start with a relaxed mind and body. You may want to start by writing out a script to follow to avoid missing out on any details. You can record your own script as a guided imagery program.

USA volleyball players Alix Klineman and April Ross won the gold medal in beach volleyball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Klineman Ross became only the second U.S. women’s duo in history to win an Olympic gold medal in beach volleyball.

When asked how she pumps up and prepares for a game, Klineman pointed to visualization as a significant component.

KLINEMAN: “I do some visualization, which has been really powerful. I visualize myself in my body, so instead of looking at myself from another perspective, I see myself on the court, going through different skills and doing them really well. It’s like this positive reinforcement of knowing what it feels like, looks like, and how to execute it at a really high level… There’s a really powerful connection between body and mind, which I think a lot of people don’t realize.”

Visualization or mental rehearsal is a powerful mental tool to raise the level of your game. When you use mental rehearsal with your physical training, you will improve consistency, you mental game, and take your game to a new level.

If Olympians use visualization to achieve greater results, you can also raise your game by adding visualization to your daily training schedule.

To improve your visualization skills, you must be patient with the process. Most athletes give up on visualization too quickly because they don’t see immediate results or find it challenging to create vivid images in their minds.

And remember that visualization is not always about visual images. You might be more feel-oriented and want to feel your performance instead. Most athletes use a combination of modalities to mentally rehearse their performance.

source

By Patrick Cohn

How well do you perform when your back is up against the wall or when you are playing an elimination game?

Some athletes perform better when there is a sense of urgency or perceived pressure. We often call these athletes clutch in those situations.

However, are all athletes who play better when their backs are against the wall clutch? How about an athlete who underperforms against a lower-ranked opponent but kicks it into gear late in the game to steal the victory? Is that athlete clutch?

For example, if a Top-10 tennis player competes against a player ranked No. 200, generally speaking, the player with the better ranking should be able to win handily. Let’s set the stage, the top-10 player loses the first set 6-0 and finds himself down 4-0 in the second set.

He is not necessarily being outplayed as underperforming due to a lack of effort and focus. Late in the second set, the Top-10 player kicks it into gear and wins the second set 6-4 and the third set 6-2 for the victory.

Is that player clutch because he won or just an athlete who overcame underperformance early in the competition?

Underperformance is caused by taking another opponent lightly or thinking you can magically flip a switch to turn the game around. If you wait to give your complete preparation, effort, and focus, often, it will be too late.

Underperformance can be avoided by adopting a champion mindset to every game or competition. A champion mindset approaches every competition with equal importance, whether you are competing against a top-ranked opponent or a person ranked 200th, a team with a winning record, or a winless team.

In their Stanley Cup playoff series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Florida Panthers were down three games and facing elimination from the playoffs…

The Panthers underperformed throughout the series and lost Game 3, 5-1. Despite averaging a league-high 4.11 goals per game during the regular season, the Panthers have scored only three goals through three games in the second round of the playoffs.

Florida coach Andrew Brunette talked about the team’s underperformance throughout the playoff series.

BRUNETTE: “[The Lightning] have more will and more desire than we do. We’re a good team when (our) backs are against the wall, and it looks bleak. Hopefully, we can find some energy and some passion and some joy.”

Having the ability to perform is not enough to perform at your peak. To be on top of your game, you need to approach each game as a playoff game, a championship meet, or a high-level tournament.

Start by understanding what causes you to underperform in competition. Do you prepare differently depending upon the opponent? Do you feel more pressure to be perfect? Are you worried about disappointing others?

When you understand what leads to underperforming, you can take steps to improve…

Most of the time, athletes underperform due to fear of failure. That means you get too worried about outcomes and what others think about your performance.

source

By Patrick Cohn

                                      How to Control Your Emotions on the Field

Do you have difficulty controlling your emotions during a soccer game?

Have you ever become so angry after a bad play that you yelled at your teammates, coach or even the ref?

Some soccer players get so upset that they just want to walk off the field in the middle of the game.

Negative emotions, such as anger, are difficult for some soccer players to manage and those runaway emotions can have a snowball effect on the mistakes they make throughout a game.

By far, the most taxing emotion in soccer is anger. Anger wears on a soccer player mentally and physically.

Anger is emotionally draining and pulls your attention away from playing soccer to a world inside your head of negative thoughts, fueling your anger even further.

Surely you can relate to feeling physically exhausted after a soccer game when anger raged inside of you.

We are asked this question a lot: How do I not get angry after mistakes and control my emotions?

First of all, don’t feel as if you are the only athlete who has a hard time with anger while performing; it is quite common among athletes in varying degrees.

Several mistakes in a row or missed chances can build your level of frustration. Hitting an open shot off the crossbar can turn that frustration into full blown anger.

That anger can lead to giving up on focusing and lunging wildly at the ball with no goal in mind. As you continue to add poor decisions, you can feel the anger swell inside.

While it may feel impossible–in that moment–to control your anger, you definitely can. You may not be able to prevent mistakes, but you can learn mental strategies to prevent losing your cool and accumulating stupid fouls.

You may notice that when you become angry, you retreat into your mind and become overly-critical of every little mistake.

Not only are there mental ramifications, physical consequences also become a challenge. When your anger rages, your heart rate becomes elevated and your breathing becomes shallow and rapid.

Soccer players stop communicating with teammates or lash out. They take longer to react because the are dwelling on the past.

You can learn to manage your negative emotions. For example, learning to refocus can help turn your attention away from replaying bad moments in your mind and help you focus on making the right decision in front of you.

Another way to manage your anger is to use relaxation strategies to calm your body and thus your mind.

Either way, it is important to realize that you are, ultimately, in the driver’s seat and not your emotions.

Managing Anger in Check on the Field

Most often, when soccer players get upset, they are failing to play up to their expectations, such as “I shouldn’t make any mistakes” or “I should win all 1v1 situations.”

First, you have to manage your pregame expectations and not put standards on your game before the start of the game.

Second, what are the top 5 triggers that make you angry while playing. What makes each mistake so awful for you? Write the trigger and your reaction as well.

Next, how can you respond differently in each of the same situations? How can you stop dwelling on the mistake? You want to have a new reaction to the mistake that will help you play on with composure.

The key is to understand that mistakes do not make you angry! How you react to mistakes makes you angry!

Published on May 9 

By Patrick Cohn

source

What causes choking? Why do some young athletes choke while other athletes rise to the occasion?

Most young athletes don’t like to hear the word “choking,” let alone admit that they choke. Yet, some athletes believe they “always choke” when the pressure is on.

Choking generally results from kids dealing with three issues.

The first is negative self-talk.  If kids tell themselves they will choke over and over or refer to themselves as chokers, they will likely choke when the pressure is on.

Self-talk is powerful. Think of self-talk as a directive. Kids’ self-talk tells them what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.

For example, a young athlete might say, “In the last minutes of a close basketball game (when to do it), I always choke (what to do) and shoot the ball short (how to do it).”

Athletes should send themselves a different message to yield different results. For example, they might tell themselves, “When my legs get tired, make sure I get my legs into the shot and follow-through.” During games, it’s ideal to shorten this message by using cue words such as legs and follow-through.

Second, kids’ perspective is critical. When they view pressure situations as an opportunity to fail or embarrass themselves, they will tense up and play it safe.

In the ninth inning of a tied baseball game, if they see themselves as “chokers,” they will try to avoid striking out instead of swinging the bat and making solid contact.

Young athletes are more successful when they see challenging situations as a chance to shine and help their teams.

A third issue that leads to choking relates to what kids focus on. Concentrating on results, the outcome of a gymnastics routine, missing a game-winning shot or losing a set in a tennis match all create anxiety. And anxiety negatively affects sports kids’ physiology and mechanics, causing them to choke.

Kids need to stay immersed in what they are doing to keep their attention on the moment, freeing their minds and bodies to just perform.

Choking or performing under pressure directly results from kids’ perspective, focus and self-messaging, all of which are under kids’ control. Be sure to remind sports kids that they have control of these three issues.

Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka talked about how his team needs to respond to adversity:

“It’s guys getting rattled when it’s not the end of the world. You still have a 12-point, comfortable lead, and you gotta end that run,” he said. “We have to understand time and score, and we need a solid shot and not just get caught up in the game.”

Blowing a big lead is often due to choking or playing it too safe. The fear of unraveling and losing after having a commanding lead causes athletes to play cautiously and on their heels, instead of on their toes.

The focus always needs to be on the present moment. Kids will underperform or choke when their minds drift away from the moment at hand.

One way for kids to prevent choking is to reframe how they view pressure games. For top athletes, pressure elevates their game when they use the added intensity to go deeper into the zone.

Help kids look at pressure as an opportunity to excel, not an opportunity to fail.

Under pressure, the game is the same with the same size court, rink, or field. The only thing that changes is young athletes’ perspective of the importance of the game!

source

Published on

FEBRUARY 11, 2022 By Patrick Cohn