Role of Sports Psychology in Enhancing Player Performance

 

Role of Sports Psychology in Enhancing Player Performance

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Sports Psychology

It is study of how psychological factors influence the sports, athletic performance, exercise and physical activity. It is a proficiency that uses psychological knowledge and skills to address optimal performance and well-being of athletes and social aspects of sports participation, and issues associated with sports organization. Sports psychologist investigate how by playing sports can improve health and well-being.

History

Sports psychology was primarily the domain of physical educators, not researchers, which can explain the lack of consistent history. The birth of sports psychology happened largely in Germany. In early 1920s, the first sports psychology laboratory was formed by Dr. Carl Diem in berlin. The lab measured physical abilities in sport and Schulte published Body and Mind in sport, in 1921. The Americans felt that their sport performances were inadequate and disappointing as compared to others, this led them to invest more in methods that better their athletes’ performances. The advancement of sport psychology was deliberate in Soviet Union, due to creation of sports institutes where sports psychologist played vital role.

Types of Sports Psychologists

There are various types of psychologists such as:

·       Clinical psychologists

·       Developmental psychologists

·       Forensic psychologists

·       Educational psychologists

Educational Sports Psychologists

Educational sports psychologist uses psychological methods or psychological skills to improve athlete’s sports performance. This includes teaching them how to use some technologies like imagery, setting, goal, or self-talk, energy management, for better performance on field.

The main goal of educational sports psychologist is performance enhancement by teaching skills to athletes on how to manage the mental factors to maximize the potential. They also assist them with challenges they face during sports. This includes recovery from injury, plans for sticking to training regimen, or help with dealing with emotional strain of being in public eye.

Clinical Sports Psychologist

They work with athletes who have some mental issues or weak mental health such as Anxiety or depression. They use different strategies from both sports psychology and psychotherapy and help athletes to improve their mental health and sports performance at same time. They meet with athletes that have mental issues and work with them to provide the mental health solutions they need both individually and in public.

Exercise Psychologist

Exercise psychology is defined as study of psychological issues and various theories related to exercise. An exercise sports psychologist works with everyday exercisers or non-athletes to help them learn how to make working out habit. This work can include some techniques used by other sports psychologist like goal setting, practicing mindfulness, and motivational techniques.

Techniques in Sports Psychology

There are some common techniques or skills that sports psychologists teach to athletes for improving their performance and mental health.

Goal Setting

Goal setting is a procedure of systematically planning ways to achieve specific accomplishments with certain duration of time. According to research, goals should be measurable, specific, difficult but attainable, time-based and combination of short-term and long-term goals.

According to Dr. Eva V. Monsma, short-term goals should be used to achieve long-term goals. He also stated that it is important to set goals in positive terms by focusing on behaviors. Long-term goal should have a series of short-term goals that progress in difficulty. Having challenging short-term goals will remove repetitiveness of easy goals and help us to achieve the long-term goal with full focus.

Biofeedback

It uses external technology to make individual aware of internal physiological processes. There is some evidence that psychological measures, like heart beat or brain waves, appear to be different in athletes than that of normal person. It could also have beneficial implications for athletes to be able to monitor and control these physiological measures to maximize their performance.

Anxiety and Stress

Although the anxiety and stress are often considered a negative thing, they are necessary response for body to survive. Its natural for body to exhibit some anxiety, however, it becomes a problem when it begins to inhibit activity. Anxiety is a momentary feeling of nervousness or worry that accompanies the arousal of body. There is also somatic state anxiety, in which body experiences physiological response to arousal.

Drive theory is an approach that considers anxiety to be appositive asset. In situations where anxiety is high, performance increases proportionally. But this is not accepted as athletes can be psyched up. It is entirely dependent on individual’s personality, so it cannot be applied to all athletes.

To conclude, principles and techniques of sports psychology not only improve athlete’s performance, but it is also useful in real life. One may need to pond upon factors in continuing their goals and plans because in real life too, we are striving to achieve our goals of life. In short, reaching to top requires a series of smaller actions being performed on daily basis. Along with that, psychological skills like mindset and goal setting can also mould the tides of athletic performance.



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