100
Escarpment Magazine Harvest & Holiday 2013
Ever since
I was 12 years old and alpine
ski racing in The Blue Mountains, I
knew I wanted to be a doctor of
sport psychology. Whether I’m
presenting, writing, or working
one-on-one with athletes, I look
forward to sharing mental tough-
ness techniques to help all types of
athletes enhance their performance.
Some people may wonder what mental
toughness training entails, as athletes
are taught to concentrate on their phys-
ical strength more than any other aspect in the
sport.
Following are a few specific sport psychology tools you can
use immediately to enhance your performance and explain why mental
toughness is so important to both professional and amateur athletes.
Many athletes can benefit from sport psychology. Take, for example,
an alpine ski racer who’d like to learn how to push him or herself past
fear or anxiety and remain committed, confident, and focused from the
starting gate to the finish line. There are three main sport psychology
tools he or she can use: association, affirmation and body language.
With association, athletes “tune in” to the activity to increase work out-
put. Examples of associations include focusing on technique and tactics.
The premise is to set a very short-term, specific, and process-oriented
goal to keep you focused on the work. These short-term goals distract
from any negativity by providing more productive and performance en-
hancing thoughts. Consequently, these productive thoughts result in pos-
itive behavior and faster finish times.
The second tool is affirmation. Choose affirma-
tions that keep you committed, focused and con-
fident during your training and racing. “If I don’t
work hard today, someone else will.” is one of my
personal favourites for competitive athletes.
Although it’s essential to have intrin-
sic motivation for your sport, I like
to take advantage of our compet-
itive nature. I love this affirma-
tion for ski racing because
when it’s cold, windy, and still dark
as we make your way to the ski
club, it quickly reminds you why
you’re training – to be better
than everyone else and to achieve
personal best results.
Body language is the third impor-
tant sport psychology tool. Athletes
should look confident and in charge at
the starting area. Little changes to your body lan-
guage such as taking your shoulders up, back and
down, along with smiling can go a long way. The take away is that pos-
itive language creates positive energy; positive energy fuels positive
performance and results.
Through these three techniques, athletes can find themselves completely
devoted and confident in their sport. Whether it’s fear and anxiety, neg-
ativity and distractions such as unforgiving weather and conditions, or
being confident even though today’s doesn’t feel as good as last week-
end’s race, practicing these techniques can make athletes more aware
of their mental toughness, and improving on it can, and will, eventually
lead to personal success.
Studies continue to prove that when you take 20 athletes of equal ability
and give 10 of them mental training, the 10 with mental training will
outperform the 10 who received no mental training every time. Whether
you’re an athlete wanting to get down that race course as fast as you
can, a snowshoe enthusiast looking to power it up the hill, or a golfer
looking to shave a few strokes off your golf game (even in the winter
time), sport psychology will enable you to achieve peak results.
For more information, visit
|E|
By DR. HALEY PERLUS
PH.D. , M.S.
Mental Toughness Training
for All Types of Athletes
Athletes Can Benefit from Sport Psychology
ESCARPMENT WELLNESS
|
sport psychology
