Ask any athlete, coach, or anyone associated with competitive athletics, how important is an athlete’s mental game?
And all will say, “Very important!”
Yet, how much time does an athlete devote to training his or her mental game? Or, how much time do coaches offer his or her athletes for training it?
Almost all say not enough. Why?
Why No Mental Game Practice?
It is often said in countless discussions on sports performance that the mental game makes up anywhere from 50% to 90%; yet, most, neither athlete nor coach, rarely acknowledges that they spend that percentage of time on developing it. Why is that?
The reasons are many, but here are a few:
“The mental game will develop along with physical development”
“It’s difficult to measure and we like to see things that we can measure”
“We don’t have a budget for it”
“We can only devote so much time for practice”
“If an athlete is struggling, we tell them to come to us and we will get them help”
"I don't need it. There's nothing wrong with me that I can't fix."
Unfortunately, these reasons do nothing to help strengthen an athlete’s mental game. All athletes spend more time physically practicing their sport than they will competing in it. And if the mental game supposedly involves 50% or more psychological efficiency, why aren’t athletes and coaches devoting more time to it?
Most athletes wait until they are in a crisis before reaching out for help. And once they do reach out for help, they want a “quick fix” to their issue. Coaches often want the same for the athlete. Yet, rarely has an athlete practiced mental training before their crisis hits. Would any athlete be ready for a competition after just one physical practice? Of course not!
Athletics and daily living are a complex human activity involving many factors—internally and externally—that are tied together to understanding, predicting, and enhancing sport performance. Therefore, it is not reasonable to focus on any one aspect as being responsible for enhancing or impeding an athlete’s well-being or sports performance.
In our Western culture, and way of thinking, many believe that athletes reach a level of greatness because athletes never experience adversity, never struggle to learn a skill, or were born elite.
The fact is, all athletes, elite or sub-elite, experience mental adversity. Yet, many athletes, and coaches, devote little time to strengthening and developing a beneficial, efficient mental game through psychological skills practice.
Although the NCAA and professional sports organizations offer great resources for athletes and coaches on mental health, the organizations offer little on training or the encouragement toward training. This means that mental skills training is left up to the athlete, coach, professional organization, or university.
The NCAA limits the number of hours athletes can spend in required athletic activities. Often times coaches do not want to devote precious time to a sports psychology workshop because the time spent would be taken away from a physical practice. Thus, athletes often are left to pursue help on their own or coaches direct them to the university counseling center where they work with an intern not specialized in sports psychology.
Some professional athletes and World Class athletes can and often do spend more time in physical training than when they were in college. And although many have access to those who specialize in sports psychology and counseling, many do not take advantage of the resource. Why?
Perhaps because of the stigma that surrounds seeking out mental health care or anything that has to do with the “mind.”
The Dallas Cowboys launched an initiative called “Kicking the Stigma” that addresses this issue, making great strides toward awareness on mental health. Many professional athletes understand how important it is to have a strong mental game and the time required to developing it. However, the sad truth, many more do not. Why is it that athletes are willing to reach out for help with regard to their physical training to only shy away from help on their mental game?
Develop Your Mental Game? Imagine The Possibilities!
Nothing can replace the actual practice of sport. No one would argue against its importance. Physical practice versus mental practice is not the point here. Athletes should devote a great deal of time to improving their physical abilities and developing their sport skill. But imagine, though, if athletes devoted a mere 20% of their training time to developing their mental game? What heights might that take them?
Anders Ericsson, the expert on experts and best-selling author of “Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise,” stated that, “Accumulated practice is the real wizard behind the curtain of innate talent.” And that, “Elite athletes are differentiated not by their genes but by their deliberate practice.”
Here, the idea that deliberate practice in sport is what separates the good from the great. But how much time and quality? That is another story that you can get more details on from reading Dr. Ericsson’s book. Yet, he makes a good point about deliberate practice. If athletes differentiate by their deliberate physical practice of their sport, then what would happen if athletes differentiated by deliberate practice for their mental game?
In NCAA athletics, the 20-rule has its loop holes about what is actual practice hours. So, before relegating mental training into another loop-hole, perhaps coaches should make it a part of the core 20-hour practice regimen—at least initially—until athletes feel comfortable enough to practice on their own.
The benefits far outweigh the cons, which usually is not “having enough time” to devote to mental skills training. Learning a new mental skill or having a mental tool spills over into promoting one's overall well-being and improving quality of life. That contributes to better sport performance!
If you’re a professional coach, what if your off-season training program devoted time to mental skills training? How much better functioning might your athletes become before the season begins? And for college coaches, where the NCAA restricts athlete’s training time in the off-season, how about offering a mental skills training program for those who would want to volunteer and take part? How better might they become—mentally—once their season begins?
Athletes strive for mental toughness and efficiency and coaches want the same for them. Yet, the assumption that physical practice, not mental training, will make athletes mentally tough is not a sound approach. Often, many argue that because athletes are elite, they are already mentally tough; otherwise, they would not be elite, right? Wrong!
Does competing in sport make an athlete mentally tough or do they have some trait that makes them mentally tough to compete in sport?
If you believe in either, or both, then the assumption would be that they have superior mental skills already, or, perhaps, the very act of competing in sports develops an efficient mental game.
However, we know through Ericsson’s research that unless athletes deliberately practice specifically designed techniques designed to improve a particular skill, their practice will only lead to stagnation and not improvement. The same applies to developing a beneficial mental game. Some athletes might be better equipped to practice on their own or use techniques that have aided them throughout their career. Sadly, many athletes do not deliberately practice their mental game or even make a little time for it.
If athletes are not offered specific tools designed to improve their mental skill, and those skills practiced deliberately, then they stand a good chance of stagnating and just going through the motions, with hit or miss performances. This inconsistency often leads to frustration, anxiety, depression, and ultimately performance declines (slumps).
Conclusion
All athletes strive to have an effective performance or peak performance every time they step into the competitive arena. They expect it and so do their coaches. The expectation is mainly based on how well the athlete has physically prepared. Athletes physically practice countless of hours in hopes that they have diligently prepared well enough to overcome their competition and have their best performance. Yet, the same cannot always be said about the preparation time invested into developing a sound mental game.
Having a sports performance program that includes sports medicine, strength and conditioning, nutrition, and sports psychology and counseling offers an all-around approach toward meeting an athlete's needs on sport performance and well-being improvement. Some universities offer such well-rounded programs; yet, many do not because of budget constraints, or they would rather send their athletes to the university counseling center.
Nevertheless, athletes should consider devoting time to deliberately practicing skills that could greatly improve their mental game and overall quality of life.
After all, what happens in life can affect what outcomes happen in sport.
And finally, coaches would benefit tremendously from incorporating a sports psychology and counseling service into their training programs, either through budgeting for such a service or making sure that the professional organization or university has someone on staff trained to help their athletes develop a sound mental game.
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