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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 1 Michelle Pain, PhD
Sport Psychology Tools for Every Coach and Athlete
Michelle D. Pain, PhD
November 2011 www.pocketpsychology.com.au © Michelle D Pain, Parkdale Amber P/L All rights reserved. Except as may be permitted by the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission from the author. As the purchaser of the file you may store and display this ebook on as many electronic devices as you wish (computer, tablet computer, phone, book reader, etc.) as long as each device is owned by you or is used by you personally.
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 2 Michelle Pain, PhD
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 4 WHAT IS SPORT PSYCHOLOGY? ............................................................................. 8 MUSCLE RELAXATION ...................................................................................................................... 14 GETTING RID OF NEGATIVE MESSAGES ......................................................................................... 18 VISUALISATION /IMAGERY .............................................................................................................. 20 Internal and external visualisation .................................................................................. 23 Imagery for healing .................................................................................................................. 24 USING KEY WORDS AND IMAGES .................................................................................................... 26 Using visualisation, key words, muscle relaxation and breathing to develop a pre-game (or pre-shot) routine .................................................................. 30 AROUSAL CONTROL: PSYCHING UP AND PSYCHING DOWN ........................................................ 41 GOAL SETTING ................................................................................................................................... 57 Lifetime Goal Setting .............................................................................................................. 58 Spider Web Profile ................................................................................................................... 62 Achievement Management Plan ...................................................................................... 66 FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON THINGS THAT MATTER ................................................................... 74 Controlling distractions .......................................................................................................... 74 Controlling expectations ....................................................................................................... 75 OTHER SPORT PSYCHOLOGY SKILLS ............................................................... 77 COMMUNICATION APPROACHES ...................................................................................................... 79 Learning styles ........................................................................................................................... 79 Verbal and Non-‐Verbal Cues .................................................................................................. 81 Building rapport .......................................................................................................................... 82 Insightfulness ................................................................................................................................ 83 Delivering the message ............................................................................................................. 84 Feedback is a two-‐way process ............................................................................................. 85 Effect of Negative Feedback ................................................................................................... 86 Role playing ................................................................................................................................... 90 Confidentiality .............................................................................................................................. 90 SPORT PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH ....................................................................... 92 PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENTUM ........................................................................................................ 92 MOTIVATION ................................................................................................................................... 102 ‘Losing’ as a de-‐motivator ..................................................................................................... 102 The role of confidence ......................................................................................................... 103 Team culture ............................................................................................................................. 104 RETIREMENT ................................................................................................................................... 105 BURNOUT ......................................................................................................................................... 106 PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT .......................................................................................................... 108 Attentional abilities ................................................................................................................. 111 Interpersonal abilities ............................................................................................................. 111 Using the TAIS for selection ............................................................................................. 113
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 3 Michelle Pain, PhD
ROLES IN SUPPORTING THE ATHLETE ............................................................ 123 THE ROLE OF THE SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST ..................................................................................... 123 How do you know if the sport psychologist is effective? ................................. 123 THE ROLE OF THE COACH ............................................................................................................... 125 THE ROLE OF GAME DAY SUPPORT PERSONNEL .......................................................................... 127 THE ROLE OF FAMILY MEMBERS ................................................................................................... 128 Conflict over roles ................................................................................................................... 129 OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION ................................................................ 129 THE DREAM ................................................................................................................... 132 FUEL THE DREAM ............................................................................................................................ 132 LIVE THE DREAM ............................................................................................................................. 133 SHARE YOUR DREAM ....................................................................................................................... 134 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... 135 SISSCGP310A WORKBOOK ................................................................................... 136 1. HOW DOES A SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST WORK?...........................................................................132 2. COMMUNICATION……..………........……………………………………………………….………..135 3. IMPLEMENTING SPORT PSYCHOLOGY TECHNIQUES ...................................................................... 143 4. DEALING WITH YOUR INTERNAL VOICE ................................................................................... 145 5. VISUALISATION ........................................................................................................................... 146 6. KEY WORDS AND IMAGES .......................................................................................................... 146 7. PRECOMPETITION ROUTINES .................................................................................................... 147 8. AROUSAL CONTROL .................................................................................................................... 152 9. GOAL SETTING ............................................................................................................................. 157 10. ORGANISATIONAL POLICIES AND PROCEDURES, AND THE SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST AS SUPPORT PERSONNEL .................................................................................................................... 162
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 4 Michelle Pain, PhD
Introduction When I was a young undergraduate student, I discovered a sport psychology textbook stocked in the university bookshop. It was a ‘how to…’ on visualisation, and the book (or more, the potential it offered) changed the course of my life. At that stage, I was studying psychology but had no real idea how I wanted to use that qualification. As a former track and field athlete, I was fascinated by sport psychology (or more to the point, how to perform sport psychology techniques on athletes), and this book inspired me to ‘take a punt’ (sic) on the fledgling professional sports industry in Australia and want to become a sport psychologist.
Later, as a qualified postgraduate student, I really appreciated being able to go along to Victoria University to hear Denis Glencross (a noted Western Australian sport psychologist) speak about how he worked with athletes. It was these ‘how to’ sessions that made the profession real to me, not the theoretical psychology textbooks we studied.
Being a sport psychologist for over 25 years, I have recommended to student sport psychologists that they collect a repertoire of tools that they could call upon to use with athlete clients. This booklet is intended to provide a start to creating that ‘bag of tricks’. I recommend that you read widely and be like a magpie. Pick up the ‘shiny’ things you think might be useful later - try working with This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 5 Michelle Pain, PhD
them, modify them – and over time you’ll have yourself a repertoire of strategies that you’ll be able to call on.
I make no apologies for the conversational style of this text. I’m imagining I’m right there with you, talking things over and giving you a few pointers. I’m trying to anticipate the questions you may have so I can give you an explanation. By necessity, a book can only ever be a one way conversation, but if you want a two way conversation, Google me - I’m sure you’ll find an up to date email address on my Pocket Psychology website. Feel free to ask me a question. Here comes the disclaimer: using this booklet won’t entitle you to be called ‘a sport psychologist’. In Australia, the process to become a sport psychologist is a long one (in my case, 12 years of university). If this is your aim, (at the time writing this) you would need to complete an undergraduate degree with a major in a recognised psychology course, followed by a fourth year in psychology, either as a Graduate Diploma or an Honours year, and then a Masters degree in sport psychology. You’d also then need 240 hours of supervised practice. (Those who intend to teach at university would normally then go on to do a PhD, which can be 2-3 years full time.) You can find out if a course is an accredited one, or which universities offer Masters degrees in sport psychology, if you contact The Australian Psychological Society or look on their website, http://www.psychology.org.au
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 6 Michelle Pain, PhD
Using this book will give you some idea of how sport psychologists use these sorts of tools with their athletes, to help them ‘unlock’ their talent. The person reading this book might not be a sport psychologist. They might be an athlete or coach wanting to understand how to help him- or herself better, or a coach might want to better understand her or his team (or players within the team). This ebook would be an excellent start.
If a person wanted to complete the exercises in this book to pass a sport psychology unit at TAFE, or fulfil requirements for VCE Physical Education (Outcome 2), there is a Workbook at the end of this text to print off and complete (and give to your teacher for assessment). Your teachers will decide how much of the workbook you should complete. Registered Training Organisations who purchase a license, in addition to this ebook receive the Evidence Guide for SISSCGP310A (Support athletes to adopt principles of sport psychology) that maps the questions in the Workbook back to the criteria for that unit.
In order to receive Recognition for Prior Learning for this unit, one would need to have completed the exercises and have passed the assessment (ie. meaning someone from an accredited Registered Training Organisation, an RTO, would need to have judged that the answers given were correct and appropriate and that they meet the criteria for a particular unit or qualification). All of my
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 7 Michelle Pain, PhD
affordable resources may be purchased from my website, http://www.pocketpsychology.com.au. I don’t believe there’s a real ‘how to’ book on sport psychology on the market at the moment. I love being innovative and doing things that others haven’t thought of doing yet. My grand ambition is to provide affordable sport psychology resources to the world via the internet. My colleagues might say ‘why do you want to give away all your tricks?’, and to answer them I’d say ‘it’s a bit like hearing your favourite artist on CD or DVD – you get the pleasure of seeing and hearing the artist and how their interpretation of their work…but seeing them ‘live’ means you get an extra special oneoff experience’. I would say that it’s much the same when you work with a sport psychologist in real life – it’s so much more ‘threedimensional’ (and it certainly is a two way dialogue at the very least!). I consider this text to be a good advertising vehicle for me, and for sport psychologists in general. Plus, I’m really conscious of the fact that lots of people can’t afford to see a sport psych, so they could use these tips to help themselves. But trust me, seeing a sport psych in person is really good value, because you get a session tailor-made for you, and the years of training a sport psych undergoes means they can fix up a lot of issues much quicker than you can do it yourself. But I think there’s a place for a book like this. I hope it will help a lot of people become much better athletes way faster than the ‘trial and error’ experience that most athletes go through without any help at all.
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 8 Michelle Pain, PhD
What is Sport Psychology? Sport psychology is about teaching athletes (or players) – I usually use these terms interchangeably but I’m mostly going to stick with the word ‘athlete’ throughout this text unless I know I’m referring to team members - and coaches ways to think smarter in order for them to perform better. It’s not about technique – we leave that to coaches to teach the technical expertise – but about using your brain. I want my athletes to achieve their potential by me teaching them mental skills that anyone of any ability can develop to help improve themselves (as people and athletes).
Usually, my clients are happy to see a sport psych. They are usually pretty motivated individuals in the first place, and they have come to a decision that they’ve taken themselves as far as they can with the talent they have, but there’s something still holding them back from reaching their full potential. We enter into a professional relationship to work together to unlock any further talent they have that has been held back by their way of thinking.
Sport psychologists – all the ones I know, at least – work mostly from a CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) framework. That is, the sport psychologists try to understand the way a client currently thinks and the effect it has on the client’s behaviours, in order to help develop some new thinking strategies that will improve
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 9 Michelle Pain, PhD
behaviours (ie. that will lead to improvement in performances and increase enjoyment in sport).
There is a new movement (since 1999) that is quite attractive to psychologists worldwide, called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is very loosely based on CBT principles. ACT therapists have clients think mindfully (ie. ‘in the moment’), being aware of negative and positive thoughts, and letting them ‘drift past’ without intervention, or if there is an intervention, it is without judgement regarding those thoughts. Whereas CBT tries to have clients evaluate their thoughts and behaviours and try actively to make improvements, ACT is more about embracing ourselves as we are (negative thoughts and all). I believe there is a place for ACT, but I prefer to think (and teach my clients to think) more strategically. I believe CBT is more solution-focused treatment for athletes and coaches. (For issues of a more clinical orientation for example, depression, anxiety, psychoses - I think ACT may be very beneficial for exploring why people think in a particular way etc. For me, CBT serves me very well for most of my clients.)
I have also used a Humanistic approach, when I employed Narrative Therapy with one of my clients. As it’s name implies, it is where a story is told about the client’s life, and is constructed by the client. There is the life the client currently perceives they have, as well as the life the client imagines or wishes they had (had some specific incident not occurred). We (the client and I) then try This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 10 Michelle Pain, PhD
to rehearse strategies that might move the client from the life they have now towards their idealised life, by constructing a series of steps that lead to the desired outcome. In the narrative therapy, the event is looked at from several people’s perspectives to try to work out possible motives to explain others’ behaviour under the circumstances. It is just a different way of working through an issue, and because it is story telling, it’s not too difficult for the client to participate in the therapy. I have used this treatment with a client affected by post traumatic stress (with some success), but I used a lot of CBT in addition to narrative therapy! Like most psychologists, I may use other techniques (eg. narrative therapy and ACT), but my ‘go-to tool’ is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
So those thoughts reflect my philosophies. My primary aim is to teach skills and knowledge that can be used right away (because I like to be maximally useful to my clients). So, I want to share with you now a little bit of how I work with my athletes, to teach you some skills that I believe will help you (or your athletes) get more out of your/their performances (and your/their enjoyment of sport). I make no apologies for the way I’ve written this booklet. I want you to feel that I’m standing right with you, talking you through these exercises and explaining how and why I use them.
Here’s what I really believe - athletes who just try to beat their opponents (in order to ‘win’) are missing the point. In my opinion,
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 11 Michelle Pain, PhD
it’s the person who looks back at you in the mirror who needs to be changed, in order for that person to reach their potential.
I’ve seen a saying on a wall that says (something like), ‘if we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll never see improvement’. We have to keep actively working toward improvement. That’s what it’s all about - sport is just the vehicle we use to test ourselves, to see how good we can be. Just as Lance Armstrong titled his book ‘It’s not about the bike’, so is sport psychology ‘not about your opponent’. It’s about you and your journey, and about being the best you can be.
We’re usually our own worst enemy. We often talk ourselves out of a win (or even of trying our best). The outcome of the match or performance is often over before we’ve even started (or at least we are seriously handicapped) by our own thoughts. Imagine how much better we could be if we felt carefree and self assured, and that we didn’t need to prove anything to anyone? How good could we be, as athletes and coaches if we just tried to do the best we could, without our negative thoughts hindering us? What about if we took that attitude to our everyday life, just being open to new experiences and looking to improve ourselves? We’d be great!
I’ve seen athletes try so hard they are their own worst enemy. They want it so badly, and yet their performances are spiralling out This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 12 Michelle Pain, PhD
of control. They just don’t understand it. No-one wants it as badly as them, yet it’s just not happening for them when it matters most. What’s going on? This sort of thing happens because the athlete has been heaping pressure on him- or her- self. They have a plan, but life just isn’t following the plan... They feel out of control – feelings they don’t really like, so it’s scary – and it feels like they’ll never be ‘talented’ again…
So far, you can see that the things the athlete has been thinking, and the way that they have been behaving, has not been a good strategy for them. Their performances are declining, not improving, so something obviously has gone wrong. What sport psychologists are on about is to identify patterns of thoughts, and patterns of behaviours, which do and do not work, and do more of the former.
What would you do with an athlete like this? (The lines are here for you to jot down some ideas before you turn the page. If you are looking at an electronic document, write your ideas on a separate piece of paper as we go through the exercises.) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 13 Michelle Pain, PhD
In the next part of the book, I’m going to look at a range of strategies, presented in no particular order. When I work with an athlete I wouldn’t work through each strategy in turn; instead, I would just pick the one (or ones) I think will suit my client and my client’s situation best.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 14 Michelle Pain, PhD
Mental preparation skills Muscle Relaxation It is a good idea for athletes to learn a calming strategy. Very few athletes perform well when the chatter inside their head tells them things are going badly and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get out of this negative spiral. Calming a person down means they can start to get a grip on the situation, and look to strategies outside their head…strategies that will probably work a lot better than the one they are currently using!
As a general strategy, I go right back to basics. I teach a person to recognise how tense their muscles are feeling but when you are teaching it to the client, they can be just sitting comfortably upright on a seat to begin with. This is a muscle relaxation session, but slowing the breathing is important to help calm a person down too. I would recommend that the client do the muscle relaxation sequence lying in bed, just before they go to sleep. The principle is that you start from the head and work your way down to your toes, alternately tensing and relaxing each muscle group in turn as you go down from your head to your toes.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 15 Michelle Pain, PhD
Here’s the sort of script you might use (or you could record your voice reading the script so you could play it back rather than rely on recall): Lie down, or sit, somewhere comfortably. Take a deep breath, and fill your lungs more than you usually would in your day-to-day life…(wait a second or two more)…then breathe out. Keep breathing slowly as you now tense your forehead. Squish it right up so you have deep furrows in your brow, and you are screwing your eyes right up. Hold it like this for a few more seconds….and now relax. Notice the difference in how your muscles feel right now, now that they are relaxed. Keep breathing slowly. Now I want you to clench your jaw. Show your teeth and tense your jaw and neck. Hold it there a few more seconds…and now relax…move your lips and mouth, roll your head slowly in a circle, first one way, then the next…notice how it feels to be more relaxed in your jaw and neck. Now I want you to work on your fingers, hands and arms. Make tight fists, bend your elbows towards you, and tense your biceps, triceps and forearms all at the same time. Breath slowly and hold it for a few seconds more….and now un-tense those muscle groups – wiggle your fingers - and notice how it feels to be more relaxed in those muscles. Keep breathing slowly, and now tense your stomach and lower back muscles. Hold it a bit longer…and now relax.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 16 Michelle Pain, PhD
Continue to breath in and out slowly. Tense your buttocks now….hold it a few more seconds…and now relax those muscles. Tense your quadriceps (muscles on the front of your upper leg) now, as well as your calf muscles. Tense them up…hold it for a few more seconds….now relax them. Feel how it should be when you feel relaxed there. Finally, curl your toes and tense them too. Hold it….and now relax. Now that you’ve tensed all parts of your body in turn, take a moment to analyse what part of your body still feels tension. If you still feel tense in any muscle group, just tense it consciously, and then consciously un-tense it, so you feel relaxed there too. Your body should feel a little heavy, but relaxed. Keep breathing slowly, in and out.
OK, so that exercise starts to make the athlete aware of muscle groups, which can then be manipulated to feel tension and relaxation as required. Hopefully this will get them to start identifying how their muscles feel at any particular time before, during, or after a competition. By experiencing both states (tension and relaxation), they can take steps at any time in the future to feel more relaxed.
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 17 Michelle Pain, PhD
Once a person feels calmer, they are more likely to take on board suggestions for improvement. This is why a stressed person – say someone who is getting bad news from a doctor, or an athlete hearing they are about to be dropped by the coach – doesn’t really hear all the information.
The brain shuts down because it can’t cope with the news. It’s a self-preservation strategy, so if you’re a coach, you’ll want to follow up later with your athlete and spell out what they need to do to get back in the team, and if you’re an athlete you’ll want to follow up with the coach to hear what you need to do to get back into the team again. Being calm means you can better assess your options and make better decisions.
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 18 Michelle Pain, PhD
Getting Rid of Negative Messages The next area to address is what I call ‘the leprechaun on the shoulder’. I reckon all of us have a leprechaun (in my imagination) who whispers in our ear, “that was rubbish”, or “you don’t deserve to be out here”, or “you’re useless” etc. Most of us aren’t even aware of the leprechaun because we unconsciously hear those sorts of messages all the time. So firstly, we have to make ourselves aware when our mind hears those negative messages. Next, we have to either stop the messages, or (better still) replace the messages with something more positive. Let’s have a look at how to do this. Think of a scenario in your sport where a player might hear negative messages. A mistake has been made and the player feels a bit down about the situation. Or something has happened recently (ie. form not so good) and the player is about to perform that skill in a competitive situation and wondering if they’ll succumb to the pressure and not perform the skill well enough (eg. kicking for goal but the past three attempts have skewed off the boot). Here are some likely messages they might hear (in their own mind): 1. You’re not good enough to be here 2. You’re only going to stuff it up again 3. You’ll never be any good
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 19 Michelle Pain, PhD
It’s difficult to ignore the negative messages, so the best way to deal with them is to replace the messages with realistic but positive messages so that as soon as the athlete becomes aware of the negative message, they’ll replace it with a more positivelyframed message that is less likely to be harmful to their chances of a successful outcome This is called ‘countering’, because we are countering the negative messages with something positive. Have a go at writing something positive that you might use to counter these sorts of messages: eg. ‘You’re not good enough to be here’ might be countered by ‘I’ve earned my right to be here just like everyone else’ 1. You’re only going to stuff it up (Now you have a go at countering this message) _____________________________________________________ 2. You’ll never be any good _____________________________________________________ Create an example for your sport here: (Original) Negative message _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 20 Michelle Pain, PhD
Now, counter your negative message with something more positive: _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ If you are in a group right now, turn to the person next to you and discuss your example and why you think it will be effective. Do they have any constructive criticism for you to make your words more effective? Is there a better way to phrase that?
Visualisation / Imagery Now that we have our leprechaun under control (from the previous section), we can start to learn some other skills that are used as sport psychology tools. One of the fun exercises – it’s been described as a good party trick – is actually an excellent demonstration of the power of the mind. You’ll need a lightweighted object (I have a plastic golf ball that has holes all around it) tied to a length of string (approximately 40-50cm long), and tie a knot at the free end.
The idea is that you (or, in my case, I’d instruct my client) sit on a chair with space in front of you, hold the knot between your forefinger and thumb, rest your elbow on your knee as you lean forward and let the weight drop. You can use your other hand to steady the weight, if necessary. It’s important to let the weight fall straight and not consciously move it around at all. What you are
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 21 Michelle Pain, PhD
trying to do is move the weight in a clockwise direction – without moving your muscles – just using your mind.
I use a visualisation technique to help me here when I do this activity. It’s important to see, as clearly as possible, what you want to achieve (ie. to get the weighted object – in my case, a plastic golf ball at the end of a length of string to swing in a clockwise direction). Specifically, I imagine that my eyeballs are pushing the weight around in the correct direction (but you might have another technique!). The more times you practice this, the easier it becomes to get the weighted object to move in the desired direction.
You must make sure you aren’t moving your wrist, or forearm, shoulder or anything else in order to achieve movement in the correct direction. It might take a while to get started, but most people can get some movement out of the weight. (I’ve found that those people who might already be familiar with visualisation have an advantage over those who have never or rarely tried visualisation.)
Those people that can achieve clockwise movement might be encouraged now to see if they can get the circle even bigger. Or for those who are pretty skilled at this, they can try to slow the weight down and have it move in the opposite direction. (This This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 22 Michelle Pain, PhD
usually takes a little time, even for me.) If you’ve got a weight and some string handy, why not give this a try now?
OK, assuming you’ve got movement – without moving your arm or hand to help it along – you should ask your client (or yourself) how and why this can happen? As I said earlier, the trick is in being able to tell the brain exactly what you want to have happen, as clearly as possible. If you are not moving your major muscles to do this, what is happening is that the micro-muscles in your fingertips are co-ordinating in the right sequence to bring about the movement in the desired direction (even if you are not totally aware of it).
This example demonstrates the power of the mind. It has implications for you playing sport, because if you can clearly visualise the outcome you want (ie. in this example it was to have the weight to swing in a clock-wise direction, but it might be to imagine the correct technique to shoot the goal, or putt from 4m into a headwind), your brain will tell your muscles to co-ordinate in a specific way to attempt to achieve this (and of course, if you’ve correctly practiced this skill in training – or even watched someone highly skilled perform the routine) it isn’t a big stretch for your brain to do this.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 23 Michelle Pain, PhD
On a more global scale, the clearly visualised outcome might be ‘win Wimbledon’ or ‘kick 6 goals’, and one would use Goal Setting (see later section) to move oneself in that direction by taking the necessary steps to bring about that outcome.
Internal and external visualisation Visualisation has been described as guided imagery, or mental rehearsal. When visualising, you are imagining yourself going through a sequence of behaviours in order to get a desired outcome. When you visualise yourself playing sport, you can imagine you are watching yourself perform as though you are a spectator (ie. watching yourself perform as though you were on TV). This is external visualisation. The other sort is if you are actually doing the skill yourself from within your own body (ie. this is internal visualisation).
A lot of research was conducted into these two types of visualisation, and it was concluded that one type of visualisation wasn’t superior compared to the other, and that many people actually used both types of visualisation during the course of their performance. I know when I was a 400m hurdler, I used internal visualisation for the parts of the event that required more skill or technique (eg. the start, the 7th hurdle on the bottom bend of the track – where I was most likely to lose concentration due to fatigue, and about 5 metres to the finish line). For 90% of the race, This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 24 Michelle Pain, PhD
I would be using external visualisation (as though I was watching myself run from about the 50m mark of the stands in the finishing straight). So, there’s no right or wrong way, but you might think about the ‘technique’ parts of the sport you play and ask yourself, “Do I use internal or external visualisation when I perform?”.
Imagery for healing Imagery is like visualisation, except the images aren’t to do with sport but may be of ‘pleasant places’ (like relaxing at the beach, or walking through the bush etc), or of ‘coloured balls’ of heat or energy. When I’ve worked with tennis players with an aggression problem, I’ve had them imagine the temper they feel developing is like a red ball of energy swirling about their head. I ask them to imagine they are controlling that red ball, making it smaller and more compact, and making it move from their head, down through their shoulder, and then their arm, and then through the racquet. I have the touch the baseline with their racquet, and imagine their anger or frustration is leaving them, and they see the red ball disperse so they feel calm and focused again. (Obviously I take a lot longer to suggest this than the time it takes for you to read this, otherwise it would feel too rushed and be ineffective. We work on this as a performance routine, so that when they start feeling the symptoms that represent anger and frustration, they can take steps to calm themselves down and feel more in control of the situation.)
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 25 Michelle Pain, PhD
Another area where imagery is very important is in the aftermath of injury, when a player sustains a significant injury and wants to aid the healing process. Studies have shown that using this imagery technique does aid blood flow to the injury location, and increased blood flow is linked to healing. So, in this case, the imagery we might use is of a ‘gold coloured ball’ (with gold representing ‘healing’), swirling around the injured limb or body part.
The golden ball is imagined to be quite large to begin with (eg. beach ball sized), then I have the athlete imagine they can control the rate of swirling and the size of the ball, moving it from being quite large to begin with, to becoming smaller (ie. tennis ball sized), smaller (eg. table tennis ball sized), smaller still (eg. marble sized) and then finally smaller again (eg. pea sized). I have them imagine the golden ball swirls all around the injured part, repairing the injury and making the injured site ‘better than ever’.
Injured players often are very concerned about re-injuring themselves, so it is important to encourage them to follow all the rehabilitation instructions from the medical staff and have them trust the skill and experience of the medical staff that they will be given the ‘all clear’ when they are right to come back after injury. They may also lose confidence while they are on the sidelines recovering from their injury, so we might also be doing some work in that area too.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 26 Michelle Pain, PhD
Using Key Words and Images Because sport usually occurs over a fixed time span, and because the brain is adept in working with ‘shorthand’ forms that allows thinking to speed up, sport psychologists often have their athletes think of a word, or an image, of a quality (or qualities) the athlete wants to attain. These are known as key words and images, and I find it is a really handy concept to teach my athletes.
The athletes I see as clients have come to see me to help them ‘fix something up’ about themselves. Together, we identify what the issue is and if there is more than one issue, then we decide on a priority for fixing them. Part of the process might be to evaluate what qualities the athlete wants to work on, because they recognise these are missing those from their existing repertoire. They might be qualities such as ‘being a more assertive leader’, ‘working on not feeling fear when receiving a 150km/hr serve’, ‘not toppling over when defending’ (in netball), or ‘driving out of the blocks faster’ (in athletics), or ‘doing a tumble turn faster’ (in swimming), ‘no longer worrying about whether my injury will allow me to compete fully’ etc. Once the quality is identified, we then try to think of a picture/image/word of someone or something that will give us that quality. With regard to pictures or images and the need to develop speed, the image of a big cat such a cheetah, jaguar or lion
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 27 Michelle Pain, PhD
(power), or gazelle (speed and grace) might be used. The image stands for the quality the athlete wants to take on board. Swimmers, I find, often use images of dolphins, or if needing to be more aggressive, sharks. I’ve taught tennis players receiving serve to think of themselves as a solid brick wall or a Sherman tank (ie. ‘nothing is going to get past me’), and for netballers playing in defence to imagine they are tall trees with roots anchoring them strongly to the ground (to avoid them toppling over onto their opponent, thus giving them an unguarded free pass).
Sometimes a word is more effective than a picture, depending on the quality you are trying to convey. ‘Twinkletoes’ might remind an athlete to be fast and light on their feet; ‘boost’ for extra energy; ‘bulls-eye’ to remind one to focus attention etc. (It might be one, or two words maximum. I’ve found that longer phrases take too much effort to remember at times when you are stressed.)
I’ve also discovered that while I can suggest possible words or pictures to my athlete, they usually need to find the word or picture that resonates with them, that they can really embrace. So I usually explain the concept, give them some examples that might be relevant to the quality they want to attain, and then give them some ‘homework’ to decide upon an image or a word that they like best.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 28 Michelle Pain, PhD
A person might have maybe 3-4 key words or images they call upon at various times, to make them feel more confident and competent at various stages of a competition. For instance, a tennis player might have a word or image for when they are serving, when they are following up service, when they are receiving, and when they are feeling that their performance isn’t going well. A 400m runner might have one for starting, one for running the bend or the back straight, and one for 5m before crossing the line.
Here is some more homework for you. Have a go at suggesting key words or images for our tennis player or runner (nominate the occasion when the athlete would use this tool). ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 29 Michelle Pain, PhD
Now, let’s use an example that is most relevant to your sporting situation. What quality would you most like to improve? Write it down here: ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Now, what word or picture sums up that quality for you, that you could use at appropriate times that would make you feel more confident and competent? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Using key words and images in times of stress can make an athlete feel more confident and competent, which is good for performance in that it gives the athlete something within their control to do (ie. thinking of a key word or image to remind him- or herself of a quality they want to emulate) and reduces the possibility of being distracted by other things (especially negative thoughts in his or her head).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 30 Michelle Pain, PhD
One of the best key words I’ve seen is ‘100% APE’. I really like this one because it is only two words, but it stands for four qualities, and it is good for any sport. 100% APE stands for 1. Giving 100% effort, 2. Having a positive attitude, 3. Being physically strong, and 4. Having no excuses at the end of the competition. I would ask my athletes to print up their key words (perhaps like ‘100% APE’) and put them on the back of the bathroom door, or write it on the back of their hand, or on a piece of equipment they use in their sport that they would see when they compete. Remember, when you are stressed, you don’t want to over-think, so keeping things simple is a good idea.
Using visualisation, key words, muscle relaxation and breathing to develop a pre-game (or pre-shot) routine OK, we’ve got the basics all covered now. What we can do next is put them all together to make a pre-game or a pre-shot (if we have a smaller time frame in mind) routine. A routine is something we go through before something important happens (ie. the start of the game, or the execution of a skill).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 31 Michelle Pain, PhD
We have a routine so we can think clearly, using productive thoughts that will help us achieve our potential. It minimises the chance of thinking of non-productive thoughts (ie. how your opponent has been performing etc), instead filling your mind with thoughts that are known to assist in that situation. It helps you perform more consistently (because what you are doing is done consistently), and it should leave you feeling calm and confident.
You should not just save doing your routine for ‘times that matter’, you should be practicing it all the time in training so that it becomes perfectly normal and feels natural to do, no matter how stressed (or calm) you feel. Only by practicing skills until they become automatic can you feel confident that you will be able to reproduce those skills under pressure. Here is a script that you might adapt for your sport (which you would then listen to maybe in the week before a major competition). It’s in five phases: the first and second phases aim to develop a more deeply relaxed frame of mind; the third phase introduces the skill with the view to rehearsing a successful outcome; the fourth phase shows the skill being integrated with the rest of the game; and, the fifth phase uses key words to leave the athlete feeling empowered. Notice the extensive use of sensations that occur in a visualisation exercise.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 32 Michelle Pain, PhD
For visualisation to appear more real to us (and be more effective as a tool to help us perform better), we try to incorporate as many of the five senses (ie. seeing, hearing, taste, touch and smell) as possible. Look at this example and make a note of where the senses are brought into the visualisation process. Phase 1 Close your eyes, and begin by taking three deep breaths. Inhale deeply, and exhale slowly… inhale deeply, and exhale slowly… inhale deeply, and exhale slowly. Good… now just relax… let yourself go, and no matter how deeply relaxed you become, you will always be in control and able to respond to anything that you choose to respond to… you will remember everything… Begin to concentrate on your right arm… Raise your right arm so it is in the air a little… open your hand with your palm facing upwards… good… Now pay attention to the feelings in your upper arm… in your forearm… in your hand… in your fingers. Notice any sensations that might be occurring in your right arm… you might notice the weight of your clothing or it’s texture where it touches your skin… you might have a tingling sensation in your hand and fingers… just observe the feelings…Now, notice the heaviness that occurs in your right arm as you exhale… just relax, and notice the feeling of comfortable, relaxed heaviness that develops in your right arm as you exhale…
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 33 Michelle Pain, PhD
Take your left arm and position it so it is in the air like your right arm… Make a slight bend in your left wrist… good…now pay attention to the feelings in your left hand. Notice as you inhale how your left hand begins to feel lighter… just relax, and notice as you inhale how your hand begins to feel lighter, as if it wants to lift up…You can create different feelings in your hands if you want to… all you have to do is find the right images. Do that now… Pay attention to your right hand again. Imagine you have a small weight attached to your wrist, and the weight is pulling your hand down, making it heavier and heavier with each breath you exhale… and heavier… and heavier… Just let yourself go…Good… take a moment to experience that heaviness… (wait 15 seconds). Now, get rid of that image and let the feelings of heaviness go…This time, pay attention to your left arm… imagine you have a helium balloon attached to your left wrist… Imagine that each time you inhale, the balloon is gently pulling your wrist up a little more, making your arm lighter and lighter… lighter … and lighter. Good. Just let yourself go… Good… take a moment to experience that lightness… (wait 15 seconds). Now, get rid of that image and let the feelings of lightness go… Phase 2 Good. Now just relax. If your left or right arm has moved, just settle yourself into a comfortable position. As your arm settles down, you will feel very comfortable…. You can increase this pleasant feeling by counting down from one to five… With every count, you will become more deeply relaxed.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 34 Michelle Pain, PhD
No matter how deeply relaxed you become, however, you will always be in control…One…relax all of the muscles in both your arms, in the fingers, … hands, … forearms, …and upper arms…. Just completely relax those muscles and enjoy the pleasant feeling of heaviness that occurs as you exhale and sink deeper and deeper. Two… relax the muscles in both legs…relax the muscles in your feet and toes… relax the muscles in your calves… relax the muscles in your thighs… Just completely relax all the muscles in both your arms and your legs, and notice how you exhale…the pleasant sensation of drifting down deeper and deeper…into a deep hypnotic state. Three…relax all your muscles in your forehead…cheeks…and jaw… Let your mouth open slightly as you relax the muscles in your jaw…Four… relax the muscles in your neck… and your shoulders… Just completely relax, deeper and deeper….and deeper…Five… relax the muscles in your chest… and your back… and your stomach. Relax all your muscles and enjoy the pleasant sensations of being so deeply relaxed…For the next minute or two, just let yourself go…with each exhale, drift down deeper and deeper… That's good. (wait 30 seconds) Phase 3 Now, I want you to imagine you are about to _________(insert your skill here)… As you prepare to ________(do this skill), look to ________ (think of somewhere a little distance away that makes sense to your sport eg. where you want the ball to land; 50m away if crouching for a sprint start etc)…
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 35 Michelle Pain, PhD
You have soft eyes…you are feeling focused and calm…you know what you have to do . At the same time, you are aware of everything around you… You can see everything… As you prepare, you decide on your strategy… you make up your mind that you are going to _________ (insert your strategy here), to __________ (insert first part of strategy here)…You feel _________ (insert relevant body sensation here eg. the ball in your hand; your knee resting on the track etc)… you can feel __________ (insert sensations here eg. the texture and weight of the ball, the sun on your back etc)…You can feel ________ (insert a bit more detail here eg. the seams where there isn't any fuzz; the smoothness of the leather etc). Notice the feeling of________ (insert even more detail relevant to your sport eg. your racquet in your hands as you grip it; the space around your fingers as you grip the bowling ball etc)… Notice how______ (eg. tightly you hold it, how it feels against your palm)… and your fingertips… Pay attention to your body’s weight distribution…notice how ______ (insert body movement that would occur immediately before you start to perform the skill eg. your centre of mass shifts toward your front foot as you bounce the ball and prepare to serve; you settle your hips back into the blocks and lean forward with the weight mostly balanced on your thumb and forefinger etc)… You feel very comfortable and balanced.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 36 Michelle Pain, PhD
Now, as you ____ (insert start of performance here eg. begin your toss; breath out deeply, waiting for the gun to go off etc), your attention narrows and you focus on the spot where ______ (insert focus point here eg. you are tossing the ball; the point on the line between your fingers etc)… As your concentration narrows, you ________ (insert the ‘moment of truth’ point here eg. see the ball come into view very clearly; hear the gun go off; feel your foot making connection with the ball - Put some more detail here eg. You see the ball…it's colour… you see it rotate.) As you _________ (insert start of performance here eg. watch the ball, start to become upright from the starting position), you ________ (insert the follow through here eg. feel your racquet coming through; you feel your legs blast out of the blocks and you smoothly drive and move to upright running stance etc. Describe the movement and follow through in more detail here. eg. You can see it make contact with the ball, and you can feel your weight and your centre of mass transferring, moving forward, coming through at the moment your racquet contacts the ball)… Now you feel _______ (eg. the follow-through of your racquet, your legs pounding rhythmically). Quickly, your attention broadens again and you see ______(eg. the whole court, your competitors around you) and you hear (eg. the roar of the crowd). You can feel yourself re-centre as you bring your legs under you. You feel balanced and centered. You are ready to move in any direction…
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 37 Michelle Pain, PhD
Phase 4 Good. Now lets just imagine you (performing in your sport) where things can happen at their regular speed…let your imagination go… get completely involved… You will feel and see everything as if you were actually performing in competition. You will feel confident… in control… You'll find it easy to move and get into position, to feel your weight move into correct position…You seem to have all the time in the world to prepare… you just know you can do anything you want… Just let yourself enjoy all of the feelings and sensations that come with playing 'in the zone'…(wait 30 seconds)
Phase 5 Good…In a moment, it will be time to leave this pleasant state…Before you do, however, you need to know that you can create the feelings that you have now when you are playing 'in the zone' whenever you want to… You will be able to do this yourself by taking a deep centering breath, … inhaling deeply… attending to the expansion of muscles in your abdomen as you inhale… As you exhale,…relax the chest, neck and shoulder muscles, and say "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here) Remember, whenever you want to settle yourself down and to improve your concentration… you simply take a deep, centering breath… Then, on the exhale, you say to yourself "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 38 Michelle Pain, PhD
Imagine you are going through this process right now… imagine you are about to ______ (eg. kick for goal, serve in a match)…you can feel the pressure…you notice you are a little tight in the neck and shoulders, and that you are gripping the _______ (eg. ball, racquet) a little too tightly…you are worried about _____ (eg. making the distance, your accuracy, coming out of the blocks cleanly) …Feel the pressure… Now, look _________ (eg. at the court, at the goals, across the net, or into the distance)… As you look there, take that deep centering breath… and as you breath out you say to yourself "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here). At the end of the exhale, notice that you have soft eyes… you see ____ (eg. the area all around you, field of play, the whole court)... you feel comfortable… Take one more centering breath and repeat your phrase just before you ____(eg. begin your ball toss, get down on the blocks, begin your run up, take the putt)… Then, as your concentration narrows you focus on the spot where you are _____ (eg. tossing the ball, intending on taking your first step out of the blocks, intend to strike the ball on your putt)… Just give yourself some time to practice this…feeling the tension… and taking your deep breath, saying your words, and noticing how much more calm and confident you feel…(wait for 30 seconds).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 39 Michelle Pain, PhD
Alright…it's time to return to your normal activities…to do that, count backwards from three to one… On the count of three, take a deep breath, holding it momentarily…On the count of two…stretch your arms and your legs and exhale…On the count of one, open your eyes and you will be wide awake… ready to do things you normally do at this time… you're feeling good… comfortable…. and relaxed. Ready?…three…take a deep breath…two… stretch your arms and legs and exhale…one…open your eyes, wide awake. It’s a good exercise to go through this script and makes changes relevant to your sport. Where I have written in normal type, this is a suggestion for you to add information relative to your sport (so you wouldn’t read that out if you were reading it back!).
Because it is rather long and difficult to recall all the various phases without reading the script (which wouldn’t then make it relaxing, would it?), I’ve often helped an athlete create their script, then recorded it so it could be played back and they could put it on their own equipment so the track was maximally useful to them. If you are going to read it back (either for yourself or for someone else), remember to read much slower than you normally speak, because reading quickly doesn’t help a person feel very relaxed!
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 40 Michelle Pain, PhD
There are Apps (applications) for iPhones and Android phones that allow recording of voices, or you could use a microphone with the free software program Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/), so that may be a possibility if you wanted to hear yourself reading out the whole script that has been personalised. This sort of script (once recorded) could be played right up until the start of competition. You’ll need to try it out to see how it affects your performance, but the only adverse effect I can imagine is if it makes you too excited to sleep if you listen to it the night before your competition. In that instance, I’d advocate using a muscle relaxation script such as the one given on pages 14 and 15.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 41 Michelle Pain, PhD
Arousal control: Psyching up / Psyching down An area that is not well understood by athletes, I feel, is the aspect of psyching up or psyching down. Often athletes only seem to learn what works for them by trial and error (and unfortunately, some people never do). Sport psychology is all about looking at patterns of behaviour – working out what works, and what doesn’t, and trying to do what works more often and doing what doesn’t work less often. Arousal control was the area of my PhD topic, so I’m passionate about this area. Although I am going to introduce a bit of theory, I promise I’ll be gentle with you!
The ‘go to’ model of arousal used to be the Inverted U hypothesis (see over the page), originally proposed by Yerkes and Dodson in 1908 (based on a study of how long it took mice to run a maze). Many people are familiar with the Inverted U, since most people can recall a time when they underperformed due to being too stressed (represented by the far right of the diagram) or unmotivated (represented by the far left of the diagram). The Inverted U hypothesis says that under moderate arousal levels, an athlete is able to perform to the best of his or her ability and so it is the state that is associated with best performances (see red dotted line).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 42 Michelle Pain, PhD
The reason why the Inverted U hypothesis isn’t used any more is because it doesn’t take into account individual differences between people for a particular task (ie. what might be high arousal for one person might be low or moderate arousal for another), nor the different arousal level required between different tasks.
Reversal Theory has an explanation for these, and is one of the very practical theories that is really easy to demonstrate to athletes, that gives them strategies that will assist them right away. I’m a big fan! You think it is obvious, but athletes usually only make the connection between how they prepare and how they perform after many years and Reversal theory can help shortcut the process so it’s worth knowing a bit about it.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 43 Michelle Pain, PhD
I most often use a copyrighted questionnaire (so I’m afraid I can’t reproduce it here) called the Telic Paratelic State Inventory (TPSI) by Calhoun (1995). However, instead of using it a state measure (ie. answering the questions ‘how do you feel right now…’), I ask my athletes to answer the questions as a trait measure (ie. ‘how do you usually feel…’), as I want to know about their typical or usual feelings.
The T/PSI has been validated by O’Connell and Calhoun (2001) and could be sent to you by email if you contact Kathleen O’Connell at [email protected] but a copy of the questionnaire can also be found in John Kerr’s excellent book, Counselling athletes: Applying Reversal Theory, published in 2001. This book has some great examples of using Reversal Theory with athletes, but I have to confess in the interests of selfdisclosure that John is a personal friend of mine and I also contributed in a small way to that book. Of course I don’t get any kick backs by referring you to his book.
The 12 items on the T/PSI are self rated, with a person choosing a number between 1 and 6 to illustrate how they usually feel. They aren’t sport-related questions, just ‘everyday’ questions asking how activated (ie. how psyched up) they usually like to feel. I do think, however, if you’ve got an athlete wanting to work with you in
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 44 Michelle Pain, PhD
a sport setting, you ask them to interpret their answers as though the question asks about their preference in a sport setting. I’ve often had athletes answer as though ‘in every day life’ and they admit they would be quite different in their responses if they’d answered it for their sport. Now, if I were going to create a questionnaire like the T/PSI that asks about preferences for being activated prior to a sporting competition (that is totally unvalidated psychometrically, but has good face and construct validity), it might look something like this… Telic/Paratelic Instrument (Pain, 2011) Instructions: Think back to a time when you performed well, or better than you expected, and try to think specifically how you prepared yourself for that competition. Circle the number that best represents how you remember feeling at the time (where 1 = not at all true of me and 6 = very true of me) Not at all true of me
Very true of me
1. I wasn’t stressed about what the outcome might be 1 2
3
4
5
6
2. I felt really hyped up
1
2
3
4
5
6
3. I felt angry or agitated
1
2
3
4
5
6
4. I felt loose and relaxed
1
2
3
4
5
6
5. I felt serious-minded
1
2
3
4
5
6
6. I was happy to chat to others before the event 1 2
3
4
5
6
7. My heart rate was racing
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
3
4
5
6
3
4
5
6
12. I felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for my event 1 2 3 4
5
6
8. I was comfortable with my preparation 9. I wanted to have fun 10. I wanted to feel ‘in control’ 1 2 11. I felt mischievous and wanted to stir things up a bit 1 2
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I’ve set up the same number of items in my survey as the T/PSI, and made the same item numbers be reverse scored, so when you are reading about the T/PSI you can hopefully apply the results of the T/PI (pronounced tee-pee) to the Reversal Theory model. Like the T/PSI, a high score indicates Paratelic preferences. Here is the scoring sheet. Look at the position of the number you circled in the Telic/Paratelic Instrument (not the number itself) and re-circle the number in the position you originally circled. eg. For the first question, if you originally circled 3 (ie the third position) on the scoring sheet, you would circle the 4. Telic/Paratelic Instrument Scoring Sheet 1. I wasn’t stressed about what the outcome might be 6 5 4 3 2 1 2. I felt really hyped up 1 2 3 4 5 6 3. I felt angry or agitated 1 2 3 4 5 6 4. I felt loose and relaxed 6 5 4 3 2 1 5. I felt serious-minded 6 5 4 3 2 1 6. I was happy to chat to others before the event 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. My heart rate was racing 1 2 3 4 5 6 8. I was comfortable with my preparation 6 5 4 3 2 1 9. I wanted to have fun 1 2 3 4 5 6 10. I wanted to feel ‘in control’ 6 5 4 3 2 1 11. I felt mischievous and wanted to stir things up a bit 1 2 3 4 5 6 12. I felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for my event 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 46 Michelle Pain, PhD
Now, add the scores on the scoring sheet to get a total that could vary between 12 and 72. If you measured the general population on the T/PSI, the average score would be 40, with the majority of people having scores a bit below, or a bit above the average. (I haven’t done any qualitative analysis on the T/PI, but let’s just assume 40 will be the midpoint too at this stage.) Fewer people have scores a lot below, or a lot above, the average. That is, the scores for this questionnaire follow a bell shaped, or normal curve, distribution (see next diagram). [-‐-‐-‐Flexible-‐-‐-‐]
On the T/PSI, a score of 41 or more would arbitrarily categorise the person as paratelic, and a score of 40 or lower nominally categorises the person as telic. Yes, I know; that process is a bit arbitrary, but it’s in name only. For the most part, the majority of us as classified as ‘flexible’ because our scores would fall somewhere between 30 and 50 and it’s only the more extreme scores where the classification has more meaning. Just bear with me at this stage!
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 47 Michelle Pain, PhD
If you are unable to get your hands on a Telic/Paratelic State Inventory (T/PSI), or prefer not to use the T/PI, Reversal theorists suggest you can tell a lot about a person by asking them to describe what they did the previous weekend. Extreme paratelics will pick out the highlights and they will not necessarily be in chronological order. Extreme telics will describe what they did largely in chronological order. Most of us who are ‘flexible’ will do a little of both. If you are going to try the T/PI, score it up and see if you end up being classified as extremely telic (29 or less), telic (30-34), telic but flexible (35 – 40), paratelic but flexible (41 – 45), paratelic (46 – 50), or extremely paratelic (51 or higher). Have a read of the descriptions of ‘telic’ and ‘paratelic’ people in the sections below. Does it make sense to you to be described in this way that the T/PI, or the ‘description method’ classifies you?
Now, about Reversal Theory…the unfortunate part about it is that it uses Greek terms. If you were classified as telic (from the Greek word ‘telios’) it would mean you are goal oriented and able to delay gratification and would prefer constant and predictable routines, and if you were classified as paratelic (ie. ‘other than telic’) it would mean you are excitement seeking and would prefer to do things on the spur of the moment and enjoy variety. The majority of the general population would score around 35-45 on the Telic/Paratelic State Inventory (T/PSI), and these people can be considered to be ‘flexible’ (ie. sometimes telic, sometimes paratelic) in their preferences or approaches. This theory is still
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 48 Michelle Pain, PhD
important to them, because they need to know what to do to psych up or psych down as the situation requires.
Reversal Theory has the greatest significance for people identified as extremely telic (less than 30 on the T/PSI) or extremely paratelic (more than 50 on the T/PSI). The extreme telics or paratelics have distinct preferences about how they like to prepare for a competition, and if their preparation needs are not met, they will not be able to perform to the best of their ability. It’s important for all athletes (eg. Telic, Paratelic or flexible) to know what sort of preparation helps them perform their best, under different circumstances so that they can actively do something about that situation. Looking at Reversal Theory helps demonstrate the strategies you could use to help yourself prepare optimally, knowing your own preferences.
Reversal Theory was proposed by Michael Apter in the late 1980s. It is based on looking at the match (or mismatch) between a person’s preferred arousal levels (or in Greek terms used by Reversal Theorists, ‘hedonic tone’ = ‘pleasure’) and their actual arousal levels. Apter suggests that the match or mismatch of arousal levels helps explain a person’s motives.
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John Kerr was one of the first to adapt the model for use with athletes in a sports setting, and you can see from the following diagram (looking at the dotted line across the tip of the model) that he thought best performance was associated with Telics (the blue solid line) being in a relaxed (or ‘psyched down’) state of mind, and Paratelics (the red dotted line) being in an excited (or ‘psyched up’) frame of mind. Similarly, poorer performances were observed when Telics were anxious and Paratelics were bored. This intuitively makes sense, doesn’t it? Let’s look and see how we can use that knowledge.
Looking at the x axis (Perceived arousal levels), this has three nominated levels (low, medium and high arousal). The idea is for you to locate yourself somewhere along this axis, depending on how ‘activated’ (‘psyched up’ or ‘psyched down’) you felt.
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The y axis (Hedonic tone) reflects how you experience the arousal level – whether you find this level of arousal pleasant (high hedonic tone) or unpleasant (low hedonic tone). The diagram illustrates the expected patterns of experiences for two personality types: Telics and Paratelics. People classified as ‘telic’ are likely to be goal oriented and single-minded. People classified as ‘paratelic’ are likely to be ‘sensation seeking’.
This model (above) has been shown to be a little simplistic, but does effectively describe behaviours under ‘home and away’ type conditions. Under ‘Grand Final’ type arousal conditions, extreme paratelics need to be able to psych themselves down to avoid over-arousal. The message here is that too much excitement is not always helpful for paratelics – over arousal can lead to ‘cockiness’ (so that vital cues in the environment may be missed, and performance suffers). For this reason, it is very important that everyone knows how to psych themselves up or down.
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If you look at the original model (on the previous page) at the ‘unpleasant’ end (ie. low score on the y axis), it looks a bit like the Inverted U hypothesis, where best performances are associated with a moderate amount of arousal. This gives Reversal theory a bit more credibility, since independently it has come up with a pattern of behaviour we know already exists. The fact that Yerkes and Dodson proposed the Inverted U based on the behaviour (accuracy and speed) of mice running mazes explains why the ‘attribution’ part of the theory is missing (ie. you can’t very well ask a mouse how it feels when it is under or over aroused, or what motivated it to run fast or slow).
I think it’s easier to look at Reversal Theory with someone in mind, so you can possibly see how it works by interpreting a person’s motives. Although I do not know these athletes personally, I would guess from their behaviour that Telic athletes might include Matt Shirvington (track), Roger Federer (tennis) and Michael Clark (cricket). Paratelic athletes might include Lleyton Hewitt (tennis), Usain Bolt (track) and Anthony Mundine (Boxing). It’s the athletes who are at the ‘extreme’ levels who stand out as being different, but all of us could benefit from knowing when to psych ourselves up, and when to psych ourselves down. It’s a matter of knowing our personality, as well as the circumstances surrounding the performance (ie. is it a Grand Final or a regular home and away match; is there extra pressure on because we’re fighting for our
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place in the side, or are we coming back from injury?), and how we feel about those circumstances. From the Reversal Theory diagram (previous page), you can see that best performances (those above the dotted black line) are associated with ‘feeling relaxed’ for Telics and ‘feeling excited’ for Paratelics. Note that this diagram is good for regular ‘home and away’ types of competitions. For Grand Finals (or equivalent ‘big stage events’) you have to assume the perceived arousal level is already very high, so steps must be taken for both Telics and Paratelics to use psyching down strategies or risk being overaroused (and thus unable to focus on the task at hand). So, back to the model, for regular competitions ‘feeling bored’ (for Paratelics) and ‘feeling anxious’ (for Telics) are not associated with good performances, and so must be avoided. The theory says there are two ways of addressing this (and you can do either or both in order to bring about the change in your perceived arousal levels). Firstly, using your heart rate as a guide, you can either increase (if you were feeling bored) or decrease (if you were feeling anxious) your heart rate and that would move you ‘upwards’ along your Paratelic or Telic line, respectively. This is a physiological strategy. (I’ll give you some tips as to how to do that in a moment.) Secondly, you can reverse the way you think about the competition (ie. giving the theory it’s name, Reversal Theory), so that one is a cognitive strategy.
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OK, let’s deal with the physiological side of things first. If you are not already, you ought to be aware of your own symptoms of stress. How do you know when you are feeling anxious? You might comment that your heart beats faster, your stomach feels like it is in knots, your hands may get clammy, etc. You may not feel all these symptoms, but you probably have at some time. When you experience these symptoms, you know you need to take steps to calm yourself. The easiest way to change your level of perceived arousal (ie. moving to the left or right of the diagram, along the x axis) is to alter your heart rate. For a Paratelic person currently experiencing boredom (ie. low arousal as unpleasant, in the bottom left of the diagram), they would want to elevate their heart rate (moving upward and to the right along the dotted line from low to high) until they became excited about the competition (or situation). For a Telic person currently experiencing anxiety (ie. high arousal as unpleasant, in the bottom right of the diagram), they would want to reduce their heart rate (moving upward and left along the unbroken line from low to high) until they became relaxed about the competition (or situation). The brain is always trying to interpret situations, and heart rate is an easy physiological factor to manipulate in order to alter the way in which a situation is experienced. To increase heart rate (so a Paratelic person can move from boredom to excitement), one
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merely needs to exercise (eg. boxing, bumping aggressively, run up and down stairs, jump rope etc). Have you noticed, in the rooms prior to the beginning of a football match, those people who are bumping, boxing or skipping rope? They are the paratelic ones. To decrease heart rate (so a Telic person can move from anxiety to relaxed), one should not warm up too close to the start of the event. The telic players are the ones in the rooms prior to the event who are listening to their own music and perhaps sitting in a corner by themselves. In addition, one can manipulate the way in which someone breathes in and out. As the blood passes around the body, the brain measures the oxygen saturation of blood and uses this as a way of deciding whether the person is stressed or not. A stressed person normally breathes in and out much faster than usual, often only filling the top part of their lungs. To feel less stressed, that person ought to take slower, deeper breaths to fill their lungs. Having more oxygen in the blood means the brain interprets that as ‘feeling less stressed’. Conversely, if you wanted to increase the perceived arousal level (eg. lifting a Paratelic person from bored to excited), you might start taking smaller, more frequent (shallow) breaths (sending less oxygen to the brain). The brain interprets this as ‘activated’ and makes the athlete feel alert (ie. ready for the flight or fight response), and thus able to perform better. (Of course, it is
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possible for an extremely paratelic person to become so over aroused it would lead to poor performances. In many instances the poor judgement that occurs in this scenario results in feelings of invincibility, leading the athlete to make poor decisions not based on all the available information.) Lastly, a person could manipulate heart rate through their selection of music. Heart rate often follows the beat of selected music, so for someone wanting to slow down their heart rate, a slower paced song (such as a ballad) would be preferred. If an athlete needed to be more activated, a song with a faster beat would be selected. I often recommend my clients use iTunes (or equivalent) to create a couple of different playlists of their favourite songs. One playlist might have a dozen slower songs (for occasions where relaxation was preferred or required), while another playlist might have a dozen faster songs (where excitement was preferred or required), and (especially if the athlete was designated a ‘flexible’ type) yet another playlist might have six each from the other playlists presented alternately, or slower leading to faster, or vice versa. If you have a few playlists at the ready, you can listen to your preferred music in the style you need it in, in order to perform to your best. Song selection in a team’s rooms is very personal, so if the team tends to choose songs that are not in the style that is best for you, earphones and your own selection on your personal hand held device is still possible (and probably preferable).
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What are the symptoms you might associate with being under aroused (ie. the left side of the Inverted U hypothesis, or the bottom left side of the Reversal Theory diagram)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Name some songs you might put on a playlist to help you feel more excited if you recognised that you were under aroused. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
If you felt you needed to become more motivated, what strategies could you take to change how you felt (to put yourself in your optimal arousal state)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
What are the symptoms you might associate with being over aroused (ie. the right side of the Inverted U hypothesis, or the bottom right side of the Reversal Theory diagram)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Name some songs you might put on a playlist to help you feel more relaxed if you recognised that you were over aroused. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
If you felt you needed to become more relaxed, what strategies could you take to change how you felt (to put yourself in your optimal arousal state)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Goal Setting Goal setting sounds pretty boring because most of us think we know what it is and how to do it, but most of us just aren’t specific enough in knowing/saying what we want to achieve (or worse, we just go through life accepting what falls into our lap without actively striving to improve ourselves). There are three types of goal setting that I teach my athletes, and they are used to make ‘a whole person’, rather than just dealing with the sporting person.
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Lifetime Goal Setting The first is a standard Life Goal Setting approach. Take a blank A4 sheet of paper, set it out in front of you so the short ends are top and bottom, and fold the paper into thirds. Look at the diagram (see next page) and write a heading on each third.
Before you start writing down your life goals, you need to be aware of the rules of Goal Setting. You need to set S-M-A-R-T goals – that is, goals which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time sensitive.
Specific goals are those broken down into their smallest component. For example, it’s not useful to say ‘I want to be happy’ or ‘I want to be rich’. What can you do to actually make these things happen? If reading for 30 minutes before bed makes you happy, you need to schedule time into your life to ensure that is likely. If buying a convertible makes you happy and feel rich, how
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many hours (or what sort of job) will you need to do in order to make this happen? Saying the goal that will give you those emotions (eg. reading a book, owning a convertible) is the better way to go.
Your goals need to be recorded so you can pat yourself on the back when you reach them, and they also need to be measured against some sort of criteria (so you can measure the quality of your progress). Otherwise, how will you know if you have been successful in attaining those goals?
Goals need to be within the realms of possibility. They have to be achievable and they have to be realistic. For instance, if you have no intention of doing a uni course in astrophysics (or whatever it takes these days), you’ll never be an astronaut. You have to be prepared to put in the hard yards…
Lastly, your goals are more likely to be achieved if you write them down and set yourself a deadline for improvement. Setting goals is a bit like pulling on a rubber band. There needs to be tension (ie. for the goal to be a challenge) between where you are now and where you want to be, so that you can be propelled in that direction. If there is too little tension (ie. no motivation), nothing happens. If there is too much tension (ie. the goal seems
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impossible), the rubber band breaks. The goal won’t be achieved because no-one wants to put in so much effort for no reward.
So, starting at the top of your A4 sheet, write down the goals you want to achieve that are into the future (ie. 5 or more years away). Think, ‘If I was on my deathbed, I would be really disappointed with if I hadn’t achieved X,Y,Z’. In this case, X, Y and Z represent the goals that really matter to you.
After you’ve listed a few of those, start to think now about the middle third of your A4 sheet. What goals do you want to achieve within 3 years, ones that you won’t complete in the next 12 months? After you have a few more of those, start working on the goals you want to achieve in the next 12 months, and these are written on the bottom third of the paper.
OK, when you’ve completed your last third, open up your A4 page and look over the goals you’ve written there. Is there anything more you want to add? Go ahead and put them in. Now, reading over your list, put an asterisk (*) next to any goals listed that are extremely important to you. (Some of the goals you’ve listed might be quite important, and others will be extremely important to you. Differentiate between those.) Is there a theme to those you’ve
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asterisked? (ie. Are they mostly sport-related goals, or non-sportrelated goals, or a mix?)
Now, the key thing to setting goals is to check that you have the ‘scaffolding’ in place. If you have an asterisked goal in your Lifetime section, are there asterisked goals in the Medium and Short term sections that support you getting to that Lifetime goal, or does it seemingly appear out of nowhere? (If it appears out of nowhere, it indicates that you’re probably not going to achieve it because you’re relying on fate to present it to you, without doing the hard work early in your career.) Similarly for asterisked Medium term goals - are they supported by asterisked goals linked to that goal in the Short term section?
OK, that’s it for seeing what’s important to you in Lifetime goal setting, and that you have the scaffolding in place to make it happen. There’s a lot of research to show that if you make your goals public, you are more likely to actively work towards them. Nothing like public shame and humiliation to be a motivating factor! Now we’ll look at two sport-specific types of goal setting: the Spider Web profile, and the Achievement Management Plan (AMP).
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Spider Web Profile The Spider Web Profile asks you to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for your sport (or if you are playing a team sport, for example, you would use the key performance indicators for your position on the field). Each of the ‘spokes’ on the spider web represent a key performance indicator. Again, each KPI needs to be a S-M-A-R-T goal, and related to sport (but it might be to positional tactics, or nutrition, or psychological or other well being activities, such as not gambling, or not taking drugs etc).
The idea is that you rate yourself on each spoke, with a rating closest to the outside of the web indicating being close to or at ‘elite’ status. Have a go at identifying KPIs for your sport (or position) on each spoke, and then rating yourself for each category. Choosing a rating closer to the centre of the spider web means you rate yourself s being no good at that skill pr quality. Choosing the outside band of the spider web for that skill or quality means you rate yourself as ‘the best in your group’ would.
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Once you’ve put a dot or an X on each spoke, join them up to create the spider web (see diagrams, below). Apart from doing this exercise on yourself (ie. just with one set of lines on a web), it’s also possible (preferable?) for a coach to identify for an athlete which areas the athlete needs to improve on to make him or her a better athlete (see diagrams, below). Opening up lines of communication between the athlete and coach is desirable, because athletes need to know specifically what they can do to improve themselves in the eyes of the coach and the Spider Web Profile really spells this out.
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This diagram (above) represents a rating where you have compared yourself to an elite level athlete. The spokes selected in this example could relate to tennis, badminton, volleyball etc (since ‘serve’ is one of the KPIs) but the athlete has also chosen some other KPIs that he or she wants to work on, such as ‘fitness’ and ‘mental toughness’. Other spokes are rated but the spokes aren’t labelled in this example.
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In this example, the player’s rating (in red) is contrasted with the coach’s assessment of the player (in orange). Having someone else’s opinion of how well you play (particularly if they are in a position of judging whether you deserve your place in the squad next week) can be nerve-wracking, but good, honest feedback is essential if you are to progress in sport.
I’ve done this exercise most successfully with a football club, where I had the team break into three groups (forwards, midfield and defenders). Each player completed the Spider web Profile on the KPIs the group nominated was most relevant for the group (ie. the midfielders all decided what were the important characteristics for an elite midfielder at that club; the defenders all decided on the
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KPIs for their position; and, the forwards all decided on the KPIs for their position). They rated themselves, and then put their (named) profile into the pile and the players within that group critiqued the rating (based on the KPIs). That is, they assessed whether the player was too hard, too easy, or ‘just right’ in assessing their value to the team on their KPIs. Talk about honesty! It was a most productive session, and by the end, there was no doubt where a player needed to improve, in the eyes of the player’s team mates!
Achievement Management Plan The last type of goal setting I want to talk about is the Achievement Management Plan (AMP). The AMP can be used in conjunction with the Spider Web Profile. For instance, for an athlete whose spider web is not at an elite level, the athlete and coach can identify the steps (or stages) an athlete can do to start moving themselves closer to that ideal. It most often involves correcting technique (ie. the coach’s domain), so that’s the example I will use but sometimes it might be to do with thinking about things differently – ie sport psychology – such as creating a pre-shot routine, for example, (but I’ll talk more about that later). For the AMP, you identify one goal per page of AMP. You choose the weakest goal from the Spider Web Profile (or one that you choose to work on as a priority). Then, you break that skill (remember, we’re talking technique in this example) into its
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smallest components, and write them down in chronological order (ie. in the order in which you carry out that skill), starting from beginning to end. That is, if you executed each step correctly, you’d have a perfect execution overall and the skill would be one you might see in an elite athlete. (At this stage, it’s often a good idea to get input from the coach, since they are likely to be the expert on technique-related skills.)
Below is an example from tennis, where the skill is ‘serving a tennis ball’. The (sub)skills are written underneath the general skill as they occur (in order). Each column represents a moment in time, which might be after a training session, or after a competition. All sub-skills would normally be assessed at the beginning (for the expected value) and at the end of the session (for the actual, or achieved, value). The actual (A) and expected (E) values are the two numbers written in each individual square. The number after the diagonal ( / E ) is the expected outcome, where outcome might be the total number of times the outcome might be expected to occur in that session, or represent a percentage, or it might simply be a ‘yes/no’ as to whether the outcome occurred. For example, in the first sub-skill (visualise ball placement), before the session commenced the athlete expected a 75% success rate (ie. remembering to use 5 senses to see clearly where the ball was to be placed each time the ball was served in training). The This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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number before the diagonal in that square represents the actual (or achieved) outcome value ( A / ), which you might record during the session or immediately afterward. In this example, the athlete remembered to visualise the ball placement 70% of the time.
Only once the session has concluded and the actual/achieved values are recorded, can the next session’s expected values be estimated. The trick here is to choose a new expected value for the next session that isn’t too tough to meet, but not too easy (think of our rubber band we used in our goal setting example earlier on). You want to keep moving in an ‘upwards’ direction, but you don’t want to be discouraged if you can’t meet the target. So, if you didn’t meet the target in the last round (in the example above,
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look at the ‘shoulder rotation’ row), but you weren’t too far off, I’d keep the expected value the same as it was as the last round.
If you were a fair way off (refer in the example above to the ‘ball toss’) or even a little way off (eg. refer to the ‘reach for the ball’ row), you might think about lowering your expectations a bit (just a little) so you don’t lose confidence, especially if there was a good reason why you didn’t make the target (eg. sustained a minor injury). Think about how far off the target you were, and adjust your expectations accordingly. Modification is a key element of the goal setting process. If you sustain a major injury, you’ll definitely need to rethink all your expected values to make them in line with your new capabilities. Don’t push yourself too fast too early if that is the case – better to make a slow but sustained comeback rather than risking re-injury. There is a risk that an athlete coming back from a serious injury might not push him- or her- self hard enough (because there is the fear of re-injury), so it might be necessary to show the AMP to the treating medical personnel for their expert opinion. You may get to 100% on a particular sub-skill before you finish a row. If you get to 100% and then do it again and again consecutively (ie. three times in a row), you can stop measuring that sub-skill (because it’s figured you’ve mastered it by now). Still continue measuring the other sub-skills and continue to do the
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sub-skill you’ve mastered, of course (but you don’t have to keep recording it - unless you really want to!). If you want to work on more than one general skill at a time, that’s OK, but I wouldn’t try working on more than two or three. You want to make sure you can devote a clear head to identifying patterns of play that are effective, so you can keep improving over time. If you try to work on too many things simultaneously, it just gets too confusing. Better to do it right the first time! Now, using the blank template provided, you have a go at identifying a general skill you want to work on. Maybe pick on something that was a bit low (in your estimation) from the Spider Web Profile. Then identify the sub-skills that go into that general skill (you may not need to fill the whole page, but there are usually at least 2-3 sub-skills – and most often more - for every general skill) and place them in order that you do them when you completed that general skill. Your selected sub-skills might be technical, or psychological (eg. think about…) or physiological (eg. take a deep breath…) factors to identify as part of the general skill. Include them in chronological order (ie. the order in which you would normally do them). You might need to do it in pencil so you can change the order, if required. Many people have never really thought about what goes into a general skill in that amount of detail before, so you may need to make changes or add or subtract information. If you know
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someone with the same general skill to do as you, why not compare notes and see if you can learn something from one another? Once you are happy with the order of your sub-skills, pick your expected values for the first session. You could label the top of the column so you know whether it was a training session or a competition. (You might even want to go a bit more ‘high tech’ and include details like the weather conditions – if yours is an outdoor sport – or how you were feeling at the time.) When you decide how often you are going to record your activity (ie. every training session), decide on your first lot of expected values and put them in the first column. Don’t make it too hard or too easy, but you mean to be aiming for each session to be challenging (ie. something you have to work consciously on, in order to improve yourself). This first lot of expected values are the hardest to decide, because you’ve probably never recorded yourself in such detail before. Chances are you won’t get it ‘spot on’ to start with, so bear in mind you can fiddle with the numbers for the first couple of sessions until you get a better feel for it.
Really, there shouldn’t be any difference between your effort in training and in competition. If you always train with 100% effort (as you would do in a competitive performance) you can become accustomed to that level of concentration (and can then do it
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automatically – without needing to think about it – when the pressure is on). That should be your aim. Goal setting is all about measuring your behaviour – remember to make all your goals ‘SMART goals’ – and quantifying behaviours ‘before’ and ‘after’. Using goal setting techniques enables you to evaluate whether what you are doing is leading to sporting improvement. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are really useful for a team (or athlete) to draw attention to the things that lead to improvement for the team (or individual). OK, on the next page is a blank Achievement Management Plan (AMP) for you to try to fill in. Select an area you want to improve. See how you go at identifying SMART sub-goals to place in chronological order and picking out a realistic expected value to start with (based on your current level of fitness or skill etc), then evaluating (after training or competition) how you went (ie. to give you your actual value), and then selecting an appropriate new expected value to go in the new column.
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Focus your attention on things that matter Being busy isn’t the same thing as being excellent. Some of the best advice I have heard was ‘Trying harder (ie. putting in more effort) isn’t always the best use of your resources’. Sometimes athletes perform better if they ease off a bit on the muscular effort, and put a bit more thinking into their performance (ie. increase their strategic effort).
Controlling distractions I recommend you expend your energy on focusing your attention on the things that matter; those things that will help you become a better athlete. Resolve to not pay attention to the things that don’t matter (ie. these are the distractions). ‘Control the controllable; for all else, just let go’. This is good advice. Too often in pressure situations athletes start worrying about things they can’t actually control (including how well prepared their opponent is).
I can suggest putting a big sign up somewhere that says something like, ‘Is what I’m thinking, or doing, right now helping me become the best I can be?’. That sign can remind you to pay attention to your thoughts and actions, and not waste time and energy on things that are not helpful. This is a useful sign to have up in the change rooms during a big final, because it recognises that we can easily become distracted by things around us and the
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 75 Michelle Pain, PhD
thoughts that pop into our head to do with performing on a big stage (that’s natural), but you notice when you are thinking or doing those things that aren’t helpful, and then take corrective steps to think and act more productively.
Controlling expectations Sometimes we sabotage ourselves by thinking too far ahead of ourselves (eg. ‘it will feel great when I win this match’, ‘I can’t believe I’m about to win this race’) and these thoughts, and those we think others are placing upon us (eg. ‘Mum and Dad will be so proud of me if I can pull this off’, ‘My coach wants me to win this so badly’) that these expectations can interfere with an athlete thinking clearly in the present, leading to mistakes being made (or worse, pressure being heaped upon the athlete so they appear to become paralysed in their decision making). This is commonly known as ‘choking’ and there are some very famous examples in sport. To be labelled a choker is one of sport’s highest insults. It implies that one had the talent to win, but failed to do so because of premature thoughts of celebration. If an athlete notices that he- or she- is starting to think too far ahead, I would have them remind themselves to concentrate on the things that matter right now and to leave ‘whatever happens’ to the future. It is worth practicing ‘what if’ scenarios in training by simulating the pressure of the last few minutes of competition as best as possible. I would recommend to a coach to incorporate a
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decision-making skill session at the end of a physically demanding training session (to simulate the physical tiredness an athlete experiences at the conclusion of a match) so the athlete can practice clearing her or his mind and identifying an effective strategy that will help them win the next point, or set up the team play etc. Strategies that can become automatic in training, under pressure, are more likely to come off in competition. You could use key words or images to remind yourself of the qualities you want to adhere to when under pressure. I really like the key word ‘100% APE’ to remind athletes to give 100% effort, have a positive attitude, be physically strong and have no excuses by the end of the competition. I like my athletes to train 100% APE so that they become used to putting in maximal effort every time they prepare to compete.
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Other sport psychology skills Apart from working with individual athletes to improve their thinking, if I’m working with a team I also give educational sessions and sometimes I conduct research. I’ve found this is a good way to open dialogue between myself and a team and generally introduce to them the way a sport psychologist works (especially if they’ve not met one before). An educational session might lead to an opportunity for more work with the team, or to work with individual athletes on a private basis. Doing research quantifies behaviours so you can look and see if patterns emerge (and see if you can come up with a suggestion as to what to do about it). The headings in this section give some idea of possible research projects. If I’m not already working with the team, I may give an educational session to the group purely to educate them about some aspect of sport psychology work that I do. The typical sessions I might run (for which I have prepared 45 minute talks) are around the themes of Goal Setting, Arousal Control, as well as a talk on Seven Mental Skills (based on James Loehr’s Psychological Performance Inventory) to illustrate seven typical mental skills how athletes can work to improve them. In addition, all the talks usually have a more general component (taking about 15 minutes) where I discuss about what sport psychologists do, what it takes to qualify as a sport psychologist etc (and is more of a question and answer session drawing on a few examples).
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Part of my role as a sport psychologist has been to co-ordinate a mid-season team review. For this, I used the framework of a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a whiteboard or flip chart tool where the page is divided into 4 quadrants (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and – with a bit of preplanning to suggest some dot points to go in each category if discussion slows – you ask participants to throw up some ideas to jot into each category. That way, you get everyone’s ideas and everyone feels part of the process (making follow through on decisions more likely). As part of the mid-season review, I also conducted some research because I wanted anonymous responses to evaluate (give positive and negative constructive feedback) for particular positions within the group (both for team roles among the playing and coaching group, as well as for the support personnel, including the administration). For both the SWOT analysis and the research, my job was to summarise the findings by creating themes and suggesting possible ways to move forward, so these types of sessions involve a bit more complexity and skill than just ‘straight’ sport psychology. If a team or individual was dealing with a crisis, the phrase Sergeant Major Eats Sugar Cookies (SMESC) can be used to summarise the process. It stands for: Situation – what is the problem?; Mission – What is the objective?; Execution – What tactics are we going to employ?; Support – What logistics do we
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need (eg. people, equipment)?; Command – What other organisations need to be involved (eg. management, media/PR)?
Communication approaches (Note: This ‘Communication’ section is more aimed at someone training to be a sport psychologist, although athletes may be interested to see the sorts of things that run through a sport psychologist’s head when they are involved in a counselling session.) I always ask my athlete clients what they know of sport psychology and how they think it might help them. I deal with a lot of young athletes (aged 12-17) in my practice and most of them don’t really know what sport psychology can do for them. Often their parents have recommended seeing a sport psychologist, and sometimes a coach has suggested it. My older clients (20-25 years old) might have read something about sport psychology, but for the most part, my clients aren’t exactly sure what I do, but have an inkling that ‘sport psychologists help athletes, so therefore I should be able to help them’.
Learning styles I take an educative approach when I work with athletes. I figure I’m entering into a professional relationship with the athlete, and I’m
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planning on teaching them some strategies so that when they walk out the door at the end of the first session, they have something to try in training that I think will help them. I try to use different learning styles to get my point across (since I usually don’t know before hand which learning style the athlete favours). The three learning styles are auditory (hearing), visual (seeing), and kinaesthetic (doing). I usually provide reading material (dot points, most often) so that the athletes (and their parents, in the case of my younger clients) can refer to some pointers and be reminded of what we covered in the session (eg. visual). Because my notes are written down, a lot of the session is spent discussing things (ie. auditory) so that I am interacting directly with the client, and towards the end I would go to the written sheets and remind the athlete what we covered by pointing to the notes and maybe writing in something that deviated from the pre-prepared notes. During the session, I also have the athlete move into the centre of the room (instead of remaining seated on the couch) and we might practice an exercise in the way they might do it at training (eg. kinaesthetic). By using all three learning styles in each session, I am confident I am teaching my client the skills they need in their preferred learning style, so they will understand how and when to use them. There are other communication techniques I use when working with my clients that build rapport and assist in gaining information
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about my client and the environment in which they train and compete.
Verbal and Non-‐Verbal Cues Verbal cues are easy – these are the things athletes tell me about in our session. But still, I’m not always taking just their word for things. I’m always trying to see if there are alternative explanations for the way the athlete has been treated (ie. to see if there is another side to the story). I always give my younger clients the option of having a parent in the session with them. Sometimes this is helpful if the parent can explain a situation more clearly, but the downside is that a parent’s presence might be more inhibiting for the young client. (At a Peer Support Network meeting with other sport psychologists, I think some of my colleagues were aghast that I would even offer to have a parent present, as they seemed to fear the young client might be less likely to speak their mind. I haven’t found that to be a problem, and in fact I have found the child often feels more comfortable and confident with a familiar adult around to help clarify what they want to say, and to help recall specific examples where an issue has arisen.) Apart from looking for other explanations – which I do in my head, not out loud in front of the client – I am also looking at whether there is a mismatch between what the client is saying and how
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they ‘look’ (ie. in terms of body language). Body language gives us useful non-verbal cues, and includes the way things were said (eg. forcefully, reluctantly) as well as body position (eg. crossed arms, looking down or looking away etc). Where there are mismatches in what is said and how it is said, I would ask a few more questions of the client to try to get to the truth of the matter - or at least work out if the perceived mismatch comes from other explanations (eg. shyness, low confidence etc).
Building rapport When you first meet your client, look at your client’s eyes, introduce yourself by name and shake their hand confidently. You want to give the impression that you have knowledge (ie. sport psychology, counselling skills etc) that you are willing to share with them. When sitting down to begin talking with a client, it is good practice to sit towards the edge of your seat, leaning slightly towards the client. Leaning backward (away from the client) or sitting too far back in your chair gives the client the impression you are not involved in their issue. Make sure you talk to the client and make eye contact. Firstly, for those hard of hearing, they may be trying to read your lips (not to mention trying to read your verbal and non-verbal cues!), but it is polite to look at someone’s face when you are speaking to them. It shows you are interested in what they have to say.
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Next, when you are speaking with your client, you might occasionally say ‘hmmm’ and nod, to signify your agreement or that you heard the client correctly. On this last matter, you might re-phrase what they’ve said to clarify your understanding of the issue, or to show that you have been listening to the client. After they have described a particular situation, (and after you’ve received their verbal and non-verbal cues) you might take a punt and say, ‘I can see that would make you feel ____’ (and suggest what you might be feeling if you were in their shoes). This is empathy.
Insightfulness The success of a session, to my mind, depends very heavily on the insightfulness of the client. I can recall two instances in the last 25 years where a client has come to me for assistance and I have felt that I have been unable to help them. One was a child who was brought along by his mother and really didn’t understand what I could do or him (or why he was there at all). He thought he was performing well enough, and his mother thought I could teach him something, but the need didn’t exist so there was no motivation to benefit from the time we spent together. The other time was with an adult. She was a golfer and knew there was a problem with her game but didn’t want to share that with me. (I think she expected me to be psychic!) In both cases, in spite of my best efforts, I wasn’t able to develop enough rapport to work effectively with the client. These are the sessions that stick in my mind as failures. Oh
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well…(in my best countering and ego-protecting style I would say, ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’, and ‘nobody’s perfect’).
Delivering the message The quarter time, half time and three quarter time speeches by coaches fall into this category, but it is my belief that a coach ought to be measured in his or her words rather than being too aggressive or too passive (as if the latter is likely!). A coach ought to be respected for her or his actions and words, so flying off the handle and reacting to a situation without having a calm plan of action would be a mistake. It’s just as important for coaches to use sport psychology techniques to clear their head and think clearly, as it is for athletes.
A good coach will be aware of each athlete’s own preferences for receiving information (so that it is passed along in a timely and effective way to allow the athlete to perform to the best of his or her ability). The coach should know how much information to give each athlete (some athletes like to know a lot, and some athletes just want to know only what affects them), and when the athlete likes to receive the information (ie. how long before the event).
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You can imagine that a young player selected to play in a major event (like a Grand Final or a Test match for Australia) might be informed on the morning of the event so as not to upset their sleep patterns the night before. Or some players might prefer an unexpected selection to be broken to them a few days prior to the event, so they can feel properly prepared. The timing may depend on many factors, like the athlete’s age, experience, and the significance of the event.
Feedback is a two-way process Athletes ought to be encouraged to voice their opinions (in the right forum) if they are dissatisfied with a situation. When working with athlete clients who are unhappy with the way something in their sporting environment is occurring (eg, how the coach or selectors are treating them, how their parents are treating them), I might have them rehearse with me what they want to say. In this way, in a ‘safe’ environment, they can practice delivering their message in a calm and logical way. It should be brought to the athletes’ attention if a situation is unable to be changed owing to factors outside the control of those present. Then it has to be ‘harden up, sunshine’ and/or finding a better forum to voice the dissatisfaction. Throughout my session with a client there may be more than one issue to work on, so part of the feedback process is to ascertain the priority of the client. ‘Would you rather work on this right now,
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or that?’ might be a question I would ask. Or after we’ve decided and I’ve suggested a strategy and we’ve practiced it, I might ask ‘do you think you’ll be able to do that at training in the next week?’ to check that I haven’t confused the client and they feel comfortable following through on the suggestions. Asking questions of the client is a good way to elicit feedback. Sometimes (if I’m working in a kinaesthetic kind of way), I might get the athlete to stand at one end of the room and I would stand at the other. I tell the client that the distance represents how far away they were to a solution to their issue before this day. Then, I ask them to move closer to me to illustrate how close they think they are to solving their issue as a result of us working together in the session this day. Of course, I’m hoping the client moves very close to me, but if they haven’t, we would spend more time clarifying where we have moved from the original goal. I might do this particular exercise with about 15 minutes to go (of our hour long session), so we have time to back track a bit, so that we can agree that by the end of the session they have something to work on that they think will help.
Effect of Negative Feedback If you have to give negative feedback, there are ways to deliver the message so it is palatable to an athlete. I highly recommend the 1983 book One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard with Spencer Johnson. It is based on the principle that people who feel good about themselves produce the best results. I believe this too. In
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brief, Blanchard suggests taking a moment to review your team’s goals, look to see how the team’s performances deviate from the goal, and if it is different (ie. less than expected) find ways to make the behaviours (eg. KPIs) into the goals that can be attained, thus leading to improved performance.
I did some research with Alex Bartsch back in 1999 and 2000 where we were able to gain access to a number of the AFL clubs and ask their players to take The Attentional and Interpersonal Style inventory (TAIS, 1996 version, by Robert Nideffer). This was the test I encouraged the AFL to use at their Draft Camp back in 1997 (to prevent clubs from giving the same test – or tests - to a player multiple times). I really love the TAIS! I think it can give some very insightful information about the thinking patterns of athletes. One of the benefits (?) is that it has an inbuilt ‘depression’ subscale, where ‘depression’ indicates disordered thinking around the sorts of things like inability to sleep, worries, feelings of worthlessness etc.
(The reason I’ve put ‘benefits’ followed by a question mark is that the Depression subscale is very powerful, and one has to be prepared for the fact that some athletes – even if they haven’t come to visit a sport psychologist for that reason – may be suffering from depression. In fact, they may be counting on you picking it up, even if they don’t say so overtly. It’s a good idea to know of some resources to help clients with depression or other This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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mental health issue: the client’s local GP; Lifeline 13 11 14; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Headspace at headspace.org.au; Beyond Blue at beyondblue.org.au; Young and Well CRC at yawcrc.org.au; and SANE at sane.org.au.)
As part of the study into attentional and interpersonal styles between forwards (ie. goalkickers), backs (ie. defenders) and midfield players, my colleague visited one AFL team on the Monday after a Saturday match in which that team was absolutely smashed on the scoreboard. Unbeknownst to us, many of that team’s best players were severely chastised by the coach in front of their team mates. My colleague collected the data on the Monday and we started entering the data in the afternoon. Immediately it was apparent that there was a problem at the club so I contacted the club liaison that we had dealt with that previous day to say that a number of their players were quite severely depressed and that I held grave concerns about one player in particular (and significant concerns for five others), and that the club ought to ensure these players were followed up to receive some sort of assistance right away (or at the very least, to enquire if they are okay). The liaison thanked me for alerting him to the situation and confessed it was probably as a result of that player (as well as the five others we had nominated to him) having had ‘strips torn off them’ by the coach in front of the team. He told me he’d check them out right away. (About 20 minutes later he rang
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me back threatening legal action if I spoke to the press about it but admitted that there was an issue for the reasons he’d spelt out.)
While we weren’t privy to what the coach said, it was absolutely fascinating to me was the fact that the six players we identified with the higher than usual depression scores (a) were the ones that took the brunt of the coach’s wrath, and (b) it took them more than a month to be back in the ‘best players’ list in the newspapers (where they would normally be each week). Negative criticism has the power to affect players adversely for a long period of time (usually much more than one match), so a coach ought to weigh up whether the short term benefit of getting something off his or her chest is in the long term interests of the team. As it happens, this coach was sacked at the end of the season. Apparently the coach had lost the respect and trust of the players. I noted with interest that this coach had been miked up for a significant match in recent years and his three quarter time address was captured for the TV audience. Even though his team was down at three quarter time, his style was completely different and much more closely aligned to the optimal feedback style. I hadn’t seen him in operation for about 10 years and was really pleased to see the difference, because until then, he had lost my respect for him as a coach too. I guess coaches can make mistakes too, and it shouldn’t be held against them forever.
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In my opinion, coaches who express their frustration by abusing a player (especially in public, or in front of team members) are not being as effective as they could be as a coach. They miss the opportunity to model ‘grace under pressure’ that they hope their players will follow.
Role playing I have used role playing as a tool for an athlete to rehearse that which they want to say to a team mate, coach or family member if the athlete didn’t feel confident they could cope with the other person’s reaction to their news. Role playing allows the athlete to try out a range of ways to communicate something that for them is difficult to say straight out to the other person (either because of unbalanced power - where what the athlete says may impact on their future selection as a team member - or an athlete has some difficult news to impact eg. imminent retirement or injury concerns etc). I might take the part of the other person and the athlete tries to rehearse what they would say when the other person (ie. me) reacts to their news, or I might play the part of the athlete breaking the news and my client acts out the reactions of the other person.
Confidentiality As a sport psychologist working with athletes or coaches, my aim is to be as transparent and honest with my client as possible, because you need that to build rapport with your clients. An issue arises, of course, in that grey area over ‘who is the client’. This is
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something that needs to be ironed out early in discussions with a coach, or a club, preferably before an issue arises. For example, if you are working for a team (paid or unpaid), is your allegiance to the coach, or the board of a club, or to the athlete? If you are working with a young athlete (ie. a minor), are you obliged to notify the parents? I’ve worked with a couple of ‘tricky’ cases in my lifetime, including sensitive issues like rape (where two different coaches were convicted of improper relationships/rape of their players, in two different sports), athletes ‘coming out’ to their family, athletes with cutting behaviours, and athletes with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These issues require a long term commitment to counselling sessions, often involving other family members. Negotiating the minefield of boundaries is difficult, but in all instances I would say that my primary duty of care was with the athlete and if that is in conflict with what the team or coach requires, then I would have a problem. Luckily for me, the coaches I have worked for have given me almost free reign to do as I saw fit with the athlete, knowing I was doing so in the athlete’s and team’s best interests and only needed to be aware in only vague terms what I was doing at the time. At a la ter date, with the fully healed athlete’s permission, I was able to disclose more fully the nature of my work with the athlete (without being too specific).
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Sport Psychology Research It is important for sport psychologists to be aware of the results of research, so they can inform their clients of ‘best practice’ procedures. Here are some topics that have interested me over he years.
Psychological Momentum Examining psychological momentum shifts in behaviours that facilitate improvement in performance is a real interest for me. On rare occasions, a ‘one off’ act can bring about sustained change but usually it takes the combined actions of a group (ie. a critical mass of players) to change a team’s fortunes on the field. It’s a bit like a car that hasn’t been serviced for a while. It is able to drive forward with a cough and a splutter on the engine’s misfiring cylinders, but proper, consistent, smooth forward propulsion requires all cylinders firing (or at least in my experience, a critical mass of players all being effective at the one time). “Momentum is a massive thing, and what it did today will give us a big lift for the remainder of the Ashes,” said Andrew Strauss (July 2009). Early research took a simplistic approach (whomever won the first point in tennis won the match 61% of the time) but ‘momentum’ itself appeared to play a small role once other factors were taken into account (ie. ability of the players; support, particularly financial backing; and preparation).
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The aim of psychological momentum is to create opportunities for you or your team (or limit opportunities by the opposition) by creating pressure in a consistent way. I’ve looked a bit at psychological momentum in cricket, and the way to build momentum is by scoring runs (if you are the batting side) or minimising runs (if you are the fielding side). It’s obvious in cricket how to coach players to use productive behaviours to help lift their team’s performance. What isn’t so obvious is how to minimise the impact of momentum imposed by the opposition. Rather than succumbing to the pressure, the team under siege ought to develop some pre-game strategies for swinging the momentum back their way.
To create pressure if you are the batting side, strategies I would suggest are: looking to hit singles (or at least looking for opportunities to score); hitting to different areas of the ground; make the blowers/fielders feel rushed; hit boundaries; use different shot selection; and ‘play the role’ (ie. hold up an end, keep up with or surpass the required run rate; keep the inform batter on strike etc). To limit pressure if you were the batting side, some strategies might be to: do some mid wicket ‘gardening’ or have mid wicket chats with the other batter; step away to ostensibly adjust your gear but use the time to refocus on your goal; talk with your partner to remind them of conditions (eg. the bowlers’ or fielders’ strengths or weaknesses); and build partnerships (ie. play yourself in and go on to score runs).
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To build pressure if you are the fielding side you could you could: talk between fielders (eg. offer support to the bowler); make the batters feel rushed; take wickets; bowl to a plan; bowl ‘dot’ balls (ie. so no runs are scored from that delivery); attempt run outs (ie. create uncertainty in the mind of the batter as to whether the fielder will hit the stumps with their return); appeal (note: appealing too often or for obvious ‘not out’ decisions is considered unsportsmanlike behaviour); play the role (eg. bowlers create pressure by bowling to a plan, bowling into the wind even if they prefer not to, limiting the run rate, playing ‘second fiddle’ to another bowler etc); and be ready and ‘switched on’ (eg. be in position to take catches, get behind the ball to stop it, stop your mind from wandering if play is slow). If you were the fielding side, to limit pressure from the batting side you could: slow down the tempo of the game; talk between captain and bowler; know the batter’s weakness (ie. scouting); vary deliveries; and bowl to a plan (ie. be purposeful). ESPN Cricinfo gives a ball-by-ball description for all international matches (Men and Women), but the descriptions can be emotive (which may lead to bias, which you want to avoid as a researcher). Google ‘ESPN live scores’ to find the website. Cricket Australia maintains a less emotive description (at http://livescores.cricket.com.au/summary.aspx). Go to View Scorecard, where you can look at the ball-by-ball commentary (which, unlike the ESPN Cricinfo site, goes backwards with the most recent action at the top of the page).
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I prefer the Cricket Australia website, but it is tricky to navigate. To see the description, here’s a screenshot from the Cricket Australia website of the third ODI of Australia’s tour of South Africa, where the Aussie won by three wickets to take the series 2-1 (29/10/11).
The T20 matches and One Day Internationals lend themselves to psychological momentum research, because you get a result in one day and a result is the usual outcome (ie. there are rarely ties or draws). Pressure builds during the course of the match as the team batting first tries to impose itself on the game to set a target the fielding team can’t beat. At the changeover, the fielding side tries to outscore the opposition team. Powerplays have been introduced to make the game less biased toward the batting side.
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If I am using the ball-by-ball analysis from the website – I do this after the match has ended so I know the run rate for the innings, so I am able to say if a batting over was much better, much worse, or no different to the completed innings’ run rate - I colour code each over to signify which team created pressure (solid colour) or limited pressure (light colour) in that over. If I tape the games and watch them back, I usually can put in a bit more detail than if I’m relying on the website to ‘score’ players’/team’s behaviours, because the website commentary focuses only on either the batter or the bowler.
For a TV analysis, I create an Excel sheet with columns (let’s say it’s a ODI, ie. so I have 50 rows per innings for a 50 over game, with a separate sheet for each batting team) and have columns for Over Number, Description of Team A’s behaviours, Colour Code for batting side, Colour Code for fielding side, Description of the Team B’s behaviours, and I have separate sheets for each side’s batting innings. I decide at the end of each over which team has ‘won’ the psychological momentum in that over – depending upon their actions in that over - either by creating pressure (indicated by a dark colour) or limiting pressure (indicated by a light colour). Wickets are signified in an over by a yellow star. Below are a couple of screenshots of my Excel file of the West Indies batting innings in an A match in the 2009 World Cup, played in South Africa, and Australia’s batting innings.
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It seems to me that in the first innings, either the teams were better at creating pressure than limiting pressure (because there are fewer light coloured blocks), or I’m not very good at picking behaviours which limit or negate pressure. (Error in the analysis should always be considered an option!)
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In the second innings (with the West Indies batting), the West Indies appeared powerless against the Aussie attack and could neither create their own nor limit Australia’s pressure (see over the page).
In this match, it became apparent that both teams were not evenly matched (the West Indies lost one of their star batsmen due to injury, so Australia only needed 9 wickets for victory).
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In the final of the 2009 World Cup, with New Zealand batting first (scoring 5/200), the Australian bowlers effectively limited pressure (see next diagram). In the Aussie innings, New Zealand were able to create pressure for the first 15 overs, but then Australia were effective at limiting their pressure and began creating their own pressure.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 101 Michelle Pain, PhD
What is clear is that creating changes in momentum doesn’t lead to immediate change on the scoreboard. Momentum needs to be sustained over time.
If you wanted to test your ability as a sport psychologist/researcher investigating psychological momentum shifts, I’d recommend identifying behaviours that create your own (or your team’s) This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 102 Michelle Pain, PhD
pressure, or limit your opponent’s pressure. Then find a way to measure the behaviours over brief periods of time (say, over 5 to 10 minute intervals). Then you would look for patterns during periods of play. I would suggest that, instead of looking at teams, perhaps you might be interested in looking at an individual player’s role within a team, to see if they are maximizing their efforts to create or overcome pressure. Presenting the results to an individual player might be a very powerful motivator to improve aspects of their game.
Motivation Being ‘motivated’ occurs when an athlete sees the benefit in striving for something currently not attained. As a sport psychologist, when I see the word ‘motivation’, I often automatically think of ‘goal setting’ as a solution to the issue, but sometimes motivation can be lost due to factors outside the athlete so we’ll look at a few of those.
‘Losing’ as a de-‐motivator It’s no fun to be an athlete or team that is on a losing streak with no end in sight. Apart from running the risk of being ridiculed, or worse, being felt sorry for, losing should indicate ‘being out performed’ (not that you’ve given up). This can go either of two ways – it might spur an athlete or team to ‘have a good, hard look’
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 103 Michelle Pain, PhD
at themselves and evaluate what they are currently doing right or wrong, or it might cause an athlete or team to not try so hard (as a defence mechanism for the future loss, so they can point to the fact that they weren’t trying too hard…’but if they did, the result might have gone a different way’).
If you are planning to play sport at the ‘pointy end’ (ie. the elite end of the pyramid), you’ve got to be prepared to keep evaluating your progress and make hard decisions about the way forward. This might mean cutting non-performing players (in a team), or thinking about retirement, or having an operation to finally treat a niggling injury with the respect it deserves.
The role of confidence A coach of a team on a losing streak ought not to be immune from having his or her role (and those of the support staff) evaluated to determine if there is a better way to deliver services to the team, but assuming that is all in place, what more can a coach do to motivate the team or athlete? Assuming the team or athlete is competing in the correct grade or standard, a coach would be wise to emphasise the skills the athlete (or players) already do well.
It’s ‘the ol’ back to basics’ training session. The reason this session works is because – if the team or athlete can already do the skill – it builds confidence. A team or athlete without confidence is a team
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 104 Michelle Pain, PhD
or athlete who is already defeated in their own mind – and that‘s not good for creating optimal performance!
Think of teams or athletes known to you who perform with confidence. They look invincible. They look like they always had that skill, and their skills are never going to leave them. But they didn’t always have that level of skill, and inevitably, that aura of invincibility will leave…but that might take some time. By taking skills ‘back to basics’ until the team or athlete feels confident, and then building upwards taking little steps, the confidence will allow a team or athlete to suddenly be right back where they belong. It’s a bit like a roller coaster – a little bit of a push and away we go again!
Team culture For teams who are perennially at the bottom of the ladder (usually it is teams, because athletes who have lost their mojo for some period usually just retire), a change in culture is required. This comes from ‘a clean slate’, or ‘a line in the sand’ being drawn, where something new occurs. Committees may lose patience with a coach of a losing side, and decide to cut their losses and recruit a new coach. But it doesn’t have to be that way. An existing coach, with the support of the players who understand change needs to occur, may recreate a different culture (eg. back to basics, new team rules, change in strategy), or a change in team members.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 105 Michelle Pain, PhD
It is my opinion that there needs to be a ‘critical mass’ of personnel with the requisite skill and willpower to be part of the new culture. Having one marquee player may get the supporters excited (eg. Chris Judd coming to Carlton), but the team will still languish unless there are a core group of players who can support that marquee player.
I don’t know of any research as to the size effect of the critical mass, my best guess is that a team needs at least a third of the team to become effective ‘core players’ (obviously you want as many as possible!) in order for the team to start to benefit from a marquee player. With an effective core group, the whole team can start to push onwards. They will develop more faith in themselves individually and as a team, because fewer errors are being made. As well as having a total number of core players, the critical mass ought to be present in critical positions as well (ie. forward and defensive positions as well as in the centre of the ground) in order for the whole team to learn and move forwards.
Retirement Choosing when to retire from sport is really difficult, so (if you are an athlete considering retirement) expect to go through a grieving process, particularly if you were in the sport for a long time or you reached an elite level. You are especially lucky if the retirement issue is yours to make, or if retirement is chosen when you are at
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the top of your game. There is far less psychological trauma if you feel in control of the timing of that decision.
For athletes who retire due to injury, or players retiring because the team doesn’t want them to play on any more, the retirement process may be tinged with anger and feelings that their destiny hasn’t yet been fulfilled. As a sport psychologist, I want all my athletes to feel as though they have left their sport when they know they had the opportunity to display all of their talent and ability, but sadly, not everyone is so lucky. Feelings of anxiety about retirement may be lessened, too, if the athlete has been planning for retirement for some time, and they have a plan for the future to look forward to (eg employment, a holiday, leisure time etc). To start you thinking about future career options, I highly recommend the book ‘What colour is your parachute?’ by Richard Nelson Bolles. It’s been a best seller since the 1970s and is revised every year, and although written by an American author and is not ‘sport-based’, it has excellent practical information in it to start you thinking about your own network around you, your own strengths and weaknesses, and other job possibilities.
Burnout Burnout is a condition where an athlete feels mentally and physically exhausted in playing a particular sport, and it doesn’t
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 107 Michelle Pain, PhD
feel worth the effort to train for that sport any more. These feelings can sneak up on an athlete, so that at the end of one season the athlete feels ready to continue in the sport, but by the beginning of the next season they realise that they feel disengaged and uncaring toward the sport. Athletes who are burned out feel like they have given everything they can, but no longer find the sport enjoyable or the competition satisfying. The trick for an athlete is to retire before they get to this state. The symptoms of burnout may be similar to other psychological problems (like depression), so it is important to be aware of the symptoms and treat them seriously. Physical symptoms of burnout include feeling tired and drained most of the time, lowered immunity, frequent headaches or back pain, or a change in appetite or sleeping patterns. Emotional signs of burnout include a sense of failure and self doubt, feeling helpless, trapped or defeated, detachment, or feeling alone, increasingly cynical or having a negative outlook, feeling decreased satisfaction. The behavioural symptoms of burnout include withdrawing from responsibilities, isolating yourself from others, procrastinating, using food, drugs or alcohol to cope with life, taking out your frustrations on others, or skipping out of commitments early. Strategies for recovering from burnout include: 1. Slow Down Take a break, and cut back on commitments to look after yourself. Be gentle on yourself and understand that it is time to look after yourself. 2. Get Support This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 108 Michelle Pain, PhD
When burned out, your first thought may be to isolate yourself, but it is better to turn to loved ones for support. Share your feelings. 3. Re-evaluate your goals and priorities Burnout is a sign that something in your life wasn’t working as well as it could be, so it’ is time to re-evaluate your hopes and dreams. This time can be an opportunity to rediscover what you really want to do with your life. 4. Acknowledge the losses By changing your life, you may need to deal with the loss of the dream you had when you entered your sport. Or it might be the loss of identity that goes with being an athlete or team member, as well as the loss of friends, sense of community, or sense of mastery that goes with being at that level of sport. Life can still be meaningful and worthwhile, but it will be in a different way to the way it was in the past, and it may take some time to develop.
Personality Assessment The best personality test I know is The Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS) inventory, by Nideffer (1996). It was the research instrument used in a very large study of AFL players, back in 1999 and 2000 by Alex Bartsch and myself. The TAIS was also the instrument I introduced at the 1997 AFL Draft Camp, and it is still used to this day. In the past, I have assisted some AFL Clubs in compiling a list of potential players (based on characteristics particular clubs wanted from their players, ie. who would fit in with the team’s culture and the coach’s style).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 109 Michelle Pain, PhD
The TAIS is scored and each of the 21 subscales is given a score. The relative height (on the profile) tells the story of the athlete’s preferred ‘style’. Here is what a blank profile looks like (over the page).
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Attentional abilities
There are a set of six subscales (three sets of two: BET-OET, BITOIT, and NAR-RED) on the TAIS profile that, together, indicate where the athlete is attending (ie. to messages inside their head or to the cues around them), as well as their effectiveness. The relative position on the profile of the athlete’s scores on the first pair of subscales indicates how well an athlete can read the play (which is vital in all ball sports). The second pair indicates how well the athlete can strategise (ie. think up other solutions), and the third pair indicates how well a person can swap between reading the play or strategising (as the situation calls for it), or whether they stick with just one style as a preference.
Interpersonal abilities The subscales (going from left to right, after the first six attentional subscales) are to do with information processing (INFP, whether a player prefers a fast-paced environment or slow moving/stable), and the athlete’s control of behavioural impulses (BCON, where a high score often indicates a player likely to take risks, making them perhaps prone to injury if the attentional subscales show errors of judgement are likely, or the inability to follow doctor’s instructions in rehabilitation, or following a coach’s directive).
The next two subscales, control (CON) and self esteem (SES) are used in conjunction with the depression (DEP) subscale, to give a This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 112 Michelle Pain, PhD
measure of Leadership potential. Then comes an indication of the athlete’s responsiveness to physical challenges (P/O) and their preference for making decisions quickly (OBS). You can imagine this might give an indication of a player’s ability to get rid of the ball before getting caught by an opposition player (looking at OBS and the attentional subscales).
Then the next subscales are extroversion (EXT, the degree to which the athlete likes to be with others) and introversion (INT, the degree to which the athlete likes to be apart from others). This says nothing about their ability – it is just a preference. I would not compare INT and EXT to Reversal theory’s Telic and Paratelic subscales if an athlete has answered questions in a sport setting (eg. using the T/PSI or T/PI) because these are preferences expressed by the athlete whereas the TAIS questions are based on everyday life preferences, which may or may not give the same responses as for sport preferences. (Knowing the number of people who have answered the T/PSI as a ‘life’ type questionnaire, about 50% say that it is not how they are with ‘sport’, so I would say there is not much correlation between them unless the athlete answering the TAIS has be asked to do so referring to their behaviours in a sport setting.) Lastly, of the subscales drawn on the profile, are three subscales to do with verbal expression. They are intellectual expression (IEX, the degree to which an athlete feels inclined to share their ideas with others), positive affect expression (PAE, the degree to which an athlete offers encouragement or praise to others) and negative This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 113 Michelle Pain, PhD
affect expression (NAE, the degree to which an athlete offers negative feedback – criticism, constructive or otherwise) to others. The original version of the TAIS (1976) ended here, but the revised edition (in 1996) added two new subscales, focus over time (FOT, referring to a person’s willingness to put other distractions away in order to concentrate on the task at hand) and performance under pressure (PUP), and these aren’t drawn on the profile but are written on the right hand side (along with the depression score). I imagine that Shane Warne would score high on both these subscales – the number of times his private life was swirling in the media and yet he managed to play brilliantly for Australia in spite of it all!
The PUP subscale, I think, is almost the most valuable one there. In our study of AFL football players, a certain subgroup scored high on this subscale. They were either (or both) the captains of the team, and/or players who won or scored high on individual honours like Brownlow medals, Coleman medals, Rising Star awards etc. It seems to be an excellent indicator of a champion player.
Using the TAIS for selection When I’ve worked with a Club or an organisation to help with selection of potential recruits, I’ve had a conversation to discuss the requirements of the task (ie. what are the qualities the This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 114 Michelle Pain, PhD
club/organisation thinks are important), including the relative importance (ie. ranking and ‘quantity’ of that characteristic compared to others) and I then find combinations of TAIS subscales that measure that quality.
For instance, if you’re looking to recruit a midfielder, I’d expect that reading the play (BET-OET) would be a very important skill, and if you want that person to be able to think laterally and strategise (if things aren’t going well), then ‘thinking’ (BIT-OIT) would be high too. I would always want a player with a high performance under pressure (PUP) score (probably more than any other TAIS quality). If I wanted a good leader who leads by example (High P/O together with Moderately-High CON minus low DEP), or who leads by verbal commands and encouragement (High PAE together with Moderately-High CON minus low DEP), I might look for a combination of scores.
OK, now have a think about the personality requirements of the sport you play/coach, specifically, a positional role (if you play in a team), or for an individual sport. What helps a person excel in that role? Write down a few characteristics here: eg. archer who needs to gather lots of information and strategise ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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Now, look back over the description of the subscales and match the subscale code (INFP, BCON, BET-OET etc) to the ‘personality characteristic’ you want to be measured by the TAIS. eg. archer who needs to calculate wind speed, target distance etc might need high INFP and high BIT-low OIT ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Alright, we’ve had a go at identifying the relevant personality characteristics, but sometimes a role requires more of one quality than another (ie. they are not equally important). In that case, there are a few more steps... I would prioritise these desired qualities, and then identify the range of scores on each TAIS subscale (for each quality) that classified a particular performer as being ‘ideal’ (given a score of 5), ‘excellent’ (a score of 4), ‘good’ a score of 3), ‘satisfactory’ (a score of 2), ‘not satisfactory’ (a sore of 1) and ‘not at all ideal’ (a score of 0). You should aim to end up with a numerical score that allows you to compare one individual to another. This is true of each quality is ranked equally important. If they are not, you ought to consider a multiplier to influence the importance.
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After discussions with the club or organisation about the relative importance of each characteristic, the most important factor might be given a 1, while the second and third factors are equally ranked, and may be multiplied by a factor of 0.8, and the fourth factor multiplied by 0.65, and the fifth factor multiplied by 0.4), and then a single score would reflect how a particular potential recruit compared to another potential recruit. This is the basis of objective ranking based purely on the characteristics the club/organisation believes will be important for the recruit to possess.
That is, if you identified five qualities that were important in a particular role, and one was vital, and the next two factors were very important (but equally so), and the next was less important but useful, and the fifth factor was the least important, you might have an equation like this (using the multipliers we mooted in the previous paragraph, which are purely arbitrary for this example): S = (PUP x 1.0) + ((BET-OET) x 0.8) + ((BIT-OIT) x 0.8) + ((P/O + (CON - DEP) x 0.65) + (PAE + (CON – DEP) x 0.4), where ‘S’ stands for the selected candidate
If you had to choose one candidate from a pool of 3 potential players, which one might you select, using the formula we came up with and given the following ratings for each of the five subscale combinations?
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Qualities
Player 1
Player 2
Player 3
PUP
3
4
2
BET-OIT
4
3
5
BIT-OIT
3
2
4
P/O & CON-DEP
5
4
3
PAE & CON-DEP
4
4
5
Here is the formula again: S = (PUP x 1.0) + ((BET-OET) x 0.8) + ((BIT-OIT) x 0.8) + ((P/O + (CON - DEP) x 0.65) + (PAE + (CON – DEP) x 0.4) Calculations: For Player 1, (3 x 1) + (4 x 0.8) + (3 x 0.8) + (5 x 0.65) + (4 x 0.4) = 3 + 3.2 + 2.4 + 3.25 + 1.6 = 13.45 For Player 2, (4 x 1) + (3 x 0.8) + (2 x 0.8) + (4 x 0.65) + (4 x 0.4) = 4 + 2.4 + 1.6 + 2.6 + 1.6 = 12.2 For Player 3, (2 x 1) + (5 x 0.8) + (4 x 0.8) + (3 x 0.65) + (5 x 0.4) = 2 + 4 + 3.2 + 1.95 + 2 = 13.15 So, based on these calculations, Player 1 would be preferred, then Player 3, then Player 2. If, like at the AFL Draft Camp, a player might be selected by another club before your club got a chance to select them, then that player would be (literally) ruled out, and the next best available player would then be due to be selected.
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Fear of Failure A fear of failure can drive some people to achieve and persist in the face of challenge and adversity so that they are thought of as being a successful athlete, but it can also lead to a lot of self doubt and is generally an unpleasant state to be in for the duration of a sporting career. At it’s most debilitating, fear of failure can cause an athlete to underachieve in the face of high anxiety, leading an athlete to a life of learned helplessness, where they don’t feel in control of their performance nor trust their feelings. Success oriented people tend to be optimistic and they adopt a proactive and positive orientation to tasks. They respond to setbacks with optimism and enthusiasm. Failure avoiders are usually anxious, and motivated by a fear of failure. They live in self doubt and aren’t confident their hard work can avoid failure or achieve success. These people are likely to be adversely affected by setbacks, as they confirm their doubts about whether they can avoid failure. Failure avoiders lack resilience. In response to a fear of failure they may actively sabotage their chances of success (eg. procrastination, or not trying hard enough, or not putting in the hard work) so that they have an excuse at the ready if they don’t perform as well as others expect of them (as ‘save face’ so they can say that their ability is unchallenged, it’s just their aptitude that is at fault). On the other hand, failure accepters are those who may
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have started out as failure avoiders but now have developed tendencies of learned helplessness. They are disengaged from tasks to the point that they don’t even try any more. They are unmotivated and have no resilience.
According to the above model, with work supported by others, there are two types of failure fearers. The over-striver avoids failure by succeeding (as opposed to the success oriented person who achieves in order to attain success). In an AFL example (and I want to point out that he has never been a client of mine), I would suggest that Glenn Archer (ex-North Melbourne Football Club ‘hard nut’) falls into this category. Since retiring, Glenn has been open about how playing football at the highest level was an unpleasant experience for him, and that he never felt truly competent, and was driven by a fear of failure. He says he often vomited before matches because he was so worried about being able to perform to the standards expected of him.
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If over-strivers do not succeed, failure is seen as proof of their suspected incompetence, and this leads them to develop selfprotection strategies (eg. blame others, find excuses etc). One way self protectors avoid the implications of failure is by self handicapping, where the athlete highlights the obstacles to successful performance (eg. putting in reduced effort, reducing the quality of training/practice, or procrastination). The other self protection method is to set unrealistically low expectations prior to competition. So, how do we move toward a success orientation and leave fear of failure behind? Four factors have been identified which promote success orientation: Self belief; Value and relevance; Mastery (or Learning) focus; and, Control. We’ll look at those in more detail. Self belief is the athete’s belief and confidence in their ability to do well in the area that they set out to do well in; that they can meet the challenges as they arise; and perform to the best of their ability. It’s often related to past performances. Those who have succeeded in the past are most likely to think that success is not far away in the future. Those high in self belief tend to generate and try alternative courses of action when they don’t meet with initial success (ie. they have high levels of persistence). Strategies to build self belief include breaking training up into small units (‘chunking’) so the athlete can experience small successes along the way. Learning time management skills helps a person feel more in control of their life, and thus feel more competent. To build self belief, one has to remove or challenge negative thinking This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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(see earlier sections of this book regarding getting rid of your inner leprechaun!). Finally, one should reduce emphasis on comparing oneself against others and just use yourself as a yardstick to see how much you have improved. This, after all, is something within your own control. When people see the relevance and usefulness of what they are doing, they tend to be more engaged in the tasks, and therefore in a stronger position to achieve. A coach can help here, by stressing how the training drill is useful for the final skill to be used in competition. Coaches ought to be a good role model by showing that they value what they are teaching. A mastery focus means the athlete is striving to improve by working hard, learning more, and solving problems. The athlete is doing a good job for its own satisfaction (not just for a reward at the end, if they are lucky). Those who are mastery or learning focused see their involvement in tasks as reflecting more on their effort than their ability, and failure is viewed as diagnostic feedback that can lead to later success. Emphasis on the outcome (ie. what might possibly transpire as a result of success) is not a useful strategy, as ‘outcome’ is not always within the athlete’s sphere of influence (ie. you can’t control how well your opponent has trained, or your opponent’s level of ability). It is far more productive to concentrate on those things the athlete actually has control over, and these are to do with effort, ability, strategy, and persistence. Ways to improve a mastery or learning focus within a team is to have an athlete pair up with another for peer tutoring, or use cooperative learning methods, or even collaborative learning. This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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‘Control’ refers to the extent to which people believe they are able to avoid failure and achieve success. Those who believe they have little or no control over the outcomes are increasingly uncertain as to whether they can avoid failure or bring about success (because to them it seems random), so they are more likely to engage in counter productive behaviours (eg. not trying hard enough). A sense of control is developed when there is focus on the connection between the athlete’s effort (and strategy) and the outcome, and goal setting is where I would start working with an athlete like this. Finally, feedback that is task-based (ie. saying specifically how the athlete can improve) enhances perceived control, and more likely to lead to improvement.
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Roles in supporting the athlete The role of the sport psychologist The sport psychologist exists in their relationship with the athlete and coach in very much a subordinate role: the aim of the sport psychologist is to make the athlete and coach look good (ie. work with the athlete – or coach – so that he or she performs to the best of their potential). You might be secretly very excited to be working with a particular team or individual but you need to make sure that excitement or awe doesn’t compromise your effectiveness.
How do you know if the sport psychologist is effective? Because a sport psychologist works with an athlete or coach on their thinking patterns (ie. it all happens inside their head), it’s difficult to demonstrate how effective a sport psychologist’s work has been. This is particularly true if you’ve been given carte blanche to work with athletes to get them in their best form possible and the coach is not aware of the exact nature of your work with a particular athlete (which is usually true due to the confidentiality of your meetings with an athlete). Some of my colleagues have recommended using a rating scale during their session with the athlete. Upon ascertaining the issue and getting agreement with the athlete as to the direction the session will take, about 15 minutes before the end of the hour long session (ie. so they might’ve been working on that issue for 20
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minutes or so by then), they would ask the athlete to rate whether they thought the session was on track for addressing the issue (or if they had been side tracked and are now talking about an issue that is off topic). This solution might be good for measuring effectiveness as a sport psychologist with a particular athlete, but it doesn’t really solve the issue of measuring effectiveness within a team. I would suggest, if you are hired by a coach or a sporting organisation to work with a team that you discuss at the outset what their expectations are for your involvement (including the frequency and detail required to report during the year and the level of confidentiality they would expect you to keep with your clients). If you cannot negotiate a settlement that suits you both, walk away. You don’t need your reputation to be sullied in a very small marketplace (ie. Clubs who can afford to and are prepared to use a sport psychologist are small in number!). The important thing is to be upfront at the beginning, so everything is transparent and there is no perception of deception. (Perception is reality in many people’s minds, and it is very difficult to alter a poor reputation, even if untrue.) I’ve found, when working with a team, that about a third of the team reckon they know it all and don’t really want to talk with the sport psychologist. About a third of the group are really keen to see how a sport psychologist can help them, and are enthusiastic about learning more, and about a third are willing to wait and see
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what impact a sport psychologist might have for them. So, the way I feel is that you’ve got about two thirds of the team on side, and I would then try to do things that might educate the other third that builds rapport and leaves the door open in case they change their mind! I would definitely recommend documenting the type of work you do when working with a team. As a psychologist, I am required to keep detailed notes on all of my clients, but those are made to be kept in confidence (ie. for personal reference, and to be provided in court if there is a subpoena). From those, however, I might want to list the types of issues covered and their frequency (both between, and within, individuals). For example, I might see one athlete three times for an anxiety issue, and another three athletes once for an anxiety issue (ie. same issue presented 6 times, but for 4 different clients). Apart from the more ‘clinical’ type of issues, I would list the educational sessions I ran with the group, as well as any other group sessions (ie. mid year or end of year reviews etc) or specialty services (eg. assisting interpreting data from personality tests, selection of players or coaching staff) to demonstrate my value.
The role of the coach The coach is the boss, as far as I am concerned, and the sport psychologist works for the coach to help get everyone on the team (whether we’re talking about an individual athlete and his or her informal support network, or the number of players on a team,
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other support staff etc) ‘onto the same page’. If the team is a large one, there may be more than one assistant coach, but the head coach is the boss because the team’s performance ultimately rests on their shoulders. The coach is responsible for the team (or individual athlete’s) technique or skill level, and decisions about strategy (eg. game plan). Because the coach imparts expertise to an athlete (or group of players), some of my best work as a sport psych has been to help the coach frame the message. For instance, some members of a team may not want to know all the background or reasoning to a particular strategic decision, and really only want to know their role and what their key performance indicators are at that time. Other players may want to know everything. A coach has to pitch the correct amount of information to a group of people that satisfies the learning styles of individual players. The best piece of advice I have is for coaches to keep match day information to 3-4 points maximum, with perhaps one key work to sum up each point written on the whiteboard. (By all means, ‘educate’ those players who want more information ahead of match day with all the information they need, but keep it simple on match day.) I’m not a big fan of the ‘ra-ra’ type of revving up that might go on pre-match (but then again, I’m an extremely telic person which you’ll know what that is if you’ve read my section on arousal
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control), but you have to consider what it is that your team (or athlete) needs, and pitch the message the way that suits them best (and which leads to the best performance). Consider perhaps that some members of the team may need a ‘rara’ type of message (ie. the paratelics), and others would prefer a reminder of key performance indicators (the telics). The coach might deliver the 3-4 points well ahead of the start of the match/competition (ie. over an hour before) and then the athlete prepares him or herself in the way they prefer. The paratelics might have lockers relatively close together, away from the more telic team members because their style of preparation will be quite different. Paratelics tend to enjoy more larrikin behaviour or physical exertion (like bumping) to build excitement prior to a match, whilst telics prefer to think ‘on task’ and be more chilled in their approach. Telics would probably prefer to listen to their own music on headsets. (If you saw into the rooms of the New Zealand All Blacks in their semi-final match against Australia in the 2011 Rugby World Cup, this is exactly what happened. I find it fascinating to watch the way in which teams prepare for a major event.)
The role of game day support personnel Support personnel might include assistant coaches, medical staff (eg. doctors, physiotherapists, masseurs), trainers, strappers, video analysts, scouts, team managers, drink runners, runners and
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the sport psychologist would normally be part of this group. Everyone would have a prescribed role to play on match day. For an important match (like a Grand Final), all of the support personnel should be making sure they are focused on doing their job to the best of their ability (and not being caught up in the hype of the day). “Is what you are doing / thinking right now helpful to your team’s performance?” is a great message to have up in the rooms, to remind people to think and act ‘on task’ and not to be distracted.
The role of family members Family members ought to be a cheer squad for an athlete, and offer whatever material, financial or emotional support they (as a family) decide they are able. It should be noted though, that many elite athletes are unable to continue in their sport because their parents aren’t able to continue supporting them at that level any longer due to competing demands for resources (eg. money, time, presence etc). When resources are scarce, priorities have to be drawn up and maybe having an elite athlete in the family may not be as important as all living in the same city together, or putting food on the table. This is a fact of life, and often the athlete who wins the championship may not necessarily be the most talented, but is the one who perseveres the longest (due to the drop out of his or her competitors) – it’s just a fact of life.
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Conflict over roles Conflict doesn’t exist if there is good communication and everyone is in agreement about what is best for the athlete or team. Everyone needs to be clear about their roles. If roles change over time, new agreements ought to be reached so that the assumption that everyone is happy still doing what they always did (or happy doing the new role) applies. I think what worries me more is the ‘parent as coach’ relationship. A parent’s role is to be a cheer squad member and the boundaries can become blurred when a coach needs to be critical of the athlete. If a parent is the coach, the child athlete needs to know the parent is there for them first and foremost, and then the coach.
Other sources of information Sport psychology techniques may be used in different ways by my colleagues, so it may be worth Googling (‘sport psychology resources’) to see some excellent (and sometimes free!) resources (http://www.appliedsportpsych.org/resource-center; http://www.peaksports.com/free_newsletter.php although I personally find this guy a bit too persistent in his marketing; http://psych.la.psu.edu/undergrad/sports.html; and I like US sport psychologist Karlene Sugarman’s website for clarity http://psych.la.psu.edu/undergrad/sports.html). One of my favourites is www.competitivedge.com (and look on the left side for newsletter sign up and archives). Sign up for the free email
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newsletter. It gets sent out less regularly than a decade ago, but the information in it is ‘gold’ (and if you ignore all the ‘buy me’ prompts, you don’t have to purchase anything). I really like Alan Goldberg’s site because he says things I would, so I’m happy to recommend it (even though he is an American!). His newsletters are usually on a theme, and have three sections: one each for parents, athletes and coaches based on that one theme. I could spend ages looking through his archived newsletters – they’re a great resource. If you are after theoretical (ie. research) topics, a good place to look is at a journal called Athletic Insight (http://www.athleticinsight.com/). The issues used to be free, but now they are sold by subscription, but at least you can see the Abstract and see who the authors were (and if so motivated, you could be the detective and Google that author, noting the institution where they worked, and perhaps you might see the list of research papers they have published or get an email address to contact them in person). Look at the Back Issues (left side of screen) to see the sorts of topics addressed by sport psychologists from around the world. A great way to meet practicing sport psychologists in person is to attend a sport psychology conference. Here, experts gather to share information about their latest research and practice trends. I run an annual sport psychology conference that’s open to anyone interested in sport (although it is pitched to practicing sport
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psychologists). At the moment, the website is here http://www.pocketpsychology.com.au/Pocket_Psychology/Confere nce_details.html but these links get broken over time, so be prepared to Google ‘Victorian Sport Psychology Conference’ to find the details in the future. Lastly, many of Australia’s sport psychologists are based in tertiary institutions (because it’s difficult to earn a full time living as a sport psychologist), and they are usually very friendly and approachable if you make a time to talk with them. I did that when I was at secondary school, and Dr Christina Lee very graciously spent about 30 minutes talking with me about the current state of sport psychology in Australia. Each year, I answer about 30 emails (my preferred mode of contact) from students from all around the world, and I’m generally happy to ‘give back’ to the profession.
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The dream Fuel the dream To get quality results, you have to give your body quality fuel to live on. You have to get enough sleep, eat the right foods and drink the right drinks, follow up on rehabilitation recommendations, and take control of negative thoughts etc. If you’re in it for the long haul, you have to take responsibility for yourself. I saw this on an email that does the rounds occasionally. I have no idea who wrote it, but I like the sentiment and imagery. “A science teacher brought a big jar into the classroom and filled it to the brim with large rocks and asked her class “is the jar full yet?” and they thought it was. She then took a bucket of sand and tipped it into the jar with the rocks in it, managing to put more into the jar than the students thought possible. She then asked ‘Is it full yet?” and they agreed it was. And then she tipped a bucket of water into the jar with the rocks and sand, and emptied it into the jar. Now it was finally full.” If the rocks represented all the things we thought were important to us (that we need to do), and the sand represents the things we should do, and the water represents the things that pop up unexpectedly that we also take into account, we can actually fit a lot more into our lives than we originally thought. If we fill our jar with unimportant clutter, we tend to lead unfulfilled lives. It’s
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important for us to have a jar filled with the things that are important to us, and the other stuff will either fit in around it, or be tossed away (because it’s not as important as we thought it was). Being an elite athlete is all about making priorities, and paying attention to the things that matter.
Live the dream You have the chance to do what you want to do. You spend a lot of time following your dream (with training and all the associated activities that go with being a committed athlete, including forgoing having ‘a normal life’) so you need to make sure it is worth it. Enjoy the process. It’s fun being with like-minded, committed athletes and coaches, all striving for excellence. It’s all about the journey – who you meet and have a chance to be influenced by, over the course of your sporting career. It’s not just about the outcome (the medals or trophies won); if it was, ‘success’ would be fleeting. It is about developing into a well rounded person who has compassion and empathy for those who come after, and respect for those who have gone on ahead of you. Don’t be overwhelmed by your opponents. They may be further along the journey that you are, and besides, all you have to do is be the best you can be, and not score yourself against any other criteria. If you’re getting every gram of talent out of your God-given ability - that is the true measure of ‘success’.
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Share your dream Teamwork is really important. Rarely does a performer work truly alone. There’s usually a coach, and perhaps there are others who perform along side you, support staff (like trainers, fitness staff, physios, psychologist, nutritionist etc) and family have usually given support along the way too. Success is way sweeter when it is shared with others. Take the time to let your early coaches know how you are going, and how you appreciated them working with you to help you become the athlete you are now. Lots of people will have done their job well in order for you to ‘have a crack’ at experiencing success, and it’s important for your mental health to acknowledge their efforts too. When athletes retire, they often don’t remember how they felt at the time they won a particular trophy or medal. It’s a bit of a blur. But they can describe in great detail the characters they met along the way – their toughest competitors, or their most inspirational team mates or supporters. They’ll remember that part of the journal easily. It’s the journey that’s the most important part of a person’s sporting career, whether they get to be an elite athlete or not, but it’s also very satisfying – something no-one can ever take away from you - knowing you are at the pinnacle of performances, so that’s why athletes strive to be the best.
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Acknowledgements I want to acknowledge the people whose shoulders I now stand upon. I am tall only because of these people. I haven’t just ‘arrived’ out of the blue, and I am conscious of giving recognition to all those who gave time to help me along the way (and there are many). This book serves as a bit of an autobiography for me, because it represents around 25 years experience as a sport psychologist – nearly my entire adult life!
I’ve purposely chosen particular people to be around me as mentors (whether they know it or not), and I recommend you do the same. Actively seek out people who can help you. They don’t have to be from the same field of study or work – people have all sorts of skills they can offer, and most people are keen to pass on their knowledge. Finally, be prepared to share your knowledge because it’s really rewarding to see improvement in yourself and others. That’s why we’re in sport, isn’t it?
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SISSCGP310A Workbook Support athletes to adopt principles of sport psychology
Name: Organisation: Date __________________
NOTE If you are doing this workbook for assessment (as opposed to personal interest), where the workbook asks you to use sport psychology techniques you must base your answers on those of a competing athlete or coach.
If you want your responses to be assessed for accuracy and/or completeness by Dr Michelle Pain (for payment), please go to the website (www.pocketpsychology.com.au) to confirm her availability for assessing your work, and see the procedure for sending a copy of your completed workbook. Do not send your original document.
I recommend printing off the SISSCGP310A Workbook so you can write on the spaces provided. You may want to print up a few extra of the last page if your answers take up more space than is provided.
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1. How does a sport psychologist work? 1.1 How would you explain the role of sport psychology in helping an athlete reach their best performance? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
“I’ve seen athletes try so hard they are their own worst enemy. They want it so badly, and yet their performances are spiralling out of control. They just don’t understand it. No-one wants it as badly as them, yet it’s just not happening for them when it matters most. What’s going on? This sort of thing happens because the athlete has been heaping pressure on him- or her- self. They have a plan, but life just isn’t following the plan... They feel out of control – feelings they don’t really like, so it’s scary – and it feels like they’ll never be ‘talented’ again… “ 1.2 What would you do with an athlete like this? Suggest some strategies that you think might help them. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
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1.3 From your reading of newspapers or watching of television etc, who do you think might benefit from talking with a sport psychologist? Please give three names of athletes/players (and the sport/club) and say why you think they might benefit from seeing a sport psychologist. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
1.4 Choose one of your examples of an athlete who would benefit from working with a sport psychologist (above) and, from your reading of Sport Psychology Tools for Every Coach and Athlete, suggest a couple of strategies (if you were the sport psychologist) that you would you employ in the treatment of this athlete? (ie. identify the methods of psychological preparation you think might help them) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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1.5. How would you know if an athlete was feeling unmotivated? What sorts of behaviours might they exhibit? Who might encourage an athlete feeling ‘unmotivated’ to talk with a sport psychologist? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
1.6 What could a person say to an athlete that might encourage them to speak with a sport psychologist, if they (or the athlete) felt there was a problem? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
1.7 What qualifications must a person go through in order to be called a sport psychologist in Australia? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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2. Communication 2.1 Give an example of how positive feedback has helped your performance. Why did it affect you that way? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 2.2 Give an example of how positive feedback has hindered your performance. Why did it affect you that way? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 2.3 Give an example of how negative feedback has helped your performance. Why did it affect you that way? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 2.4 Give an example of how negative feedback has hindered your performance. Why did it affect you that way? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 2.5 Regarding communication style, describe how an athlete and coach should discuss the athlete’s strategy for playing in a match or competing in an event. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
2.6 What would the coach do or say to make the communication inappropriate to the setting? Give two examples. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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2.7 If you were the sport psychologist for a team, how would you encourage a nervous player to speak to the coach if the player wasn’t sure of their long term future at the club? _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________
2.8 ‘The only way to know if an athlete should see a sport psychologist is by asking that athlete’. True or false? Give reasons for your answer. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________
2.9 ‘What an athlete says is more important than how they say it.’ True or false? Give reasons for your answer. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 2.10 ‘The sport psychologist suggests strategies to the athlete without regard to the athlete’s personal situation (eg. strengths and weaknesses).’ True or false? Give reasons for your answer. This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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_____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Implementing sport psychology techniques 3.1 Create a relaxation sound file Lie down, or sit, somewhere comfortably. Take a deep breath, and fill your lungs more than you usually would in your day-to-day life…(wait a second or two more)…then breathe out. Keep breathing slowly as you now tense your forehead. Squish it right up so you have deep furrows in your brow, and you are screwing your eyes right up. Hold it like this for a few more seconds….and now relax. Notice the difference in how your muscles feel right now, now that they are relaxed. Keep breathing slowly. Now I want you to clench your jaw. Show your teeth and tense your jaw and neck. Hold it there a few more seconds…and now relax…move your lips and mouth, roll your head slowly in a circle, first one way, then the next…notice how it feels to be more relaxed in your jaw and neck. Now I want you to work on your fingers, hands and arms. Make tight fists, bend your elbows towards you, and tense your biceps, triceps and forearms all at the same time. Breath slowly and hold it for a few seconds more….and now un-tense those muscle groups – wiggle your fingers - and notice how it feels to be more relaxed in those muscles. Keep breathing slowly, and now tense your stomach and lower back muscles. Hold it a bit longer…and now relax. Continue to breath in and out slowly. Tense your buttocks now….hold it a few more seconds…and now relax those muscles. Tense your quadriceps (muscles on the front of your upper leg) now, as well as your calf muscles. Tense them up…hold it for a few more seconds….now This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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relax them. Feel how it should be when you feel relaxed there. Finally, curl your toes and tense them too. Hold it….and now relax. Now that you’ve tensed all parts of your body in turn, take a moment to analyse what part of your body still feels tension. If you still feel tense in any muscle group, just tense it consciously, and then consciously un-tense it, so you feel relaxed there too. Your body should feel a little heavy, but relaxed. Keep breathing slowly, in and out. For this project, find a way to record your own relaxation sequence so that you can play it and listen to it back. You need to make sure you read much slower than you usually speak. It’s meant to be a calming experience, so take your time and speak clearly. You may have a recording app on your phone, or you might like to investigate using a microphone (or headset and microphone) and computer, logging into the website at Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) or equivalent software. Save the output so you could put it on your phone, iPod or mp3 player.
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4. Dealing with your internal voice 4.1 Countering (General messages) You’re not good enough to be here (Now you have a go at countering this message) ______________________________________________________________ You’re only going to stuff it up ______________________________________________________________ You’ll never be any good ______________________________________________________________ 4.2 Countering (Sport-specific messages) Create an example for your sport here: (Original) Negative message ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ Now, counter your negative message with something more positive: ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ (Optional) If you are in a group right now, turn to the person next to you and discuss your example and why you think it will be effective. Do they have any constructive criticism for you to make your words more effective? Is there a better way to phrase that? This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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5. Visualisation 5.1 Use your sport, or one known to you, and identify when during the performance one might use internal visualisation and external visualisation. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
6. Key words and images 6.1 What skills or qualities would you most like to improve in yourself? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 6.2 Now, what word or picture sums up that skill or quality for you, which you could recall at appropriate times that would make you feel more confident and competent (because you imagine having that quality or skill as a result of saying that word to yourself or imagining that picture)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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7. Precompetition routines 7.1 Here is a script that you might adapt for your sport. It’s in five phases: the first and second phases aim to develop a more deeply relaxed frame of mind; the third phase introduces the skill with the view to rehearsing a successful outcome; the fourth phase shows the skill being integrated with the rest of the game; and, the fifth phase uses key words to leave the athlete feeling empowered. Notice the extensive use of sensations that occur in a visualisation exercise. For visualisation to appear more real to us (and be more effective as a tool to help us perform better), we try to incorporate as many of the five senses (ie. seeing, hearing, taste, touch and smell) as possible. Look at this example and make a note of where the senses are brought into the visualisation process. Phase 1 Close your eyes, and begin by taking three deep breaths. Inhale deeply, and exhale slowly… inhale deeply, and exhale slowly… inhale deeply, and exhale slowly. Good… now just relax… let yourself go, and no matter how deeply relaxed you become, you will always be in control and able to respond to anything that you choose to respond to… you will remember everything… Begin to concentrate on your right arm… Raise your right arm so it is in the air a little… open your hand with your palm facing upwards… good… Now pay attention to the feelings in your upper arm… in your forearm… in your hand… in your fingers. Notice any sensations that might be occurring in your right arm… you might notice the weight of your clothing or it’s texture where it touches your skin… you might have a tingling sensation in your hand and fingers… just observe the feelings…Now, notice the heaviness that occurs in your right arm as you exhale… just relax, and notice the feeling of comfortable, relaxed heaviness that develops in your right arm as you exhale… Take your left arm and position it so it is in the air like your right arm… Make a slight bend in your left wrist… good…now pay attention to the feelings This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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in your left hand. Notice as you inhale how your left hand begins to feel lighter… just relax, and notice as you inhale how your hand begins to feel lighter, as if it wants to lift up…You can create different feelings in your hands if you want to… all you have to do is find the right images. Do that now… Pay attention to your right hand again. Imagine you have a small weight attached to your wrist, and the weight is pulling your hand down, making it heavier and heavier with each breath you exhale… and heavier… and heavier… Just let yourself go…Good… take a moment to experience that heaviness… (wait 15 seconds). Now, get rid of that image and let the feelings of heaviness go…This time, pay attention to your left arm… imagine you have a helium balloon attached to your left wrist… Imagine that each time you inhale, the balloon is gently pulling your wrist up a little more, making your arm lighter and lighter… lighter … and lighter. Good. Just let yourself go… Good… take a moment to experience that lightness… (wait 15 seconds). Now, get rid of that image and let the feelings of lightness go… Phase 2 Good. Now just relax. If your left or right arm has moved, just settle yourself into a comfortable position. As your arm settles down, you will feel very comfortable…. You can increase this pleasant feeling by counting down from one to five… With every count, you will become more deeply relaxed. No matter how deeply relaxed you become, however, you will always be in control…One…relax all of the muscles in both your arms, in the fingers, … hands, … forearms, …and upper arms…. Just completely relax those muscles and enjoy the pleasant feeling of heaviness that occurs as you exhale and sink deeper and deeper. Two… relax the muscles in both legs…relax the muscles in your feet and toes… relax the muscles in your calves… relax the muscles in your thighs… Just completely relax all the muscles in both your arms and your legs, and notice how you exhale…the pleasant sensation of drifting down deeper and deeper…into a deep hypnotic state. Three…relax all your muscles in your forehead…cheeks…and jaw… Let your mouth open slightly as you relax the muscles in your jaw…Four… relax the muscles in your neck… and your shoulders… Just completely relax, deeper and deeper….and deeper…Five… relax the muscles in your chest… This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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and your back… and your stomach. Relax all your muscles and enjoy the pleasant sensations of being so deeply relaxed…For the next minute or two, just let yourself go…with each exhale, drift down deeper and deeper… That's good. (wait 30 seconds) Phase 3 Now, I want you to imagine you are about to _________(insert your skill here)… As you prepare to ________(do this skill), look to ________ (think of somewhere a little distance away that makes sense to your sport eg. where you want the ball to land; 50m away if crouching for a sprint start etc)… You have soft eyes…you are feeling focused and calm…you know what you have to do . At the same time, you are aware of everything around you… You can see everything… As you prepare, you decide on your strategy… you make up your mind that you are going to _________ (insert your strategy here), to __________ (insert first part of strategy here)…You feel _________ (insert relevant body sensation here eg. the ball in your hand; your knee resting on the track etc)… you can feel __________ (insert sensations here eg. the texture and weight of the ball, the sun on your back etc)…You can feel ________ (insert a bit more detail here eg. the seams where there isn't any fuzz; the smoothness of the leather etc). Notice the feeling of________ (insert even more detail relevant to your sport eg. your racquet in your hands as you grip it; the space around your fingers as you grip the bowling ball etc)… Notice how______ (eg. tightly you hold it, how it feels against your palm)… and your fingertips… Pay attention to your body’s weight distribution…notice how ______ (insert body movement that would occur immediately before you start to perform the skill eg. your centre of mass shifts toward your front foot as you bounce the ball and prepare to serve; you settle your hips back into the blocks and lean forward with the weight mostly balanced on your thumb and forefinger etc)… You feel very comfortable and balanced. Now, as you ____ (insert start of performance here eg. begin your toss; breath out deeply, waiting for the gun to go off etc), your attention narrows and you focus on the spot where ______ (insert focus point here eg. you are This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 150 Michelle Pain, PhD
tossing the ball; the point on the line between your fingers etc)… As your concentration narrows, you ________ (insert the ‘moment of truth’ point here eg. see the ball come into view very clearly; hear the gun go off; feel your foot making connection with the ball - Put some more detail here eg. You see the ball…it's colour… you see it rotate.) As you _________ (insert start of performance here eg. watch the ball, start to become upright from the starting position), you ________ (insert the follow through here eg. feel your racquet coming through; you feel your legs blast out of the blocks and you smoothly drive and move to upright running stance etc. Describe the movement and follow through in more detail here. eg. You can see it make contact with the ball, and you can feel your weight and your centre of mass transferring, moving forward, coming through at the moment your racquet contacts the ball)… Now you feel _______ (eg. the follow-through of your racquet, your legs pounding rhythmically). Quickly, your attention broadens again and you see ______(eg. the whole court, your competitors around you) and you hear (eg. the roar of the crowd). You can feel yourself re-centre as you bring your legs under you. You feel balanced and centered. You are ready to move in any direction…
Phase 4 Good. Now lets just imagine you (performing in your sport) where things can happen at their regular speed…let your imagination go… get completely involved… You will feel and see everything as if you were actually performing in competition. You will feel confident… in control… You'll find it easy to move and get into position, to feel your weight move into correct position…You seem to have all the time in the world to prepare… you just know you can do anything you want… Just let yourself enjoy all of the feelings and sensations that come with playing 'in the zone'…(wait 30 seconds)
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Phase 5 Good…In a moment, it will be time to leave this pleasant state…Before you do, however, you need to know that you can create the feelings that you have now when you are playing 'in the zone' whenever you want to… You will be able to do this yourself by taking a deep centering breath, … inhaling deeply… attending to the expansion of muscles in your abdomen as you inhale… As you exhale,…relax the chest, neck and shoulder muscles, and say "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here) Remember, whenever you want to settle yourself down and to improve your concentration… you simply take a deep, centering breath… Then, on the exhale, you say to yourself "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here). Imagine you are going through this process right now… imagine you are about to ______ (eg. kick for goal, serve in a match)…you can feel the pressure…you notice you are a little tight in the neck and shoulders, and that you are gripping the _______ (eg. ball, racquet) a little too tightly…you are worried about _____ (eg. making the distance, your accuracy, coming out of the blocks cleanly) …Feel the pressure… Now, look _________ (eg. at the court, at the goals, across the net, or into the distance)… As you look there, take that deep centering breath… and as you breath out you say to yourself "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here). At the end of the exhale, notice that you have soft eyes… you see ____ (eg. all the area around you, the whole court)... you feel comfortable… Take one more centering breath and repeat your phrase just before you ____(eg. begin your ball toss, get down on the blocks, begin your run up)… Then, as your concentration narrows you focus on the spot where you are _____ (eg. tossing the ball, intending on taking your first step out of the blocks)… Just give yourself some time to practice this…feeling the tension… and taking your deep breath, saying your words, and noticing how much more calm and confident you feel…(wait for 30 seconds). Alright…it's time to return to your normal activities…to do that, count backwards from three to one… On the count of three, take a deep breath,
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holding it momentarily…On the count of two…stretch your arms and your legs and exhale…On the count of one, open your eyes and you will be wide awake… ready to do things you normally do at this time… you're feeling good… comfortable…. and relaxed. Ready?…three…take a deep breath…two… stretch your arms and legs and exhale…one…open your eyes, wide awake. Go through this script and make changes that are relevant to you and your sport. Where I have written in normal type, this is for you to add information relative to your sport (so you wouldn’t read that out if you were reading it back!). It would be a good idea (once your script is in order) to record your own script – again, speaking slowly and clearly, and perhaps if you are very sophisticated, using ‘relaxing’ background music playing I the background! – using your devices or through the Audacity website (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/).
8. Arousal control 8.1. On a rating scale of 1 – 9 (where 1 represents very telic and 9 represents very paratelic), circle the number that best reflects your preference for arousal. Very Telic 1
‘Flexible’ 2
3
4
5
Very Paratelic 6
7
8
9
(Optional) If you are with a team, estimate where your team mates fall on this scale too. Write their initials below the numbers to signify your estimation of their arousal preference. Very Telic 1
‘Flexible’ 2
3
4
5
Very Paratelic 6
7
8
9
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 153 Michelle Pain, PhD
8.2 Complete the T/PI , following the instructions for answering the questions, and for scoring the inventory. Telic/Paratelic Instrument (Pain, 2011) Instructions: Think back to a time when you performed well, or better than you expected, and try to think specifically how you prepared yourself for that competition. Circle the number that best represents how you remember feeling at the time. Not at all true of me
Very true of me
1. I wasn’t stressed about what the outcome might be 1
2
3
4
5
6
2. I felt really hyped up
1
2
3
4
5
6
3. I felt angry or agitated
1
2
3
4
5
6
4. I felt loose and relaxed
1
2
3
4
5
6
5. I felt serious-minded
1
2
3
4
5
6
6. I was happy to chat to others before the event 1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
9. I wanted to have fun
1
2
3
4
5
6
10. I wanted to feel ‘in control’
1
2
3
4
5
6
4
5
6
5
6
7. My heart rate was racing 8. I was comfortable with my preparation
11. I felt mischievous and wanted to stir things up a bit 1
2
3
12. I felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for my event 1
2
3
4
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 154 Michelle Pain, PhD
Use the Scoring Sheet to calculate your T/PI score. Use the position of your circled response on the Instrument to identify the score for each item, them total the 12 items to get your T/PI score.
Telic/Paratelic Instrument Scoring Sheet 1. I wasn’t stressed about what the outcome might be 6
5
4
3
2
1
2. I felt really hyped up
1
2
3
4
5
6
3. I felt angry or agitated
1
2
3
4
5
6
4. I felt loose and relaxed
6
5
4
3
2
1
5. I felt serious-minded
6
5
4
3
2
1
6. I was happy to chat to others before the event 7. My heart rate was racing
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
6
5
4
3
2
1
5
6
8. I was comfortable with my preparation 9. I wanted to have fun 10. I wanted to feel ‘in control’ 11. I felt mischievous and wanted to stir things up a bit 1
2
3
4
12. I felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for my event 6
5
4
3
2
1
8.3 What is your score on the T/PI? ___________
8.4 Circle the classification relevant to your score. Extremely telic
Telic
Paratelic
Extremely paratelic
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 155 Michelle Pain, PhD
8.5 Do you agree with your classification? Does it agree with your ranking? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
8.6 What does this score say about ‘your optimal state of arousal’? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
(Optional) If you are with a team, check your team mates’ scores. Comment on whether their scores fit your predictions of where they would fit on the 9 point rating scale, and whether they though the T/PI correctly classified them as being Telic or Paratelic. If it doesn’t, suggest why this might be the case. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
8.7 What are the symptoms you might associate with being under aroused (ie the left side of the Inverted U hypothesis, or the bottom left side of the Reversal Theory diagram)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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8.8 Name some songs you might put on a playlist to help you feel more excited if you recognised that you were under aroused. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
8.9 If you felt you needed to become more motivated, what strategies could you take to change how you felt (to put yourself in your optimal arousal state)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 8.10 What are the symptoms you might associate with being over aroused (ie the right side of the Inverted U hypothesis, or the bottom right side of the Reversal Theory diagram)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 8.11 Name some songs you might put on a playlist to help you feel more relaxed if you recognised that you were over aroused. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 8.12 If you felt you needed to become more relaxed, what strategies could you take to change how you felt (to put yourself in your optimal arousal state)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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9. Goal setting 9.1 What are S-M-A-R-T goals? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9.2 Write down the (SMART) goals you want to achieve that are into the future (ie 5 or more years away). These are your long term goals. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9.3 Now, what goals do you want to achieve within 3 years, ones that you won’t complete in the next 12 months? These are medium term goals. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9.4 What are the goals you want to achieve in the next 12 months? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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9.5 Read over your list of long, medium and short term goals, and put an asterisk (*) next to any goals listed that are extremely important to you. 9.6 Is there a theme to those you’ve asterisked? (ie Are they mostly sport-related goals, or non-sport-related goals, or a mix?) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 9.7 What motivates you to attain your goals? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 9.8 What is the relationship between goals and motivation? (Hint: Think of the rubber band example, and the benefit of identifying SMART goals.) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9.9 How can having (SMART) goals affect performance for an athlete? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 9.10 Identify 8 key performance indicators (KPIs) for your role in your sport. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 159 Michelle Pain, PhD
9.11 Put each KPI onto a ‘spoke’ on the spider web profile and then rate yourself on each of the KPIs (with a score toward the centre indicating ‘unsatisfactory’ and a score toward the outer ring indicating ‘superior’).
(Optional) Ask a coach or respected ‘other’ to rate you on the same qualities (spokes) and draw up the spider web in different coloured pens. Comment on the discrepancy (or otherwise) of both scores on a particular quality. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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9.12 Print off the Achievement Management Plan (over the page). identify a general sporting goal you may have. 9.13 Break the general skill into it’s smallest components, and write the SMART subgoals down in chronological order (ie in the order in which you carry out that skill), starting from beginning to end. That is, if you executed each step correctly, you’d have a perfect execution overall and the skill would be one you might see in an elite athlete. 9.14 Divide the small cells with a diagonal ( / ). For each subgoal, pick out a realistic expected value to start with (based on your current level of fitness or skill etc), and put the expected value on the right side of the diagonal ( / E). 9.15 After training has occurred (or competition), evaluate how you went (ie. to give you your actual value, which goes in front of the diagonal ( A / E). 9.16 Look at the difference between the A and E values and create new E values. If A is equal to or exceeds E, make E a tougher target in the next round. If A is a little less than E, perhaps consider making E a little tougher, or keeping it the same in the next round. If A is much less than E, you will need to reduce your target to make it easier to be attain in the next round. Fill the page (ie 8 sessions of either training or competition). If you get to 100% in a cell three times consecutively, you can stop recording that sub-skill in the future. If you don’t have time to do this over a number of weeks in a real life situation, create a hypothetical (made up) scenario. Include examples where you haven’t reached your target for a particular subgoal, or have become injured, and show how you’ve needed to modify your expectations.
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10. Organisational Policies and Procedures, and the Sport Psychologist as Support Personnel 10.1 What does ‘confidentiality’ mean for a sport psychologist? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.2 Why is confidentiality an issue when working with an athlete who is a member of a team? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 163 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.3 List the types of support personnel that currently work with one of Australia’s national teams. What roles do they perform in the support of the players? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.4 Support staff (other than the sport psychologist) might be the first person to identify that an athlete may have an issue that a sport psychologist would be best equipped to help with. Give an example where this might happen. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 164 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.5 If you worked as a sport psychologist with a team, according to the team’s organizational policies and procedures, who would you be entitled to speak with about a player’s ‘fitness to play’ if you were treating that player as a client? Tick all that apply: o
Anyone you wished, with the permission of the player/client
o
The media
o
The coach
o
The player’s manager (without the permission of the player)
o
The player’s family (eg. partner, parents etc)
o
The player’s parents (if the client is under 16 years of age)
o
The player’s parents (if the client is over 16 years of age)
o
The medical personnel associated with the team
o
The opposition
10.6 Give an example of how, if you were working as a sport psychologist, you might confirm that your athlete/client understood the strategies you were trying to teach them. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.7 Give an example of how, if you were working as a sport psychologist, you might encourage your athlete/client to clarify the issue if you were on the wrong tangent. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.8 If your athlete/client was very stressed, would you expect them to remember lots of details of the strategy you (as a sport psychologist) devised? What could you do about that? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 165 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.9 Give a specific example of organisational policies and procedures that might apply for a sport psychologist when working with an athlete or team: Code of Conduct (ie ‘team rules’) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Duty of care (‘first, do no harm’) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Occupational health and safety (‘ensuring the safety of the athlete’) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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10.10 Think of some barriers that might prevent an athlete speaking with a sport psychologist about an issue (eg. culture, gender, personality) and choose one to say how you (as the sport psychologist) might address this, so the athlete felt more comfortable seeking your help. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.11 Think of some psychological barriers that might prevent an athlete speaking with a sport psychologist about an issue (eg. psychological disorders like depression or anxiety). How would an athlete/client with either depression or anxiety behave or what symptoms might you expect them to feel? (You may need to Google this one!) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 167 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.12 Suggest how you might evaluate the effectiveness of a sport psychologist. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 168 Michelle Pain, PhD
11. Sources of sport psychology information 11.1 Choose a sport psychology topic and Google to find out more about it. Write down at least three different websites where that topic is discussed (either techniques, or research methods). ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 11.2 Referring to your answer to 11.1, what are the authors’ names and who are they affiliated with? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 11.3 Identify a podcast with sport psychology content. Chose a topic that matches the one selected in 11.1. Who is the author (or guest speaker / expert) of the podcast? How recently was it broadcast? Is it a regular series, or a ‘one off’? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ If you want your responses to be assessed by Dr Michelle Pain (for payment), please go to the website (www.pocketpsychology.com) to confirm availability, and see the procedure for sending a copy of your completed workbook. This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 169 Michelle Pain, PhD
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ Print this page multiple times if you need more space to write
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Sport Psychology Tools for Every Coach and Athlete
Michelle D. Pain, PhD
November 2011 www.pocketpsychology.com.au © Michelle D Pain, Parkdale Amber P/L All rights reserved. Except as may be permitted by the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission from the author. As the purchaser of the file you may store and display this ebook on as many electronic devices as you wish (computer, tablet computer, phone, book reader, etc.) as long as each device is owned by you or is used by you personally.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 2 Michelle Pain, PhD
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 4 WHAT IS SPORT PSYCHOLOGY? ............................................................................. 8 MUSCLE RELAXATION ...................................................................................................................... 14 GETTING RID OF NEGATIVE MESSAGES ......................................................................................... 18 VISUALISATION /IMAGERY .............................................................................................................. 20 Internal and external visualisation .................................................................................. 23 Imagery for healing .................................................................................................................. 24 USING KEY WORDS AND IMAGES .................................................................................................... 26 Using visualisation, key words, muscle relaxation and breathing to develop a pre-game (or pre-shot) routine .................................................................. 30 AROUSAL CONTROL: PSYCHING UP AND PSYCHING DOWN ........................................................ 41 GOAL SETTING ................................................................................................................................... 57 Lifetime Goal Setting .............................................................................................................. 58 Spider Web Profile ................................................................................................................... 62 Achievement Management Plan ...................................................................................... 66 FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON THINGS THAT MATTER ................................................................... 74 Controlling distractions .......................................................................................................... 74 Controlling expectations ....................................................................................................... 75 OTHER SPORT PSYCHOLOGY SKILLS ............................................................... 77 COMMUNICATION APPROACHES ...................................................................................................... 79 Learning styles ........................................................................................................................... 79 Verbal and Non-‐Verbal Cues .................................................................................................. 81 Building rapport .......................................................................................................................... 82 Insightfulness ................................................................................................................................ 83 Delivering the message ............................................................................................................. 84 Feedback is a two-‐way process ............................................................................................. 85 Effect of Negative Feedback ................................................................................................... 86 Role playing ................................................................................................................................... 90 Confidentiality .............................................................................................................................. 90 SPORT PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH ....................................................................... 92 PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENTUM ........................................................................................................ 92 MOTIVATION ................................................................................................................................... 102 ‘Losing’ as a de-‐motivator ..................................................................................................... 102 The role of confidence ......................................................................................................... 103 Team culture ............................................................................................................................. 104 RETIREMENT ................................................................................................................................... 105 BURNOUT ......................................................................................................................................... 106 PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT .......................................................................................................... 108 Attentional abilities ................................................................................................................. 111 Interpersonal abilities ............................................................................................................. 111 Using the TAIS for selection ............................................................................................. 113
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 3 Michelle Pain, PhD
ROLES IN SUPPORTING THE ATHLETE ............................................................ 123 THE ROLE OF THE SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST ..................................................................................... 123 How do you know if the sport psychologist is effective? ................................. 123 THE ROLE OF THE COACH ............................................................................................................... 125 THE ROLE OF GAME DAY SUPPORT PERSONNEL .......................................................................... 127 THE ROLE OF FAMILY MEMBERS ................................................................................................... 128 Conflict over roles ................................................................................................................... 129 OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION ................................................................ 129 THE DREAM ................................................................................................................... 132 FUEL THE DREAM ............................................................................................................................ 132 LIVE THE DREAM ............................................................................................................................. 133 SHARE YOUR DREAM ....................................................................................................................... 134 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... 135 SISSCGP310A WORKBOOK ................................................................................... 136 1. HOW DOES A SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST WORK?...........................................................................132 2. COMMUNICATION……..………........……………………………………………………….………..135 3. IMPLEMENTING SPORT PSYCHOLOGY TECHNIQUES ...................................................................... 143 4. DEALING WITH YOUR INTERNAL VOICE ................................................................................... 145 5. VISUALISATION ........................................................................................................................... 146 6. KEY WORDS AND IMAGES .......................................................................................................... 146 7. PRECOMPETITION ROUTINES .................................................................................................... 147 8. AROUSAL CONTROL .................................................................................................................... 152 9. GOAL SETTING ............................................................................................................................. 157 10. ORGANISATIONAL POLICIES AND PROCEDURES, AND THE SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST AS SUPPORT PERSONNEL .................................................................................................................... 162
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 4 Michelle Pain, PhD
Introduction When I was a young undergraduate student, I discovered a sport psychology textbook stocked in the university bookshop. It was a ‘how to…’ on visualisation, and the book (or more, the potential it offered) changed the course of my life. At that stage, I was studying psychology but had no real idea how I wanted to use that qualification. As a former track and field athlete, I was fascinated by sport psychology (or more to the point, how to perform sport psychology techniques on athletes), and this book inspired me to ‘take a punt’ (sic) on the fledgling professional sports industry in Australia and want to become a sport psychologist.
Later, as a qualified postgraduate student, I really appreciated being able to go along to Victoria University to hear Denis Glencross (a noted Western Australian sport psychologist) speak about how he worked with athletes. It was these ‘how to’ sessions that made the profession real to me, not the theoretical psychology textbooks we studied.
Being a sport psychologist for over 25 years, I have recommended to student sport psychologists that they collect a repertoire of tools that they could call upon to use with athlete clients. This booklet is intended to provide a start to creating that ‘bag of tricks’. I recommend that you read widely and be like a magpie. Pick up the ‘shiny’ things you think might be useful later - try working with This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 5 Michelle Pain, PhD
them, modify them – and over time you’ll have yourself a repertoire of strategies that you’ll be able to call on.
I make no apologies for the conversational style of this text. I’m imagining I’m right there with you, talking things over and giving you a few pointers. I’m trying to anticipate the questions you may have so I can give you an explanation. By necessity, a book can only ever be a one way conversation, but if you want a two way conversation, Google me - I’m sure you’ll find an up to date email address on my Pocket Psychology website. Feel free to ask me a question. Here comes the disclaimer: using this booklet won’t entitle you to be called ‘a sport psychologist’. In Australia, the process to become a sport psychologist is a long one (in my case, 12 years of university). If this is your aim, (at the time writing this) you would need to complete an undergraduate degree with a major in a recognised psychology course, followed by a fourth year in psychology, either as a Graduate Diploma or an Honours year, and then a Masters degree in sport psychology. You’d also then need 240 hours of supervised practice. (Those who intend to teach at university would normally then go on to do a PhD, which can be 2-3 years full time.) You can find out if a course is an accredited one, or which universities offer Masters degrees in sport psychology, if you contact The Australian Psychological Society or look on their website, http://www.psychology.org.au
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 6 Michelle Pain, PhD
Using this book will give you some idea of how sport psychologists use these sorts of tools with their athletes, to help them ‘unlock’ their talent. The person reading this book might not be a sport psychologist. They might be an athlete or coach wanting to understand how to help him- or herself better, or a coach might want to better understand her or his team (or players within the team). This ebook would be an excellent start.
If a person wanted to complete the exercises in this book to pass a sport psychology unit at TAFE, or fulfil requirements for VCE Physical Education (Outcome 2), there is a Workbook at the end of this text to print off and complete (and give to your teacher for assessment). Your teachers will decide how much of the workbook you should complete. Registered Training Organisations who purchase a license, in addition to this ebook receive the Evidence Guide for SISSCGP310A (Support athletes to adopt principles of sport psychology) that maps the questions in the Workbook back to the criteria for that unit.
In order to receive Recognition for Prior Learning for this unit, one would need to have completed the exercises and have passed the assessment (ie. meaning someone from an accredited Registered Training Organisation, an RTO, would need to have judged that the answers given were correct and appropriate and that they meet the criteria for a particular unit or qualification). All of my
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 7 Michelle Pain, PhD
affordable resources may be purchased from my website, http://www.pocketpsychology.com.au. I don’t believe there’s a real ‘how to’ book on sport psychology on the market at the moment. I love being innovative and doing things that others haven’t thought of doing yet. My grand ambition is to provide affordable sport psychology resources to the world via the internet. My colleagues might say ‘why do you want to give away all your tricks?’, and to answer them I’d say ‘it’s a bit like hearing your favourite artist on CD or DVD – you get the pleasure of seeing and hearing the artist and how their interpretation of their work…but seeing them ‘live’ means you get an extra special oneoff experience’. I would say that it’s much the same when you work with a sport psychologist in real life – it’s so much more ‘threedimensional’ (and it certainly is a two way dialogue at the very least!). I consider this text to be a good advertising vehicle for me, and for sport psychologists in general. Plus, I’m really conscious of the fact that lots of people can’t afford to see a sport psych, so they could use these tips to help themselves. But trust me, seeing a sport psych in person is really good value, because you get a session tailor-made for you, and the years of training a sport psych undergoes means they can fix up a lot of issues much quicker than you can do it yourself. But I think there’s a place for a book like this. I hope it will help a lot of people become much better athletes way faster than the ‘trial and error’ experience that most athletes go through without any help at all.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 8 Michelle Pain, PhD
What is Sport Psychology? Sport psychology is about teaching athletes (or players) – I usually use these terms interchangeably but I’m mostly going to stick with the word ‘athlete’ throughout this text unless I know I’m referring to team members - and coaches ways to think smarter in order for them to perform better. It’s not about technique – we leave that to coaches to teach the technical expertise – but about using your brain. I want my athletes to achieve their potential by me teaching them mental skills that anyone of any ability can develop to help improve themselves (as people and athletes).
Usually, my clients are happy to see a sport psych. They are usually pretty motivated individuals in the first place, and they have come to a decision that they’ve taken themselves as far as they can with the talent they have, but there’s something still holding them back from reaching their full potential. We enter into a professional relationship to work together to unlock any further talent they have that has been held back by their way of thinking.
Sport psychologists – all the ones I know, at least – work mostly from a CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) framework. That is, the sport psychologists try to understand the way a client currently thinks and the effect it has on the client’s behaviours, in order to help develop some new thinking strategies that will improve
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 9 Michelle Pain, PhD
behaviours (ie. that will lead to improvement in performances and increase enjoyment in sport).
There is a new movement (since 1999) that is quite attractive to psychologists worldwide, called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is very loosely based on CBT principles. ACT therapists have clients think mindfully (ie. ‘in the moment’), being aware of negative and positive thoughts, and letting them ‘drift past’ without intervention, or if there is an intervention, it is without judgement regarding those thoughts. Whereas CBT tries to have clients evaluate their thoughts and behaviours and try actively to make improvements, ACT is more about embracing ourselves as we are (negative thoughts and all). I believe there is a place for ACT, but I prefer to think (and teach my clients to think) more strategically. I believe CBT is more solution-focused treatment for athletes and coaches. (For issues of a more clinical orientation for example, depression, anxiety, psychoses - I think ACT may be very beneficial for exploring why people think in a particular way etc. For me, CBT serves me very well for most of my clients.)
I have also used a Humanistic approach, when I employed Narrative Therapy with one of my clients. As it’s name implies, it is where a story is told about the client’s life, and is constructed by the client. There is the life the client currently perceives they have, as well as the life the client imagines or wishes they had (had some specific incident not occurred). We (the client and I) then try This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 10 Michelle Pain, PhD
to rehearse strategies that might move the client from the life they have now towards their idealised life, by constructing a series of steps that lead to the desired outcome. In the narrative therapy, the event is looked at from several people’s perspectives to try to work out possible motives to explain others’ behaviour under the circumstances. It is just a different way of working through an issue, and because it is story telling, it’s not too difficult for the client to participate in the therapy. I have used this treatment with a client affected by post traumatic stress (with some success), but I used a lot of CBT in addition to narrative therapy! Like most psychologists, I may use other techniques (eg. narrative therapy and ACT), but my ‘go-to tool’ is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
So those thoughts reflect my philosophies. My primary aim is to teach skills and knowledge that can be used right away (because I like to be maximally useful to my clients). So, I want to share with you now a little bit of how I work with my athletes, to teach you some skills that I believe will help you (or your athletes) get more out of your/their performances (and your/their enjoyment of sport). I make no apologies for the way I’ve written this booklet. I want you to feel that I’m standing right with you, talking you through these exercises and explaining how and why I use them.
Here’s what I really believe - athletes who just try to beat their opponents (in order to ‘win’) are missing the point. In my opinion,
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 11 Michelle Pain, PhD
it’s the person who looks back at you in the mirror who needs to be changed, in order for that person to reach their potential.
I’ve seen a saying on a wall that says (something like), ‘if we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll never see improvement’. We have to keep actively working toward improvement. That’s what it’s all about - sport is just the vehicle we use to test ourselves, to see how good we can be. Just as Lance Armstrong titled his book ‘It’s not about the bike’, so is sport psychology ‘not about your opponent’. It’s about you and your journey, and about being the best you can be.
We’re usually our own worst enemy. We often talk ourselves out of a win (or even of trying our best). The outcome of the match or performance is often over before we’ve even started (or at least we are seriously handicapped) by our own thoughts. Imagine how much better we could be if we felt carefree and self assured, and that we didn’t need to prove anything to anyone? How good could we be, as athletes and coaches if we just tried to do the best we could, without our negative thoughts hindering us? What about if we took that attitude to our everyday life, just being open to new experiences and looking to improve ourselves? We’d be great!
I’ve seen athletes try so hard they are their own worst enemy. They want it so badly, and yet their performances are spiralling out This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 12 Michelle Pain, PhD
of control. They just don’t understand it. No-one wants it as badly as them, yet it’s just not happening for them when it matters most. What’s going on? This sort of thing happens because the athlete has been heaping pressure on him- or her- self. They have a plan, but life just isn’t following the plan... They feel out of control – feelings they don’t really like, so it’s scary – and it feels like they’ll never be ‘talented’ again…
So far, you can see that the things the athlete has been thinking, and the way that they have been behaving, has not been a good strategy for them. Their performances are declining, not improving, so something obviously has gone wrong. What sport psychologists are on about is to identify patterns of thoughts, and patterns of behaviours, which do and do not work, and do more of the former.
What would you do with an athlete like this? (The lines are here for you to jot down some ideas before you turn the page. If you are looking at an electronic document, write your ideas on a separate piece of paper as we go through the exercises.) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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In the next part of the book, I’m going to look at a range of strategies, presented in no particular order. When I work with an athlete I wouldn’t work through each strategy in turn; instead, I would just pick the one (or ones) I think will suit my client and my client’s situation best.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 14 Michelle Pain, PhD
Mental preparation skills Muscle Relaxation It is a good idea for athletes to learn a calming strategy. Very few athletes perform well when the chatter inside their head tells them things are going badly and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get out of this negative spiral. Calming a person down means they can start to get a grip on the situation, and look to strategies outside their head…strategies that will probably work a lot better than the one they are currently using!
As a general strategy, I go right back to basics. I teach a person to recognise how tense their muscles are feeling but when you are teaching it to the client, they can be just sitting comfortably upright on a seat to begin with. This is a muscle relaxation session, but slowing the breathing is important to help calm a person down too. I would recommend that the client do the muscle relaxation sequence lying in bed, just before they go to sleep. The principle is that you start from the head and work your way down to your toes, alternately tensing and relaxing each muscle group in turn as you go down from your head to your toes.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 15 Michelle Pain, PhD
Here’s the sort of script you might use (or you could record your voice reading the script so you could play it back rather than rely on recall): Lie down, or sit, somewhere comfortably. Take a deep breath, and fill your lungs more than you usually would in your day-to-day life…(wait a second or two more)…then breathe out. Keep breathing slowly as you now tense your forehead. Squish it right up so you have deep furrows in your brow, and you are screwing your eyes right up. Hold it like this for a few more seconds….and now relax. Notice the difference in how your muscles feel right now, now that they are relaxed. Keep breathing slowly. Now I want you to clench your jaw. Show your teeth and tense your jaw and neck. Hold it there a few more seconds…and now relax…move your lips and mouth, roll your head slowly in a circle, first one way, then the next…notice how it feels to be more relaxed in your jaw and neck. Now I want you to work on your fingers, hands and arms. Make tight fists, bend your elbows towards you, and tense your biceps, triceps and forearms all at the same time. Breath slowly and hold it for a few seconds more….and now un-tense those muscle groups – wiggle your fingers - and notice how it feels to be more relaxed in those muscles. Keep breathing slowly, and now tense your stomach and lower back muscles. Hold it a bit longer…and now relax.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 16 Michelle Pain, PhD
Continue to breath in and out slowly. Tense your buttocks now….hold it a few more seconds…and now relax those muscles. Tense your quadriceps (muscles on the front of your upper leg) now, as well as your calf muscles. Tense them up…hold it for a few more seconds….now relax them. Feel how it should be when you feel relaxed there. Finally, curl your toes and tense them too. Hold it….and now relax. Now that you’ve tensed all parts of your body in turn, take a moment to analyse what part of your body still feels tension. If you still feel tense in any muscle group, just tense it consciously, and then consciously un-tense it, so you feel relaxed there too. Your body should feel a little heavy, but relaxed. Keep breathing slowly, in and out.
OK, so that exercise starts to make the athlete aware of muscle groups, which can then be manipulated to feel tension and relaxation as required. Hopefully this will get them to start identifying how their muscles feel at any particular time before, during, or after a competition. By experiencing both states (tension and relaxation), they can take steps at any time in the future to feel more relaxed.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 17 Michelle Pain, PhD
Once a person feels calmer, they are more likely to take on board suggestions for improvement. This is why a stressed person – say someone who is getting bad news from a doctor, or an athlete hearing they are about to be dropped by the coach – doesn’t really hear all the information.
The brain shuts down because it can’t cope with the news. It’s a self-preservation strategy, so if you’re a coach, you’ll want to follow up later with your athlete and spell out what they need to do to get back in the team, and if you’re an athlete you’ll want to follow up with the coach to hear what you need to do to get back into the team again. Being calm means you can better assess your options and make better decisions.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 18 Michelle Pain, PhD
Getting Rid of Negative Messages The next area to address is what I call ‘the leprechaun on the shoulder’. I reckon all of us have a leprechaun (in my imagination) who whispers in our ear, “that was rubbish”, or “you don’t deserve to be out here”, or “you’re useless” etc. Most of us aren’t even aware of the leprechaun because we unconsciously hear those sorts of messages all the time. So firstly, we have to make ourselves aware when our mind hears those negative messages. Next, we have to either stop the messages, or (better still) replace the messages with something more positive. Let’s have a look at how to do this. Think of a scenario in your sport where a player might hear negative messages. A mistake has been made and the player feels a bit down about the situation. Or something has happened recently (ie. form not so good) and the player is about to perform that skill in a competitive situation and wondering if they’ll succumb to the pressure and not perform the skill well enough (eg. kicking for goal but the past three attempts have skewed off the boot). Here are some likely messages they might hear (in their own mind): 1. You’re not good enough to be here 2. You’re only going to stuff it up again 3. You’ll never be any good
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 19 Michelle Pain, PhD
It’s difficult to ignore the negative messages, so the best way to deal with them is to replace the messages with realistic but positive messages so that as soon as the athlete becomes aware of the negative message, they’ll replace it with a more positivelyframed message that is less likely to be harmful to their chances of a successful outcome This is called ‘countering’, because we are countering the negative messages with something positive. Have a go at writing something positive that you might use to counter these sorts of messages: eg. ‘You’re not good enough to be here’ might be countered by ‘I’ve earned my right to be here just like everyone else’ 1. You’re only going to stuff it up (Now you have a go at countering this message) _____________________________________________________ 2. You’ll never be any good _____________________________________________________ Create an example for your sport here: (Original) Negative message _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________
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Now, counter your negative message with something more positive: _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ If you are in a group right now, turn to the person next to you and discuss your example and why you think it will be effective. Do they have any constructive criticism for you to make your words more effective? Is there a better way to phrase that?
Visualisation / Imagery Now that we have our leprechaun under control (from the previous section), we can start to learn some other skills that are used as sport psychology tools. One of the fun exercises – it’s been described as a good party trick – is actually an excellent demonstration of the power of the mind. You’ll need a lightweighted object (I have a plastic golf ball that has holes all around it) tied to a length of string (approximately 40-50cm long), and tie a knot at the free end.
The idea is that you (or, in my case, I’d instruct my client) sit on a chair with space in front of you, hold the knot between your forefinger and thumb, rest your elbow on your knee as you lean forward and let the weight drop. You can use your other hand to steady the weight, if necessary. It’s important to let the weight fall straight and not consciously move it around at all. What you are
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 21 Michelle Pain, PhD
trying to do is move the weight in a clockwise direction – without moving your muscles – just using your mind.
I use a visualisation technique to help me here when I do this activity. It’s important to see, as clearly as possible, what you want to achieve (ie. to get the weighted object – in my case, a plastic golf ball at the end of a length of string to swing in a clockwise direction). Specifically, I imagine that my eyeballs are pushing the weight around in the correct direction (but you might have another technique!). The more times you practice this, the easier it becomes to get the weighted object to move in the desired direction.
You must make sure you aren’t moving your wrist, or forearm, shoulder or anything else in order to achieve movement in the correct direction. It might take a while to get started, but most people can get some movement out of the weight. (I’ve found that those people who might already be familiar with visualisation have an advantage over those who have never or rarely tried visualisation.)
Those people that can achieve clockwise movement might be encouraged now to see if they can get the circle even bigger. Or for those who are pretty skilled at this, they can try to slow the weight down and have it move in the opposite direction. (This This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 22 Michelle Pain, PhD
usually takes a little time, even for me.) If you’ve got a weight and some string handy, why not give this a try now?
OK, assuming you’ve got movement – without moving your arm or hand to help it along – you should ask your client (or yourself) how and why this can happen? As I said earlier, the trick is in being able to tell the brain exactly what you want to have happen, as clearly as possible. If you are not moving your major muscles to do this, what is happening is that the micro-muscles in your fingertips are co-ordinating in the right sequence to bring about the movement in the desired direction (even if you are not totally aware of it).
This example demonstrates the power of the mind. It has implications for you playing sport, because if you can clearly visualise the outcome you want (ie. in this example it was to have the weight to swing in a clock-wise direction, but it might be to imagine the correct technique to shoot the goal, or putt from 4m into a headwind), your brain will tell your muscles to co-ordinate in a specific way to attempt to achieve this (and of course, if you’ve correctly practiced this skill in training – or even watched someone highly skilled perform the routine) it isn’t a big stretch for your brain to do this.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 23 Michelle Pain, PhD
On a more global scale, the clearly visualised outcome might be ‘win Wimbledon’ or ‘kick 6 goals’, and one would use Goal Setting (see later section) to move oneself in that direction by taking the necessary steps to bring about that outcome.
Internal and external visualisation Visualisation has been described as guided imagery, or mental rehearsal. When visualising, you are imagining yourself going through a sequence of behaviours in order to get a desired outcome. When you visualise yourself playing sport, you can imagine you are watching yourself perform as though you are a spectator (ie. watching yourself perform as though you were on TV). This is external visualisation. The other sort is if you are actually doing the skill yourself from within your own body (ie. this is internal visualisation).
A lot of research was conducted into these two types of visualisation, and it was concluded that one type of visualisation wasn’t superior compared to the other, and that many people actually used both types of visualisation during the course of their performance. I know when I was a 400m hurdler, I used internal visualisation for the parts of the event that required more skill or technique (eg. the start, the 7th hurdle on the bottom bend of the track – where I was most likely to lose concentration due to fatigue, and about 5 metres to the finish line). For 90% of the race, This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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I would be using external visualisation (as though I was watching myself run from about the 50m mark of the stands in the finishing straight). So, there’s no right or wrong way, but you might think about the ‘technique’ parts of the sport you play and ask yourself, “Do I use internal or external visualisation when I perform?”.
Imagery for healing Imagery is like visualisation, except the images aren’t to do with sport but may be of ‘pleasant places’ (like relaxing at the beach, or walking through the bush etc), or of ‘coloured balls’ of heat or energy. When I’ve worked with tennis players with an aggression problem, I’ve had them imagine the temper they feel developing is like a red ball of energy swirling about their head. I ask them to imagine they are controlling that red ball, making it smaller and more compact, and making it move from their head, down through their shoulder, and then their arm, and then through the racquet. I have the touch the baseline with their racquet, and imagine their anger or frustration is leaving them, and they see the red ball disperse so they feel calm and focused again. (Obviously I take a lot longer to suggest this than the time it takes for you to read this, otherwise it would feel too rushed and be ineffective. We work on this as a performance routine, so that when they start feeling the symptoms that represent anger and frustration, they can take steps to calm themselves down and feel more in control of the situation.)
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 25 Michelle Pain, PhD
Another area where imagery is very important is in the aftermath of injury, when a player sustains a significant injury and wants to aid the healing process. Studies have shown that using this imagery technique does aid blood flow to the injury location, and increased blood flow is linked to healing. So, in this case, the imagery we might use is of a ‘gold coloured ball’ (with gold representing ‘healing’), swirling around the injured limb or body part.
The golden ball is imagined to be quite large to begin with (eg. beach ball sized), then I have the athlete imagine they can control the rate of swirling and the size of the ball, moving it from being quite large to begin with, to becoming smaller (ie. tennis ball sized), smaller (eg. table tennis ball sized), smaller still (eg. marble sized) and then finally smaller again (eg. pea sized). I have them imagine the golden ball swirls all around the injured part, repairing the injury and making the injured site ‘better than ever’.
Injured players often are very concerned about re-injuring themselves, so it is important to encourage them to follow all the rehabilitation instructions from the medical staff and have them trust the skill and experience of the medical staff that they will be given the ‘all clear’ when they are right to come back after injury. They may also lose confidence while they are on the sidelines recovering from their injury, so we might also be doing some work in that area too.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 26 Michelle Pain, PhD
Using Key Words and Images Because sport usually occurs over a fixed time span, and because the brain is adept in working with ‘shorthand’ forms that allows thinking to speed up, sport psychologists often have their athletes think of a word, or an image, of a quality (or qualities) the athlete wants to attain. These are known as key words and images, and I find it is a really handy concept to teach my athletes.
The athletes I see as clients have come to see me to help them ‘fix something up’ about themselves. Together, we identify what the issue is and if there is more than one issue, then we decide on a priority for fixing them. Part of the process might be to evaluate what qualities the athlete wants to work on, because they recognise these are missing those from their existing repertoire. They might be qualities such as ‘being a more assertive leader’, ‘working on not feeling fear when receiving a 150km/hr serve’, ‘not toppling over when defending’ (in netball), or ‘driving out of the blocks faster’ (in athletics), or ‘doing a tumble turn faster’ (in swimming), ‘no longer worrying about whether my injury will allow me to compete fully’ etc. Once the quality is identified, we then try to think of a picture/image/word of someone or something that will give us that quality. With regard to pictures or images and the need to develop speed, the image of a big cat such a cheetah, jaguar or lion
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(power), or gazelle (speed and grace) might be used. The image stands for the quality the athlete wants to take on board. Swimmers, I find, often use images of dolphins, or if needing to be more aggressive, sharks. I’ve taught tennis players receiving serve to think of themselves as a solid brick wall or a Sherman tank (ie. ‘nothing is going to get past me’), and for netballers playing in defence to imagine they are tall trees with roots anchoring them strongly to the ground (to avoid them toppling over onto their opponent, thus giving them an unguarded free pass).
Sometimes a word is more effective than a picture, depending on the quality you are trying to convey. ‘Twinkletoes’ might remind an athlete to be fast and light on their feet; ‘boost’ for extra energy; ‘bulls-eye’ to remind one to focus attention etc. (It might be one, or two words maximum. I’ve found that longer phrases take too much effort to remember at times when you are stressed.)
I’ve also discovered that while I can suggest possible words or pictures to my athlete, they usually need to find the word or picture that resonates with them, that they can really embrace. So I usually explain the concept, give them some examples that might be relevant to the quality they want to attain, and then give them some ‘homework’ to decide upon an image or a word that they like best.
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A person might have maybe 3-4 key words or images they call upon at various times, to make them feel more confident and competent at various stages of a competition. For instance, a tennis player might have a word or image for when they are serving, when they are following up service, when they are receiving, and when they are feeling that their performance isn’t going well. A 400m runner might have one for starting, one for running the bend or the back straight, and one for 5m before crossing the line.
Here is some more homework for you. Have a go at suggesting key words or images for our tennis player or runner (nominate the occasion when the athlete would use this tool). ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 29 Michelle Pain, PhD
Now, let’s use an example that is most relevant to your sporting situation. What quality would you most like to improve? Write it down here: ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Now, what word or picture sums up that quality for you, that you could use at appropriate times that would make you feel more confident and competent? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Using key words and images in times of stress can make an athlete feel more confident and competent, which is good for performance in that it gives the athlete something within their control to do (ie. thinking of a key word or image to remind him- or herself of a quality they want to emulate) and reduces the possibility of being distracted by other things (especially negative thoughts in his or her head).
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One of the best key words I’ve seen is ‘100% APE’. I really like this one because it is only two words, but it stands for four qualities, and it is good for any sport. 100% APE stands for 1. Giving 100% effort, 2. Having a positive attitude, 3. Being physically strong, and 4. Having no excuses at the end of the competition. I would ask my athletes to print up their key words (perhaps like ‘100% APE’) and put them on the back of the bathroom door, or write it on the back of their hand, or on a piece of equipment they use in their sport that they would see when they compete. Remember, when you are stressed, you don’t want to over-think, so keeping things simple is a good idea.
Using visualisation, key words, muscle relaxation and breathing to develop a pre-game (or pre-shot) routine OK, we’ve got the basics all covered now. What we can do next is put them all together to make a pre-game or a pre-shot (if we have a smaller time frame in mind) routine. A routine is something we go through before something important happens (ie. the start of the game, or the execution of a skill).
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We have a routine so we can think clearly, using productive thoughts that will help us achieve our potential. It minimises the chance of thinking of non-productive thoughts (ie. how your opponent has been performing etc), instead filling your mind with thoughts that are known to assist in that situation. It helps you perform more consistently (because what you are doing is done consistently), and it should leave you feeling calm and confident.
You should not just save doing your routine for ‘times that matter’, you should be practicing it all the time in training so that it becomes perfectly normal and feels natural to do, no matter how stressed (or calm) you feel. Only by practicing skills until they become automatic can you feel confident that you will be able to reproduce those skills under pressure. Here is a script that you might adapt for your sport (which you would then listen to maybe in the week before a major competition). It’s in five phases: the first and second phases aim to develop a more deeply relaxed frame of mind; the third phase introduces the skill with the view to rehearsing a successful outcome; the fourth phase shows the skill being integrated with the rest of the game; and, the fifth phase uses key words to leave the athlete feeling empowered. Notice the extensive use of sensations that occur in a visualisation exercise.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 32 Michelle Pain, PhD
For visualisation to appear more real to us (and be more effective as a tool to help us perform better), we try to incorporate as many of the five senses (ie. seeing, hearing, taste, touch and smell) as possible. Look at this example and make a note of where the senses are brought into the visualisation process. Phase 1 Close your eyes, and begin by taking three deep breaths. Inhale deeply, and exhale slowly… inhale deeply, and exhale slowly… inhale deeply, and exhale slowly. Good… now just relax… let yourself go, and no matter how deeply relaxed you become, you will always be in control and able to respond to anything that you choose to respond to… you will remember everything… Begin to concentrate on your right arm… Raise your right arm so it is in the air a little… open your hand with your palm facing upwards… good… Now pay attention to the feelings in your upper arm… in your forearm… in your hand… in your fingers. Notice any sensations that might be occurring in your right arm… you might notice the weight of your clothing or it’s texture where it touches your skin… you might have a tingling sensation in your hand and fingers… just observe the feelings…Now, notice the heaviness that occurs in your right arm as you exhale… just relax, and notice the feeling of comfortable, relaxed heaviness that develops in your right arm as you exhale…
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 33 Michelle Pain, PhD
Take your left arm and position it so it is in the air like your right arm… Make a slight bend in your left wrist… good…now pay attention to the feelings in your left hand. Notice as you inhale how your left hand begins to feel lighter… just relax, and notice as you inhale how your hand begins to feel lighter, as if it wants to lift up…You can create different feelings in your hands if you want to… all you have to do is find the right images. Do that now… Pay attention to your right hand again. Imagine you have a small weight attached to your wrist, and the weight is pulling your hand down, making it heavier and heavier with each breath you exhale… and heavier… and heavier… Just let yourself go…Good… take a moment to experience that heaviness… (wait 15 seconds). Now, get rid of that image and let the feelings of heaviness go…This time, pay attention to your left arm… imagine you have a helium balloon attached to your left wrist… Imagine that each time you inhale, the balloon is gently pulling your wrist up a little more, making your arm lighter and lighter… lighter … and lighter. Good. Just let yourself go… Good… take a moment to experience that lightness… (wait 15 seconds). Now, get rid of that image and let the feelings of lightness go… Phase 2 Good. Now just relax. If your left or right arm has moved, just settle yourself into a comfortable position. As your arm settles down, you will feel very comfortable…. You can increase this pleasant feeling by counting down from one to five… With every count, you will become more deeply relaxed.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 34 Michelle Pain, PhD
No matter how deeply relaxed you become, however, you will always be in control…One…relax all of the muscles in both your arms, in the fingers, … hands, … forearms, …and upper arms…. Just completely relax those muscles and enjoy the pleasant feeling of heaviness that occurs as you exhale and sink deeper and deeper. Two… relax the muscles in both legs…relax the muscles in your feet and toes… relax the muscles in your calves… relax the muscles in your thighs… Just completely relax all the muscles in both your arms and your legs, and notice how you exhale…the pleasant sensation of drifting down deeper and deeper…into a deep hypnotic state. Three…relax all your muscles in your forehead…cheeks…and jaw… Let your mouth open slightly as you relax the muscles in your jaw…Four… relax the muscles in your neck… and your shoulders… Just completely relax, deeper and deeper….and deeper…Five… relax the muscles in your chest… and your back… and your stomach. Relax all your muscles and enjoy the pleasant sensations of being so deeply relaxed…For the next minute or two, just let yourself go…with each exhale, drift down deeper and deeper… That's good. (wait 30 seconds) Phase 3 Now, I want you to imagine you are about to _________(insert your skill here)… As you prepare to ________(do this skill), look to ________ (think of somewhere a little distance away that makes sense to your sport eg. where you want the ball to land; 50m away if crouching for a sprint start etc)…
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 35 Michelle Pain, PhD
You have soft eyes…you are feeling focused and calm…you know what you have to do . At the same time, you are aware of everything around you… You can see everything… As you prepare, you decide on your strategy… you make up your mind that you are going to _________ (insert your strategy here), to __________ (insert first part of strategy here)…You feel _________ (insert relevant body sensation here eg. the ball in your hand; your knee resting on the track etc)… you can feel __________ (insert sensations here eg. the texture and weight of the ball, the sun on your back etc)…You can feel ________ (insert a bit more detail here eg. the seams where there isn't any fuzz; the smoothness of the leather etc). Notice the feeling of________ (insert even more detail relevant to your sport eg. your racquet in your hands as you grip it; the space around your fingers as you grip the bowling ball etc)… Notice how______ (eg. tightly you hold it, how it feels against your palm)… and your fingertips… Pay attention to your body’s weight distribution…notice how ______ (insert body movement that would occur immediately before you start to perform the skill eg. your centre of mass shifts toward your front foot as you bounce the ball and prepare to serve; you settle your hips back into the blocks and lean forward with the weight mostly balanced on your thumb and forefinger etc)… You feel very comfortable and balanced.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 36 Michelle Pain, PhD
Now, as you ____ (insert start of performance here eg. begin your toss; breath out deeply, waiting for the gun to go off etc), your attention narrows and you focus on the spot where ______ (insert focus point here eg. you are tossing the ball; the point on the line between your fingers etc)… As your concentration narrows, you ________ (insert the ‘moment of truth’ point here eg. see the ball come into view very clearly; hear the gun go off; feel your foot making connection with the ball - Put some more detail here eg. You see the ball…it's colour… you see it rotate.) As you _________ (insert start of performance here eg. watch the ball, start to become upright from the starting position), you ________ (insert the follow through here eg. feel your racquet coming through; you feel your legs blast out of the blocks and you smoothly drive and move to upright running stance etc. Describe the movement and follow through in more detail here. eg. You can see it make contact with the ball, and you can feel your weight and your centre of mass transferring, moving forward, coming through at the moment your racquet contacts the ball)… Now you feel _______ (eg. the follow-through of your racquet, your legs pounding rhythmically). Quickly, your attention broadens again and you see ______(eg. the whole court, your competitors around you) and you hear (eg. the roar of the crowd). You can feel yourself re-centre as you bring your legs under you. You feel balanced and centered. You are ready to move in any direction…
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 37 Michelle Pain, PhD
Phase 4 Good. Now lets just imagine you (performing in your sport) where things can happen at their regular speed…let your imagination go… get completely involved… You will feel and see everything as if you were actually performing in competition. You will feel confident… in control… You'll find it easy to move and get into position, to feel your weight move into correct position…You seem to have all the time in the world to prepare… you just know you can do anything you want… Just let yourself enjoy all of the feelings and sensations that come with playing 'in the zone'…(wait 30 seconds)
Phase 5 Good…In a moment, it will be time to leave this pleasant state…Before you do, however, you need to know that you can create the feelings that you have now when you are playing 'in the zone' whenever you want to… You will be able to do this yourself by taking a deep centering breath, … inhaling deeply… attending to the expansion of muscles in your abdomen as you inhale… As you exhale,…relax the chest, neck and shoulder muscles, and say "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here) Remember, whenever you want to settle yourself down and to improve your concentration… you simply take a deep, centering breath… Then, on the exhale, you say to yourself "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 38 Michelle Pain, PhD
Imagine you are going through this process right now… imagine you are about to ______ (eg. kick for goal, serve in a match)…you can feel the pressure…you notice you are a little tight in the neck and shoulders, and that you are gripping the _______ (eg. ball, racquet) a little too tightly…you are worried about _____ (eg. making the distance, your accuracy, coming out of the blocks cleanly) …Feel the pressure… Now, look _________ (eg. at the court, at the goals, across the net, or into the distance)… As you look there, take that deep centering breath… and as you breath out you say to yourself "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here). At the end of the exhale, notice that you have soft eyes… you see ____ (eg. the area all around you, field of play, the whole court)... you feel comfortable… Take one more centering breath and repeat your phrase just before you ____(eg. begin your ball toss, get down on the blocks, begin your run up, take the putt)… Then, as your concentration narrows you focus on the spot where you are _____ (eg. tossing the ball, intending on taking your first step out of the blocks, intend to strike the ball on your putt)… Just give yourself some time to practice this…feeling the tension… and taking your deep breath, saying your words, and noticing how much more calm and confident you feel…(wait for 30 seconds).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 39 Michelle Pain, PhD
Alright…it's time to return to your normal activities…to do that, count backwards from three to one… On the count of three, take a deep breath, holding it momentarily…On the count of two…stretch your arms and your legs and exhale…On the count of one, open your eyes and you will be wide awake… ready to do things you normally do at this time… you're feeling good… comfortable…. and relaxed. Ready?…three…take a deep breath…two… stretch your arms and legs and exhale…one…open your eyes, wide awake. It’s a good exercise to go through this script and makes changes relevant to your sport. Where I have written in normal type, this is a suggestion for you to add information relative to your sport (so you wouldn’t read that out if you were reading it back!).
Because it is rather long and difficult to recall all the various phases without reading the script (which wouldn’t then make it relaxing, would it?), I’ve often helped an athlete create their script, then recorded it so it could be played back and they could put it on their own equipment so the track was maximally useful to them. If you are going to read it back (either for yourself or for someone else), remember to read much slower than you normally speak, because reading quickly doesn’t help a person feel very relaxed!
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 40 Michelle Pain, PhD
There are Apps (applications) for iPhones and Android phones that allow recording of voices, or you could use a microphone with the free software program Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/), so that may be a possibility if you wanted to hear yourself reading out the whole script that has been personalised. This sort of script (once recorded) could be played right up until the start of competition. You’ll need to try it out to see how it affects your performance, but the only adverse effect I can imagine is if it makes you too excited to sleep if you listen to it the night before your competition. In that instance, I’d advocate using a muscle relaxation script such as the one given on pages 14 and 15.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 41 Michelle Pain, PhD
Arousal control: Psyching up / Psyching down An area that is not well understood by athletes, I feel, is the aspect of psyching up or psyching down. Often athletes only seem to learn what works for them by trial and error (and unfortunately, some people never do). Sport psychology is all about looking at patterns of behaviour – working out what works, and what doesn’t, and trying to do what works more often and doing what doesn’t work less often. Arousal control was the area of my PhD topic, so I’m passionate about this area. Although I am going to introduce a bit of theory, I promise I’ll be gentle with you!
The ‘go to’ model of arousal used to be the Inverted U hypothesis (see over the page), originally proposed by Yerkes and Dodson in 1908 (based on a study of how long it took mice to run a maze). Many people are familiar with the Inverted U, since most people can recall a time when they underperformed due to being too stressed (represented by the far right of the diagram) or unmotivated (represented by the far left of the diagram). The Inverted U hypothesis says that under moderate arousal levels, an athlete is able to perform to the best of his or her ability and so it is the state that is associated with best performances (see red dotted line).
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 42 Michelle Pain, PhD
The reason why the Inverted U hypothesis isn’t used any more is because it doesn’t take into account individual differences between people for a particular task (ie. what might be high arousal for one person might be low or moderate arousal for another), nor the different arousal level required between different tasks.
Reversal Theory has an explanation for these, and is one of the very practical theories that is really easy to demonstrate to athletes, that gives them strategies that will assist them right away. I’m a big fan! You think it is obvious, but athletes usually only make the connection between how they prepare and how they perform after many years and Reversal theory can help shortcut the process so it’s worth knowing a bit about it.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 43 Michelle Pain, PhD
I most often use a copyrighted questionnaire (so I’m afraid I can’t reproduce it here) called the Telic Paratelic State Inventory (TPSI) by Calhoun (1995). However, instead of using it a state measure (ie. answering the questions ‘how do you feel right now…’), I ask my athletes to answer the questions as a trait measure (ie. ‘how do you usually feel…’), as I want to know about their typical or usual feelings.
The T/PSI has been validated by O’Connell and Calhoun (2001) and could be sent to you by email if you contact Kathleen O’Connell at [email protected] but a copy of the questionnaire can also be found in John Kerr’s excellent book, Counselling athletes: Applying Reversal Theory, published in 2001. This book has some great examples of using Reversal Theory with athletes, but I have to confess in the interests of selfdisclosure that John is a personal friend of mine and I also contributed in a small way to that book. Of course I don’t get any kick backs by referring you to his book.
The 12 items on the T/PSI are self rated, with a person choosing a number between 1 and 6 to illustrate how they usually feel. They aren’t sport-related questions, just ‘everyday’ questions asking how activated (ie. how psyched up) they usually like to feel. I do think, however, if you’ve got an athlete wanting to work with you in
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 44 Michelle Pain, PhD
a sport setting, you ask them to interpret their answers as though the question asks about their preference in a sport setting. I’ve often had athletes answer as though ‘in every day life’ and they admit they would be quite different in their responses if they’d answered it for their sport. Now, if I were going to create a questionnaire like the T/PSI that asks about preferences for being activated prior to a sporting competition (that is totally unvalidated psychometrically, but has good face and construct validity), it might look something like this… Telic/Paratelic Instrument (Pain, 2011) Instructions: Think back to a time when you performed well, or better than you expected, and try to think specifically how you prepared yourself for that competition. Circle the number that best represents how you remember feeling at the time (where 1 = not at all true of me and 6 = very true of me) Not at all true of me
Very true of me
1. I wasn’t stressed about what the outcome might be 1 2
3
4
5
6
2. I felt really hyped up
1
2
3
4
5
6
3. I felt angry or agitated
1
2
3
4
5
6
4. I felt loose and relaxed
1
2
3
4
5
6
5. I felt serious-minded
1
2
3
4
5
6
6. I was happy to chat to others before the event 1 2
3
4
5
6
7. My heart rate was racing
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
3
4
5
6
3
4
5
6
12. I felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for my event 1 2 3 4
5
6
8. I was comfortable with my preparation 9. I wanted to have fun 10. I wanted to feel ‘in control’ 1 2 11. I felt mischievous and wanted to stir things up a bit 1 2
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 45 Michelle Pain, PhD
I’ve set up the same number of items in my survey as the T/PSI, and made the same item numbers be reverse scored, so when you are reading about the T/PSI you can hopefully apply the results of the T/PI (pronounced tee-pee) to the Reversal Theory model. Like the T/PSI, a high score indicates Paratelic preferences. Here is the scoring sheet. Look at the position of the number you circled in the Telic/Paratelic Instrument (not the number itself) and re-circle the number in the position you originally circled. eg. For the first question, if you originally circled 3 (ie the third position) on the scoring sheet, you would circle the 4. Telic/Paratelic Instrument Scoring Sheet 1. I wasn’t stressed about what the outcome might be 6 5 4 3 2 1 2. I felt really hyped up 1 2 3 4 5 6 3. I felt angry or agitated 1 2 3 4 5 6 4. I felt loose and relaxed 6 5 4 3 2 1 5. I felt serious-minded 6 5 4 3 2 1 6. I was happy to chat to others before the event 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. My heart rate was racing 1 2 3 4 5 6 8. I was comfortable with my preparation 6 5 4 3 2 1 9. I wanted to have fun 1 2 3 4 5 6 10. I wanted to feel ‘in control’ 6 5 4 3 2 1 11. I felt mischievous and wanted to stir things up a bit 1 2 3 4 5 6 12. I felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for my event 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 46 Michelle Pain, PhD
Now, add the scores on the scoring sheet to get a total that could vary between 12 and 72. If you measured the general population on the T/PSI, the average score would be 40, with the majority of people having scores a bit below, or a bit above the average. (I haven’t done any qualitative analysis on the T/PI, but let’s just assume 40 will be the midpoint too at this stage.) Fewer people have scores a lot below, or a lot above, the average. That is, the scores for this questionnaire follow a bell shaped, or normal curve, distribution (see next diagram). [-‐-‐-‐Flexible-‐-‐-‐]
On the T/PSI, a score of 41 or more would arbitrarily categorise the person as paratelic, and a score of 40 or lower nominally categorises the person as telic. Yes, I know; that process is a bit arbitrary, but it’s in name only. For the most part, the majority of us as classified as ‘flexible’ because our scores would fall somewhere between 30 and 50 and it’s only the more extreme scores where the classification has more meaning. Just bear with me at this stage!
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 47 Michelle Pain, PhD
If you are unable to get your hands on a Telic/Paratelic State Inventory (T/PSI), or prefer not to use the T/PI, Reversal theorists suggest you can tell a lot about a person by asking them to describe what they did the previous weekend. Extreme paratelics will pick out the highlights and they will not necessarily be in chronological order. Extreme telics will describe what they did largely in chronological order. Most of us who are ‘flexible’ will do a little of both. If you are going to try the T/PI, score it up and see if you end up being classified as extremely telic (29 or less), telic (30-34), telic but flexible (35 – 40), paratelic but flexible (41 – 45), paratelic (46 – 50), or extremely paratelic (51 or higher). Have a read of the descriptions of ‘telic’ and ‘paratelic’ people in the sections below. Does it make sense to you to be described in this way that the T/PI, or the ‘description method’ classifies you?
Now, about Reversal Theory…the unfortunate part about it is that it uses Greek terms. If you were classified as telic (from the Greek word ‘telios’) it would mean you are goal oriented and able to delay gratification and would prefer constant and predictable routines, and if you were classified as paratelic (ie. ‘other than telic’) it would mean you are excitement seeking and would prefer to do things on the spur of the moment and enjoy variety. The majority of the general population would score around 35-45 on the Telic/Paratelic State Inventory (T/PSI), and these people can be considered to be ‘flexible’ (ie. sometimes telic, sometimes paratelic) in their preferences or approaches. This theory is still
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 48 Michelle Pain, PhD
important to them, because they need to know what to do to psych up or psych down as the situation requires.
Reversal Theory has the greatest significance for people identified as extremely telic (less than 30 on the T/PSI) or extremely paratelic (more than 50 on the T/PSI). The extreme telics or paratelics have distinct preferences about how they like to prepare for a competition, and if their preparation needs are not met, they will not be able to perform to the best of their ability. It’s important for all athletes (eg. Telic, Paratelic or flexible) to know what sort of preparation helps them perform their best, under different circumstances so that they can actively do something about that situation. Looking at Reversal Theory helps demonstrate the strategies you could use to help yourself prepare optimally, knowing your own preferences.
Reversal Theory was proposed by Michael Apter in the late 1980s. It is based on looking at the match (or mismatch) between a person’s preferred arousal levels (or in Greek terms used by Reversal Theorists, ‘hedonic tone’ = ‘pleasure’) and their actual arousal levels. Apter suggests that the match or mismatch of arousal levels helps explain a person’s motives.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 49 Michelle Pain, PhD
John Kerr was one of the first to adapt the model for use with athletes in a sports setting, and you can see from the following diagram (looking at the dotted line across the tip of the model) that he thought best performance was associated with Telics (the blue solid line) being in a relaxed (or ‘psyched down’) state of mind, and Paratelics (the red dotted line) being in an excited (or ‘psyched up’) frame of mind. Similarly, poorer performances were observed when Telics were anxious and Paratelics were bored. This intuitively makes sense, doesn’t it? Let’s look and see how we can use that knowledge.
Looking at the x axis (Perceived arousal levels), this has three nominated levels (low, medium and high arousal). The idea is for you to locate yourself somewhere along this axis, depending on how ‘activated’ (‘psyched up’ or ‘psyched down’) you felt.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 50 Michelle Pain, PhD
The y axis (Hedonic tone) reflects how you experience the arousal level – whether you find this level of arousal pleasant (high hedonic tone) or unpleasant (low hedonic tone). The diagram illustrates the expected patterns of experiences for two personality types: Telics and Paratelics. People classified as ‘telic’ are likely to be goal oriented and single-minded. People classified as ‘paratelic’ are likely to be ‘sensation seeking’.
This model (above) has been shown to be a little simplistic, but does effectively describe behaviours under ‘home and away’ type conditions. Under ‘Grand Final’ type arousal conditions, extreme paratelics need to be able to psych themselves down to avoid over-arousal. The message here is that too much excitement is not always helpful for paratelics – over arousal can lead to ‘cockiness’ (so that vital cues in the environment may be missed, and performance suffers). For this reason, it is very important that everyone knows how to psych themselves up or down.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 51 Michelle Pain, PhD
If you look at the original model (on the previous page) at the ‘unpleasant’ end (ie. low score on the y axis), it looks a bit like the Inverted U hypothesis, where best performances are associated with a moderate amount of arousal. This gives Reversal theory a bit more credibility, since independently it has come up with a pattern of behaviour we know already exists. The fact that Yerkes and Dodson proposed the Inverted U based on the behaviour (accuracy and speed) of mice running mazes explains why the ‘attribution’ part of the theory is missing (ie. you can’t very well ask a mouse how it feels when it is under or over aroused, or what motivated it to run fast or slow).
I think it’s easier to look at Reversal Theory with someone in mind, so you can possibly see how it works by interpreting a person’s motives. Although I do not know these athletes personally, I would guess from their behaviour that Telic athletes might include Matt Shirvington (track), Roger Federer (tennis) and Michael Clark (cricket). Paratelic athletes might include Lleyton Hewitt (tennis), Usain Bolt (track) and Anthony Mundine (Boxing). It’s the athletes who are at the ‘extreme’ levels who stand out as being different, but all of us could benefit from knowing when to psych ourselves up, and when to psych ourselves down. It’s a matter of knowing our personality, as well as the circumstances surrounding the performance (ie. is it a Grand Final or a regular home and away match; is there extra pressure on because we’re fighting for our
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place in the side, or are we coming back from injury?), and how we feel about those circumstances. From the Reversal Theory diagram (previous page), you can see that best performances (those above the dotted black line) are associated with ‘feeling relaxed’ for Telics and ‘feeling excited’ for Paratelics. Note that this diagram is good for regular ‘home and away’ types of competitions. For Grand Finals (or equivalent ‘big stage events’) you have to assume the perceived arousal level is already very high, so steps must be taken for both Telics and Paratelics to use psyching down strategies or risk being overaroused (and thus unable to focus on the task at hand). So, back to the model, for regular competitions ‘feeling bored’ (for Paratelics) and ‘feeling anxious’ (for Telics) are not associated with good performances, and so must be avoided. The theory says there are two ways of addressing this (and you can do either or both in order to bring about the change in your perceived arousal levels). Firstly, using your heart rate as a guide, you can either increase (if you were feeling bored) or decrease (if you were feeling anxious) your heart rate and that would move you ‘upwards’ along your Paratelic or Telic line, respectively. This is a physiological strategy. (I’ll give you some tips as to how to do that in a moment.) Secondly, you can reverse the way you think about the competition (ie. giving the theory it’s name, Reversal Theory), so that one is a cognitive strategy.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 53 Michelle Pain, PhD
OK, let’s deal with the physiological side of things first. If you are not already, you ought to be aware of your own symptoms of stress. How do you know when you are feeling anxious? You might comment that your heart beats faster, your stomach feels like it is in knots, your hands may get clammy, etc. You may not feel all these symptoms, but you probably have at some time. When you experience these symptoms, you know you need to take steps to calm yourself. The easiest way to change your level of perceived arousal (ie. moving to the left or right of the diagram, along the x axis) is to alter your heart rate. For a Paratelic person currently experiencing boredom (ie. low arousal as unpleasant, in the bottom left of the diagram), they would want to elevate their heart rate (moving upward and to the right along the dotted line from low to high) until they became excited about the competition (or situation). For a Telic person currently experiencing anxiety (ie. high arousal as unpleasant, in the bottom right of the diagram), they would want to reduce their heart rate (moving upward and left along the unbroken line from low to high) until they became relaxed about the competition (or situation). The brain is always trying to interpret situations, and heart rate is an easy physiological factor to manipulate in order to alter the way in which a situation is experienced. To increase heart rate (so a Paratelic person can move from boredom to excitement), one
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 54 Michelle Pain, PhD
merely needs to exercise (eg. boxing, bumping aggressively, run up and down stairs, jump rope etc). Have you noticed, in the rooms prior to the beginning of a football match, those people who are bumping, boxing or skipping rope? They are the paratelic ones. To decrease heart rate (so a Telic person can move from anxiety to relaxed), one should not warm up too close to the start of the event. The telic players are the ones in the rooms prior to the event who are listening to their own music and perhaps sitting in a corner by themselves. In addition, one can manipulate the way in which someone breathes in and out. As the blood passes around the body, the brain measures the oxygen saturation of blood and uses this as a way of deciding whether the person is stressed or not. A stressed person normally breathes in and out much faster than usual, often only filling the top part of their lungs. To feel less stressed, that person ought to take slower, deeper breaths to fill their lungs. Having more oxygen in the blood means the brain interprets that as ‘feeling less stressed’. Conversely, if you wanted to increase the perceived arousal level (eg. lifting a Paratelic person from bored to excited), you might start taking smaller, more frequent (shallow) breaths (sending less oxygen to the brain). The brain interprets this as ‘activated’ and makes the athlete feel alert (ie. ready for the flight or fight response), and thus able to perform better. (Of course, it is
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possible for an extremely paratelic person to become so over aroused it would lead to poor performances. In many instances the poor judgement that occurs in this scenario results in feelings of invincibility, leading the athlete to make poor decisions not based on all the available information.) Lastly, a person could manipulate heart rate through their selection of music. Heart rate often follows the beat of selected music, so for someone wanting to slow down their heart rate, a slower paced song (such as a ballad) would be preferred. If an athlete needed to be more activated, a song with a faster beat would be selected. I often recommend my clients use iTunes (or equivalent) to create a couple of different playlists of their favourite songs. One playlist might have a dozen slower songs (for occasions where relaxation was preferred or required), while another playlist might have a dozen faster songs (where excitement was preferred or required), and (especially if the athlete was designated a ‘flexible’ type) yet another playlist might have six each from the other playlists presented alternately, or slower leading to faster, or vice versa. If you have a few playlists at the ready, you can listen to your preferred music in the style you need it in, in order to perform to your best. Song selection in a team’s rooms is very personal, so if the team tends to choose songs that are not in the style that is best for you, earphones and your own selection on your personal hand held device is still possible (and probably preferable).
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What are the symptoms you might associate with being under aroused (ie. the left side of the Inverted U hypothesis, or the bottom left side of the Reversal Theory diagram)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Name some songs you might put on a playlist to help you feel more excited if you recognised that you were under aroused. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
If you felt you needed to become more motivated, what strategies could you take to change how you felt (to put yourself in your optimal arousal state)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
What are the symptoms you might associate with being over aroused (ie. the right side of the Inverted U hypothesis, or the bottom right side of the Reversal Theory diagram)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Name some songs you might put on a playlist to help you feel more relaxed if you recognised that you were over aroused. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
If you felt you needed to become more relaxed, what strategies could you take to change how you felt (to put yourself in your optimal arousal state)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Goal Setting Goal setting sounds pretty boring because most of us think we know what it is and how to do it, but most of us just aren’t specific enough in knowing/saying what we want to achieve (or worse, we just go through life accepting what falls into our lap without actively striving to improve ourselves). There are three types of goal setting that I teach my athletes, and they are used to make ‘a whole person’, rather than just dealing with the sporting person.
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Lifetime Goal Setting The first is a standard Life Goal Setting approach. Take a blank A4 sheet of paper, set it out in front of you so the short ends are top and bottom, and fold the paper into thirds. Look at the diagram (see next page) and write a heading on each third.
Before you start writing down your life goals, you need to be aware of the rules of Goal Setting. You need to set S-M-A-R-T goals – that is, goals which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time sensitive.
Specific goals are those broken down into their smallest component. For example, it’s not useful to say ‘I want to be happy’ or ‘I want to be rich’. What can you do to actually make these things happen? If reading for 30 minutes before bed makes you happy, you need to schedule time into your life to ensure that is likely. If buying a convertible makes you happy and feel rich, how
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many hours (or what sort of job) will you need to do in order to make this happen? Saying the goal that will give you those emotions (eg. reading a book, owning a convertible) is the better way to go.
Your goals need to be recorded so you can pat yourself on the back when you reach them, and they also need to be measured against some sort of criteria (so you can measure the quality of your progress). Otherwise, how will you know if you have been successful in attaining those goals?
Goals need to be within the realms of possibility. They have to be achievable and they have to be realistic. For instance, if you have no intention of doing a uni course in astrophysics (or whatever it takes these days), you’ll never be an astronaut. You have to be prepared to put in the hard yards…
Lastly, your goals are more likely to be achieved if you write them down and set yourself a deadline for improvement. Setting goals is a bit like pulling on a rubber band. There needs to be tension (ie. for the goal to be a challenge) between where you are now and where you want to be, so that you can be propelled in that direction. If there is too little tension (ie. no motivation), nothing happens. If there is too much tension (ie. the goal seems
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impossible), the rubber band breaks. The goal won’t be achieved because no-one wants to put in so much effort for no reward.
So, starting at the top of your A4 sheet, write down the goals you want to achieve that are into the future (ie. 5 or more years away). Think, ‘If I was on my deathbed, I would be really disappointed with if I hadn’t achieved X,Y,Z’. In this case, X, Y and Z represent the goals that really matter to you.
After you’ve listed a few of those, start to think now about the middle third of your A4 sheet. What goals do you want to achieve within 3 years, ones that you won’t complete in the next 12 months? After you have a few more of those, start working on the goals you want to achieve in the next 12 months, and these are written on the bottom third of the paper.
OK, when you’ve completed your last third, open up your A4 page and look over the goals you’ve written there. Is there anything more you want to add? Go ahead and put them in. Now, reading over your list, put an asterisk (*) next to any goals listed that are extremely important to you. (Some of the goals you’ve listed might be quite important, and others will be extremely important to you. Differentiate between those.) Is there a theme to those you’ve
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asterisked? (ie. Are they mostly sport-related goals, or non-sportrelated goals, or a mix?)
Now, the key thing to setting goals is to check that you have the ‘scaffolding’ in place. If you have an asterisked goal in your Lifetime section, are there asterisked goals in the Medium and Short term sections that support you getting to that Lifetime goal, or does it seemingly appear out of nowhere? (If it appears out of nowhere, it indicates that you’re probably not going to achieve it because you’re relying on fate to present it to you, without doing the hard work early in your career.) Similarly for asterisked Medium term goals - are they supported by asterisked goals linked to that goal in the Short term section?
OK, that’s it for seeing what’s important to you in Lifetime goal setting, and that you have the scaffolding in place to make it happen. There’s a lot of research to show that if you make your goals public, you are more likely to actively work towards them. Nothing like public shame and humiliation to be a motivating factor! Now we’ll look at two sport-specific types of goal setting: the Spider Web profile, and the Achievement Management Plan (AMP).
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Spider Web Profile The Spider Web Profile asks you to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for your sport (or if you are playing a team sport, for example, you would use the key performance indicators for your position on the field). Each of the ‘spokes’ on the spider web represent a key performance indicator. Again, each KPI needs to be a S-M-A-R-T goal, and related to sport (but it might be to positional tactics, or nutrition, or psychological or other well being activities, such as not gambling, or not taking drugs etc).
The idea is that you rate yourself on each spoke, with a rating closest to the outside of the web indicating being close to or at ‘elite’ status. Have a go at identifying KPIs for your sport (or position) on each spoke, and then rating yourself for each category. Choosing a rating closer to the centre of the spider web means you rate yourself s being no good at that skill pr quality. Choosing the outside band of the spider web for that skill or quality means you rate yourself as ‘the best in your group’ would.
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Once you’ve put a dot or an X on each spoke, join them up to create the spider web (see diagrams, below). Apart from doing this exercise on yourself (ie. just with one set of lines on a web), it’s also possible (preferable?) for a coach to identify for an athlete which areas the athlete needs to improve on to make him or her a better athlete (see diagrams, below). Opening up lines of communication between the athlete and coach is desirable, because athletes need to know specifically what they can do to improve themselves in the eyes of the coach and the Spider Web Profile really spells this out.
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This diagram (above) represents a rating where you have compared yourself to an elite level athlete. The spokes selected in this example could relate to tennis, badminton, volleyball etc (since ‘serve’ is one of the KPIs) but the athlete has also chosen some other KPIs that he or she wants to work on, such as ‘fitness’ and ‘mental toughness’. Other spokes are rated but the spokes aren’t labelled in this example.
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In this example, the player’s rating (in red) is contrasted with the coach’s assessment of the player (in orange). Having someone else’s opinion of how well you play (particularly if they are in a position of judging whether you deserve your place in the squad next week) can be nerve-wracking, but good, honest feedback is essential if you are to progress in sport.
I’ve done this exercise most successfully with a football club, where I had the team break into three groups (forwards, midfield and defenders). Each player completed the Spider web Profile on the KPIs the group nominated was most relevant for the group (ie. the midfielders all decided what were the important characteristics for an elite midfielder at that club; the defenders all decided on the
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KPIs for their position; and, the forwards all decided on the KPIs for their position). They rated themselves, and then put their (named) profile into the pile and the players within that group critiqued the rating (based on the KPIs). That is, they assessed whether the player was too hard, too easy, or ‘just right’ in assessing their value to the team on their KPIs. Talk about honesty! It was a most productive session, and by the end, there was no doubt where a player needed to improve, in the eyes of the player’s team mates!
Achievement Management Plan The last type of goal setting I want to talk about is the Achievement Management Plan (AMP). The AMP can be used in conjunction with the Spider Web Profile. For instance, for an athlete whose spider web is not at an elite level, the athlete and coach can identify the steps (or stages) an athlete can do to start moving themselves closer to that ideal. It most often involves correcting technique (ie. the coach’s domain), so that’s the example I will use but sometimes it might be to do with thinking about things differently – ie sport psychology – such as creating a pre-shot routine, for example, (but I’ll talk more about that later). For the AMP, you identify one goal per page of AMP. You choose the weakest goal from the Spider Web Profile (or one that you choose to work on as a priority). Then, you break that skill (remember, we’re talking technique in this example) into its
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smallest components, and write them down in chronological order (ie. in the order in which you carry out that skill), starting from beginning to end. That is, if you executed each step correctly, you’d have a perfect execution overall and the skill would be one you might see in an elite athlete. (At this stage, it’s often a good idea to get input from the coach, since they are likely to be the expert on technique-related skills.)
Below is an example from tennis, where the skill is ‘serving a tennis ball’. The (sub)skills are written underneath the general skill as they occur (in order). Each column represents a moment in time, which might be after a training session, or after a competition. All sub-skills would normally be assessed at the beginning (for the expected value) and at the end of the session (for the actual, or achieved, value). The actual (A) and expected (E) values are the two numbers written in each individual square. The number after the diagonal ( / E ) is the expected outcome, where outcome might be the total number of times the outcome might be expected to occur in that session, or represent a percentage, or it might simply be a ‘yes/no’ as to whether the outcome occurred. For example, in the first sub-skill (visualise ball placement), before the session commenced the athlete expected a 75% success rate (ie. remembering to use 5 senses to see clearly where the ball was to be placed each time the ball was served in training). The This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 68 Michelle Pain, PhD
number before the diagonal in that square represents the actual (or achieved) outcome value ( A / ), which you might record during the session or immediately afterward. In this example, the athlete remembered to visualise the ball placement 70% of the time.
Only once the session has concluded and the actual/achieved values are recorded, can the next session’s expected values be estimated. The trick here is to choose a new expected value for the next session that isn’t too tough to meet, but not too easy (think of our rubber band we used in our goal setting example earlier on). You want to keep moving in an ‘upwards’ direction, but you don’t want to be discouraged if you can’t meet the target. So, if you didn’t meet the target in the last round (in the example above,
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look at the ‘shoulder rotation’ row), but you weren’t too far off, I’d keep the expected value the same as it was as the last round.
If you were a fair way off (refer in the example above to the ‘ball toss’) or even a little way off (eg. refer to the ‘reach for the ball’ row), you might think about lowering your expectations a bit (just a little) so you don’t lose confidence, especially if there was a good reason why you didn’t make the target (eg. sustained a minor injury). Think about how far off the target you were, and adjust your expectations accordingly. Modification is a key element of the goal setting process. If you sustain a major injury, you’ll definitely need to rethink all your expected values to make them in line with your new capabilities. Don’t push yourself too fast too early if that is the case – better to make a slow but sustained comeback rather than risking re-injury. There is a risk that an athlete coming back from a serious injury might not push him- or her- self hard enough (because there is the fear of re-injury), so it might be necessary to show the AMP to the treating medical personnel for their expert opinion. You may get to 100% on a particular sub-skill before you finish a row. If you get to 100% and then do it again and again consecutively (ie. three times in a row), you can stop measuring that sub-skill (because it’s figured you’ve mastered it by now). Still continue measuring the other sub-skills and continue to do the
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sub-skill you’ve mastered, of course (but you don’t have to keep recording it - unless you really want to!). If you want to work on more than one general skill at a time, that’s OK, but I wouldn’t try working on more than two or three. You want to make sure you can devote a clear head to identifying patterns of play that are effective, so you can keep improving over time. If you try to work on too many things simultaneously, it just gets too confusing. Better to do it right the first time! Now, using the blank template provided, you have a go at identifying a general skill you want to work on. Maybe pick on something that was a bit low (in your estimation) from the Spider Web Profile. Then identify the sub-skills that go into that general skill (you may not need to fill the whole page, but there are usually at least 2-3 sub-skills – and most often more - for every general skill) and place them in order that you do them when you completed that general skill. Your selected sub-skills might be technical, or psychological (eg. think about…) or physiological (eg. take a deep breath…) factors to identify as part of the general skill. Include them in chronological order (ie. the order in which you would normally do them). You might need to do it in pencil so you can change the order, if required. Many people have never really thought about what goes into a general skill in that amount of detail before, so you may need to make changes or add or subtract information. If you know
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someone with the same general skill to do as you, why not compare notes and see if you can learn something from one another? Once you are happy with the order of your sub-skills, pick your expected values for the first session. You could label the top of the column so you know whether it was a training session or a competition. (You might even want to go a bit more ‘high tech’ and include details like the weather conditions – if yours is an outdoor sport – or how you were feeling at the time.) When you decide how often you are going to record your activity (ie. every training session), decide on your first lot of expected values and put them in the first column. Don’t make it too hard or too easy, but you mean to be aiming for each session to be challenging (ie. something you have to work consciously on, in order to improve yourself). This first lot of expected values are the hardest to decide, because you’ve probably never recorded yourself in such detail before. Chances are you won’t get it ‘spot on’ to start with, so bear in mind you can fiddle with the numbers for the first couple of sessions until you get a better feel for it.
Really, there shouldn’t be any difference between your effort in training and in competition. If you always train with 100% effort (as you would do in a competitive performance) you can become accustomed to that level of concentration (and can then do it
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automatically – without needing to think about it – when the pressure is on). That should be your aim. Goal setting is all about measuring your behaviour – remember to make all your goals ‘SMART goals’ – and quantifying behaviours ‘before’ and ‘after’. Using goal setting techniques enables you to evaluate whether what you are doing is leading to sporting improvement. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are really useful for a team (or athlete) to draw attention to the things that lead to improvement for the team (or individual). OK, on the next page is a blank Achievement Management Plan (AMP) for you to try to fill in. Select an area you want to improve. See how you go at identifying SMART sub-goals to place in chronological order and picking out a realistic expected value to start with (based on your current level of fitness or skill etc), then evaluating (after training or competition) how you went (ie. to give you your actual value), and then selecting an appropriate new expected value to go in the new column.
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Focus your attention on things that matter Being busy isn’t the same thing as being excellent. Some of the best advice I have heard was ‘Trying harder (ie. putting in more effort) isn’t always the best use of your resources’. Sometimes athletes perform better if they ease off a bit on the muscular effort, and put a bit more thinking into their performance (ie. increase their strategic effort).
Controlling distractions I recommend you expend your energy on focusing your attention on the things that matter; those things that will help you become a better athlete. Resolve to not pay attention to the things that don’t matter (ie. these are the distractions). ‘Control the controllable; for all else, just let go’. This is good advice. Too often in pressure situations athletes start worrying about things they can’t actually control (including how well prepared their opponent is).
I can suggest putting a big sign up somewhere that says something like, ‘Is what I’m thinking, or doing, right now helping me become the best I can be?’. That sign can remind you to pay attention to your thoughts and actions, and not waste time and energy on things that are not helpful. This is a useful sign to have up in the change rooms during a big final, because it recognises that we can easily become distracted by things around us and the
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thoughts that pop into our head to do with performing on a big stage (that’s natural), but you notice when you are thinking or doing those things that aren’t helpful, and then take corrective steps to think and act more productively.
Controlling expectations Sometimes we sabotage ourselves by thinking too far ahead of ourselves (eg. ‘it will feel great when I win this match’, ‘I can’t believe I’m about to win this race’) and these thoughts, and those we think others are placing upon us (eg. ‘Mum and Dad will be so proud of me if I can pull this off’, ‘My coach wants me to win this so badly’) that these expectations can interfere with an athlete thinking clearly in the present, leading to mistakes being made (or worse, pressure being heaped upon the athlete so they appear to become paralysed in their decision making). This is commonly known as ‘choking’ and there are some very famous examples in sport. To be labelled a choker is one of sport’s highest insults. It implies that one had the talent to win, but failed to do so because of premature thoughts of celebration. If an athlete notices that he- or she- is starting to think too far ahead, I would have them remind themselves to concentrate on the things that matter right now and to leave ‘whatever happens’ to the future. It is worth practicing ‘what if’ scenarios in training by simulating the pressure of the last few minutes of competition as best as possible. I would recommend to a coach to incorporate a
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decision-making skill session at the end of a physically demanding training session (to simulate the physical tiredness an athlete experiences at the conclusion of a match) so the athlete can practice clearing her or his mind and identifying an effective strategy that will help them win the next point, or set up the team play etc. Strategies that can become automatic in training, under pressure, are more likely to come off in competition. You could use key words or images to remind yourself of the qualities you want to adhere to when under pressure. I really like the key word ‘100% APE’ to remind athletes to give 100% effort, have a positive attitude, be physically strong and have no excuses by the end of the competition. I like my athletes to train 100% APE so that they become used to putting in maximal effort every time they prepare to compete.
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Other sport psychology skills Apart from working with individual athletes to improve their thinking, if I’m working with a team I also give educational sessions and sometimes I conduct research. I’ve found this is a good way to open dialogue between myself and a team and generally introduce to them the way a sport psychologist works (especially if they’ve not met one before). An educational session might lead to an opportunity for more work with the team, or to work with individual athletes on a private basis. Doing research quantifies behaviours so you can look and see if patterns emerge (and see if you can come up with a suggestion as to what to do about it). The headings in this section give some idea of possible research projects. If I’m not already working with the team, I may give an educational session to the group purely to educate them about some aspect of sport psychology work that I do. The typical sessions I might run (for which I have prepared 45 minute talks) are around the themes of Goal Setting, Arousal Control, as well as a talk on Seven Mental Skills (based on James Loehr’s Psychological Performance Inventory) to illustrate seven typical mental skills how athletes can work to improve them. In addition, all the talks usually have a more general component (taking about 15 minutes) where I discuss about what sport psychologists do, what it takes to qualify as a sport psychologist etc (and is more of a question and answer session drawing on a few examples).
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Part of my role as a sport psychologist has been to co-ordinate a mid-season team review. For this, I used the framework of a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a whiteboard or flip chart tool where the page is divided into 4 quadrants (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and – with a bit of preplanning to suggest some dot points to go in each category if discussion slows – you ask participants to throw up some ideas to jot into each category. That way, you get everyone’s ideas and everyone feels part of the process (making follow through on decisions more likely). As part of the mid-season review, I also conducted some research because I wanted anonymous responses to evaluate (give positive and negative constructive feedback) for particular positions within the group (both for team roles among the playing and coaching group, as well as for the support personnel, including the administration). For both the SWOT analysis and the research, my job was to summarise the findings by creating themes and suggesting possible ways to move forward, so these types of sessions involve a bit more complexity and skill than just ‘straight’ sport psychology. If a team or individual was dealing with a crisis, the phrase Sergeant Major Eats Sugar Cookies (SMESC) can be used to summarise the process. It stands for: Situation – what is the problem?; Mission – What is the objective?; Execution – What tactics are we going to employ?; Support – What logistics do we
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need (eg. people, equipment)?; Command – What other organisations need to be involved (eg. management, media/PR)?
Communication approaches (Note: This ‘Communication’ section is more aimed at someone training to be a sport psychologist, although athletes may be interested to see the sorts of things that run through a sport psychologist’s head when they are involved in a counselling session.) I always ask my athlete clients what they know of sport psychology and how they think it might help them. I deal with a lot of young athletes (aged 12-17) in my practice and most of them don’t really know what sport psychology can do for them. Often their parents have recommended seeing a sport psychologist, and sometimes a coach has suggested it. My older clients (20-25 years old) might have read something about sport psychology, but for the most part, my clients aren’t exactly sure what I do, but have an inkling that ‘sport psychologists help athletes, so therefore I should be able to help them’.
Learning styles I take an educative approach when I work with athletes. I figure I’m entering into a professional relationship with the athlete, and I’m
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planning on teaching them some strategies so that when they walk out the door at the end of the first session, they have something to try in training that I think will help them. I try to use different learning styles to get my point across (since I usually don’t know before hand which learning style the athlete favours). The three learning styles are auditory (hearing), visual (seeing), and kinaesthetic (doing). I usually provide reading material (dot points, most often) so that the athletes (and their parents, in the case of my younger clients) can refer to some pointers and be reminded of what we covered in the session (eg. visual). Because my notes are written down, a lot of the session is spent discussing things (ie. auditory) so that I am interacting directly with the client, and towards the end I would go to the written sheets and remind the athlete what we covered by pointing to the notes and maybe writing in something that deviated from the pre-prepared notes. During the session, I also have the athlete move into the centre of the room (instead of remaining seated on the couch) and we might practice an exercise in the way they might do it at training (eg. kinaesthetic). By using all three learning styles in each session, I am confident I am teaching my client the skills they need in their preferred learning style, so they will understand how and when to use them. There are other communication techniques I use when working with my clients that build rapport and assist in gaining information
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about my client and the environment in which they train and compete.
Verbal and Non-‐Verbal Cues Verbal cues are easy – these are the things athletes tell me about in our session. But still, I’m not always taking just their word for things. I’m always trying to see if there are alternative explanations for the way the athlete has been treated (ie. to see if there is another side to the story). I always give my younger clients the option of having a parent in the session with them. Sometimes this is helpful if the parent can explain a situation more clearly, but the downside is that a parent’s presence might be more inhibiting for the young client. (At a Peer Support Network meeting with other sport psychologists, I think some of my colleagues were aghast that I would even offer to have a parent present, as they seemed to fear the young client might be less likely to speak their mind. I haven’t found that to be a problem, and in fact I have found the child often feels more comfortable and confident with a familiar adult around to help clarify what they want to say, and to help recall specific examples where an issue has arisen.) Apart from looking for other explanations – which I do in my head, not out loud in front of the client – I am also looking at whether there is a mismatch between what the client is saying and how
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 82 Michelle Pain, PhD
they ‘look’ (ie. in terms of body language). Body language gives us useful non-verbal cues, and includes the way things were said (eg. forcefully, reluctantly) as well as body position (eg. crossed arms, looking down or looking away etc). Where there are mismatches in what is said and how it is said, I would ask a few more questions of the client to try to get to the truth of the matter - or at least work out if the perceived mismatch comes from other explanations (eg. shyness, low confidence etc).
Building rapport When you first meet your client, look at your client’s eyes, introduce yourself by name and shake their hand confidently. You want to give the impression that you have knowledge (ie. sport psychology, counselling skills etc) that you are willing to share with them. When sitting down to begin talking with a client, it is good practice to sit towards the edge of your seat, leaning slightly towards the client. Leaning backward (away from the client) or sitting too far back in your chair gives the client the impression you are not involved in their issue. Make sure you talk to the client and make eye contact. Firstly, for those hard of hearing, they may be trying to read your lips (not to mention trying to read your verbal and non-verbal cues!), but it is polite to look at someone’s face when you are speaking to them. It shows you are interested in what they have to say.
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Next, when you are speaking with your client, you might occasionally say ‘hmmm’ and nod, to signify your agreement or that you heard the client correctly. On this last matter, you might re-phrase what they’ve said to clarify your understanding of the issue, or to show that you have been listening to the client. After they have described a particular situation, (and after you’ve received their verbal and non-verbal cues) you might take a punt and say, ‘I can see that would make you feel ____’ (and suggest what you might be feeling if you were in their shoes). This is empathy.
Insightfulness The success of a session, to my mind, depends very heavily on the insightfulness of the client. I can recall two instances in the last 25 years where a client has come to me for assistance and I have felt that I have been unable to help them. One was a child who was brought along by his mother and really didn’t understand what I could do or him (or why he was there at all). He thought he was performing well enough, and his mother thought I could teach him something, but the need didn’t exist so there was no motivation to benefit from the time we spent together. The other time was with an adult. She was a golfer and knew there was a problem with her game but didn’t want to share that with me. (I think she expected me to be psychic!) In both cases, in spite of my best efforts, I wasn’t able to develop enough rapport to work effectively with the client. These are the sessions that stick in my mind as failures. Oh
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well…(in my best countering and ego-protecting style I would say, ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’, and ‘nobody’s perfect’).
Delivering the message The quarter time, half time and three quarter time speeches by coaches fall into this category, but it is my belief that a coach ought to be measured in his or her words rather than being too aggressive or too passive (as if the latter is likely!). A coach ought to be respected for her or his actions and words, so flying off the handle and reacting to a situation without having a calm plan of action would be a mistake. It’s just as important for coaches to use sport psychology techniques to clear their head and think clearly, as it is for athletes.
A good coach will be aware of each athlete’s own preferences for receiving information (so that it is passed along in a timely and effective way to allow the athlete to perform to the best of his or her ability). The coach should know how much information to give each athlete (some athletes like to know a lot, and some athletes just want to know only what affects them), and when the athlete likes to receive the information (ie. how long before the event).
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You can imagine that a young player selected to play in a major event (like a Grand Final or a Test match for Australia) might be informed on the morning of the event so as not to upset their sleep patterns the night before. Or some players might prefer an unexpected selection to be broken to them a few days prior to the event, so they can feel properly prepared. The timing may depend on many factors, like the athlete’s age, experience, and the significance of the event.
Feedback is a two-way process Athletes ought to be encouraged to voice their opinions (in the right forum) if they are dissatisfied with a situation. When working with athlete clients who are unhappy with the way something in their sporting environment is occurring (eg, how the coach or selectors are treating them, how their parents are treating them), I might have them rehearse with me what they want to say. In this way, in a ‘safe’ environment, they can practice delivering their message in a calm and logical way. It should be brought to the athletes’ attention if a situation is unable to be changed owing to factors outside the control of those present. Then it has to be ‘harden up, sunshine’ and/or finding a better forum to voice the dissatisfaction. Throughout my session with a client there may be more than one issue to work on, so part of the feedback process is to ascertain the priority of the client. ‘Would you rather work on this right now,
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or that?’ might be a question I would ask. Or after we’ve decided and I’ve suggested a strategy and we’ve practiced it, I might ask ‘do you think you’ll be able to do that at training in the next week?’ to check that I haven’t confused the client and they feel comfortable following through on the suggestions. Asking questions of the client is a good way to elicit feedback. Sometimes (if I’m working in a kinaesthetic kind of way), I might get the athlete to stand at one end of the room and I would stand at the other. I tell the client that the distance represents how far away they were to a solution to their issue before this day. Then, I ask them to move closer to me to illustrate how close they think they are to solving their issue as a result of us working together in the session this day. Of course, I’m hoping the client moves very close to me, but if they haven’t, we would spend more time clarifying where we have moved from the original goal. I might do this particular exercise with about 15 minutes to go (of our hour long session), so we have time to back track a bit, so that we can agree that by the end of the session they have something to work on that they think will help.
Effect of Negative Feedback If you have to give negative feedback, there are ways to deliver the message so it is palatable to an athlete. I highly recommend the 1983 book One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard with Spencer Johnson. It is based on the principle that people who feel good about themselves produce the best results. I believe this too. In
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brief, Blanchard suggests taking a moment to review your team’s goals, look to see how the team’s performances deviate from the goal, and if it is different (ie. less than expected) find ways to make the behaviours (eg. KPIs) into the goals that can be attained, thus leading to improved performance.
I did some research with Alex Bartsch back in 1999 and 2000 where we were able to gain access to a number of the AFL clubs and ask their players to take The Attentional and Interpersonal Style inventory (TAIS, 1996 version, by Robert Nideffer). This was the test I encouraged the AFL to use at their Draft Camp back in 1997 (to prevent clubs from giving the same test – or tests - to a player multiple times). I really love the TAIS! I think it can give some very insightful information about the thinking patterns of athletes. One of the benefits (?) is that it has an inbuilt ‘depression’ subscale, where ‘depression’ indicates disordered thinking around the sorts of things like inability to sleep, worries, feelings of worthlessness etc.
(The reason I’ve put ‘benefits’ followed by a question mark is that the Depression subscale is very powerful, and one has to be prepared for the fact that some athletes – even if they haven’t come to visit a sport psychologist for that reason – may be suffering from depression. In fact, they may be counting on you picking it up, even if they don’t say so overtly. It’s a good idea to know of some resources to help clients with depression or other This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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mental health issue: the client’s local GP; Lifeline 13 11 14; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Headspace at headspace.org.au; Beyond Blue at beyondblue.org.au; Young and Well CRC at yawcrc.org.au; and SANE at sane.org.au.)
As part of the study into attentional and interpersonal styles between forwards (ie. goalkickers), backs (ie. defenders) and midfield players, my colleague visited one AFL team on the Monday after a Saturday match in which that team was absolutely smashed on the scoreboard. Unbeknownst to us, many of that team’s best players were severely chastised by the coach in front of their team mates. My colleague collected the data on the Monday and we started entering the data in the afternoon. Immediately it was apparent that there was a problem at the club so I contacted the club liaison that we had dealt with that previous day to say that a number of their players were quite severely depressed and that I held grave concerns about one player in particular (and significant concerns for five others), and that the club ought to ensure these players were followed up to receive some sort of assistance right away (or at the very least, to enquire if they are okay). The liaison thanked me for alerting him to the situation and confessed it was probably as a result of that player (as well as the five others we had nominated to him) having had ‘strips torn off them’ by the coach in front of the team. He told me he’d check them out right away. (About 20 minutes later he rang
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me back threatening legal action if I spoke to the press about it but admitted that there was an issue for the reasons he’d spelt out.)
While we weren’t privy to what the coach said, it was absolutely fascinating to me was the fact that the six players we identified with the higher than usual depression scores (a) were the ones that took the brunt of the coach’s wrath, and (b) it took them more than a month to be back in the ‘best players’ list in the newspapers (where they would normally be each week). Negative criticism has the power to affect players adversely for a long period of time (usually much more than one match), so a coach ought to weigh up whether the short term benefit of getting something off his or her chest is in the long term interests of the team. As it happens, this coach was sacked at the end of the season. Apparently the coach had lost the respect and trust of the players. I noted with interest that this coach had been miked up for a significant match in recent years and his three quarter time address was captured for the TV audience. Even though his team was down at three quarter time, his style was completely different and much more closely aligned to the optimal feedback style. I hadn’t seen him in operation for about 10 years and was really pleased to see the difference, because until then, he had lost my respect for him as a coach too. I guess coaches can make mistakes too, and it shouldn’t be held against them forever.
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In my opinion, coaches who express their frustration by abusing a player (especially in public, or in front of team members) are not being as effective as they could be as a coach. They miss the opportunity to model ‘grace under pressure’ that they hope their players will follow.
Role playing I have used role playing as a tool for an athlete to rehearse that which they want to say to a team mate, coach or family member if the athlete didn’t feel confident they could cope with the other person’s reaction to their news. Role playing allows the athlete to try out a range of ways to communicate something that for them is difficult to say straight out to the other person (either because of unbalanced power - where what the athlete says may impact on their future selection as a team member - or an athlete has some difficult news to impact eg. imminent retirement or injury concerns etc). I might take the part of the other person and the athlete tries to rehearse what they would say when the other person (ie. me) reacts to their news, or I might play the part of the athlete breaking the news and my client acts out the reactions of the other person.
Confidentiality As a sport psychologist working with athletes or coaches, my aim is to be as transparent and honest with my client as possible, because you need that to build rapport with your clients. An issue arises, of course, in that grey area over ‘who is the client’. This is
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something that needs to be ironed out early in discussions with a coach, or a club, preferably before an issue arises. For example, if you are working for a team (paid or unpaid), is your allegiance to the coach, or the board of a club, or to the athlete? If you are working with a young athlete (ie. a minor), are you obliged to notify the parents? I’ve worked with a couple of ‘tricky’ cases in my lifetime, including sensitive issues like rape (where two different coaches were convicted of improper relationships/rape of their players, in two different sports), athletes ‘coming out’ to their family, athletes with cutting behaviours, and athletes with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These issues require a long term commitment to counselling sessions, often involving other family members. Negotiating the minefield of boundaries is difficult, but in all instances I would say that my primary duty of care was with the athlete and if that is in conflict with what the team or coach requires, then I would have a problem. Luckily for me, the coaches I have worked for have given me almost free reign to do as I saw fit with the athlete, knowing I was doing so in the athlete’s and team’s best interests and only needed to be aware in only vague terms what I was doing at the time. At a la ter date, with the fully healed athlete’s permission, I was able to disclose more fully the nature of my work with the athlete (without being too specific).
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Sport Psychology Research It is important for sport psychologists to be aware of the results of research, so they can inform their clients of ‘best practice’ procedures. Here are some topics that have interested me over he years.
Psychological Momentum Examining psychological momentum shifts in behaviours that facilitate improvement in performance is a real interest for me. On rare occasions, a ‘one off’ act can bring about sustained change but usually it takes the combined actions of a group (ie. a critical mass of players) to change a team’s fortunes on the field. It’s a bit like a car that hasn’t been serviced for a while. It is able to drive forward with a cough and a splutter on the engine’s misfiring cylinders, but proper, consistent, smooth forward propulsion requires all cylinders firing (or at least in my experience, a critical mass of players all being effective at the one time). “Momentum is a massive thing, and what it did today will give us a big lift for the remainder of the Ashes,” said Andrew Strauss (July 2009). Early research took a simplistic approach (whomever won the first point in tennis won the match 61% of the time) but ‘momentum’ itself appeared to play a small role once other factors were taken into account (ie. ability of the players; support, particularly financial backing; and preparation).
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The aim of psychological momentum is to create opportunities for you or your team (or limit opportunities by the opposition) by creating pressure in a consistent way. I’ve looked a bit at psychological momentum in cricket, and the way to build momentum is by scoring runs (if you are the batting side) or minimising runs (if you are the fielding side). It’s obvious in cricket how to coach players to use productive behaviours to help lift their team’s performance. What isn’t so obvious is how to minimise the impact of momentum imposed by the opposition. Rather than succumbing to the pressure, the team under siege ought to develop some pre-game strategies for swinging the momentum back their way.
To create pressure if you are the batting side, strategies I would suggest are: looking to hit singles (or at least looking for opportunities to score); hitting to different areas of the ground; make the blowers/fielders feel rushed; hit boundaries; use different shot selection; and ‘play the role’ (ie. hold up an end, keep up with or surpass the required run rate; keep the inform batter on strike etc). To limit pressure if you were the batting side, some strategies might be to: do some mid wicket ‘gardening’ or have mid wicket chats with the other batter; step away to ostensibly adjust your gear but use the time to refocus on your goal; talk with your partner to remind them of conditions (eg. the bowlers’ or fielders’ strengths or weaknesses); and build partnerships (ie. play yourself in and go on to score runs).
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To build pressure if you are the fielding side you could you could: talk between fielders (eg. offer support to the bowler); make the batters feel rushed; take wickets; bowl to a plan; bowl ‘dot’ balls (ie. so no runs are scored from that delivery); attempt run outs (ie. create uncertainty in the mind of the batter as to whether the fielder will hit the stumps with their return); appeal (note: appealing too often or for obvious ‘not out’ decisions is considered unsportsmanlike behaviour); play the role (eg. bowlers create pressure by bowling to a plan, bowling into the wind even if they prefer not to, limiting the run rate, playing ‘second fiddle’ to another bowler etc); and be ready and ‘switched on’ (eg. be in position to take catches, get behind the ball to stop it, stop your mind from wandering if play is slow). If you were the fielding side, to limit pressure from the batting side you could: slow down the tempo of the game; talk between captain and bowler; know the batter’s weakness (ie. scouting); vary deliveries; and bowl to a plan (ie. be purposeful). ESPN Cricinfo gives a ball-by-ball description for all international matches (Men and Women), but the descriptions can be emotive (which may lead to bias, which you want to avoid as a researcher). Google ‘ESPN live scores’ to find the website. Cricket Australia maintains a less emotive description (at http://livescores.cricket.com.au/summary.aspx). Go to View Scorecard, where you can look at the ball-by-ball commentary (which, unlike the ESPN Cricinfo site, goes backwards with the most recent action at the top of the page).
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I prefer the Cricket Australia website, but it is tricky to navigate. To see the description, here’s a screenshot from the Cricket Australia website of the third ODI of Australia’s tour of South Africa, where the Aussie won by three wickets to take the series 2-1 (29/10/11).
The T20 matches and One Day Internationals lend themselves to psychological momentum research, because you get a result in one day and a result is the usual outcome (ie. there are rarely ties or draws). Pressure builds during the course of the match as the team batting first tries to impose itself on the game to set a target the fielding team can’t beat. At the changeover, the fielding side tries to outscore the opposition team. Powerplays have been introduced to make the game less biased toward the batting side.
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If I am using the ball-by-ball analysis from the website – I do this after the match has ended so I know the run rate for the innings, so I am able to say if a batting over was much better, much worse, or no different to the completed innings’ run rate - I colour code each over to signify which team created pressure (solid colour) or limited pressure (light colour) in that over. If I tape the games and watch them back, I usually can put in a bit more detail than if I’m relying on the website to ‘score’ players’/team’s behaviours, because the website commentary focuses only on either the batter or the bowler.
For a TV analysis, I create an Excel sheet with columns (let’s say it’s a ODI, ie. so I have 50 rows per innings for a 50 over game, with a separate sheet for each batting team) and have columns for Over Number, Description of Team A’s behaviours, Colour Code for batting side, Colour Code for fielding side, Description of the Team B’s behaviours, and I have separate sheets for each side’s batting innings. I decide at the end of each over which team has ‘won’ the psychological momentum in that over – depending upon their actions in that over - either by creating pressure (indicated by a dark colour) or limiting pressure (indicated by a light colour). Wickets are signified in an over by a yellow star. Below are a couple of screenshots of my Excel file of the West Indies batting innings in an A match in the 2009 World Cup, played in South Africa, and Australia’s batting innings.
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It seems to me that in the first innings, either the teams were better at creating pressure than limiting pressure (because there are fewer light coloured blocks), or I’m not very good at picking behaviours which limit or negate pressure. (Error in the analysis should always be considered an option!)
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In the second innings (with the West Indies batting), the West Indies appeared powerless against the Aussie attack and could neither create their own nor limit Australia’s pressure (see over the page).
In this match, it became apparent that both teams were not evenly matched (the West Indies lost one of their star batsmen due to injury, so Australia only needed 9 wickets for victory).
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In the final of the 2009 World Cup, with New Zealand batting first (scoring 5/200), the Australian bowlers effectively limited pressure (see next diagram). In the Aussie innings, New Zealand were able to create pressure for the first 15 overs, but then Australia were effective at limiting their pressure and began creating their own pressure.
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What is clear is that creating changes in momentum doesn’t lead to immediate change on the scoreboard. Momentum needs to be sustained over time.
If you wanted to test your ability as a sport psychologist/researcher investigating psychological momentum shifts, I’d recommend identifying behaviours that create your own (or your team’s) This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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pressure, or limit your opponent’s pressure. Then find a way to measure the behaviours over brief periods of time (say, over 5 to 10 minute intervals). Then you would look for patterns during periods of play. I would suggest that, instead of looking at teams, perhaps you might be interested in looking at an individual player’s role within a team, to see if they are maximizing their efforts to create or overcome pressure. Presenting the results to an individual player might be a very powerful motivator to improve aspects of their game.
Motivation Being ‘motivated’ occurs when an athlete sees the benefit in striving for something currently not attained. As a sport psychologist, when I see the word ‘motivation’, I often automatically think of ‘goal setting’ as a solution to the issue, but sometimes motivation can be lost due to factors outside the athlete so we’ll look at a few of those.
‘Losing’ as a de-‐motivator It’s no fun to be an athlete or team that is on a losing streak with no end in sight. Apart from running the risk of being ridiculed, or worse, being felt sorry for, losing should indicate ‘being out performed’ (not that you’ve given up). This can go either of two ways – it might spur an athlete or team to ‘have a good, hard look’
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at themselves and evaluate what they are currently doing right or wrong, or it might cause an athlete or team to not try so hard (as a defence mechanism for the future loss, so they can point to the fact that they weren’t trying too hard…’but if they did, the result might have gone a different way’).
If you are planning to play sport at the ‘pointy end’ (ie. the elite end of the pyramid), you’ve got to be prepared to keep evaluating your progress and make hard decisions about the way forward. This might mean cutting non-performing players (in a team), or thinking about retirement, or having an operation to finally treat a niggling injury with the respect it deserves.
The role of confidence A coach of a team on a losing streak ought not to be immune from having his or her role (and those of the support staff) evaluated to determine if there is a better way to deliver services to the team, but assuming that is all in place, what more can a coach do to motivate the team or athlete? Assuming the team or athlete is competing in the correct grade or standard, a coach would be wise to emphasise the skills the athlete (or players) already do well.
It’s ‘the ol’ back to basics’ training session. The reason this session works is because – if the team or athlete can already do the skill – it builds confidence. A team or athlete without confidence is a team
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or athlete who is already defeated in their own mind – and that‘s not good for creating optimal performance!
Think of teams or athletes known to you who perform with confidence. They look invincible. They look like they always had that skill, and their skills are never going to leave them. But they didn’t always have that level of skill, and inevitably, that aura of invincibility will leave…but that might take some time. By taking skills ‘back to basics’ until the team or athlete feels confident, and then building upwards taking little steps, the confidence will allow a team or athlete to suddenly be right back where they belong. It’s a bit like a roller coaster – a little bit of a push and away we go again!
Team culture For teams who are perennially at the bottom of the ladder (usually it is teams, because athletes who have lost their mojo for some period usually just retire), a change in culture is required. This comes from ‘a clean slate’, or ‘a line in the sand’ being drawn, where something new occurs. Committees may lose patience with a coach of a losing side, and decide to cut their losses and recruit a new coach. But it doesn’t have to be that way. An existing coach, with the support of the players who understand change needs to occur, may recreate a different culture (eg. back to basics, new team rules, change in strategy), or a change in team members.
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It is my opinion that there needs to be a ‘critical mass’ of personnel with the requisite skill and willpower to be part of the new culture. Having one marquee player may get the supporters excited (eg. Chris Judd coming to Carlton), but the team will still languish unless there are a core group of players who can support that marquee player.
I don’t know of any research as to the size effect of the critical mass, my best guess is that a team needs at least a third of the team to become effective ‘core players’ (obviously you want as many as possible!) in order for the team to start to benefit from a marquee player. With an effective core group, the whole team can start to push onwards. They will develop more faith in themselves individually and as a team, because fewer errors are being made. As well as having a total number of core players, the critical mass ought to be present in critical positions as well (ie. forward and defensive positions as well as in the centre of the ground) in order for the whole team to learn and move forwards.
Retirement Choosing when to retire from sport is really difficult, so (if you are an athlete considering retirement) expect to go through a grieving process, particularly if you were in the sport for a long time or you reached an elite level. You are especially lucky if the retirement issue is yours to make, or if retirement is chosen when you are at
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the top of your game. There is far less psychological trauma if you feel in control of the timing of that decision.
For athletes who retire due to injury, or players retiring because the team doesn’t want them to play on any more, the retirement process may be tinged with anger and feelings that their destiny hasn’t yet been fulfilled. As a sport psychologist, I want all my athletes to feel as though they have left their sport when they know they had the opportunity to display all of their talent and ability, but sadly, not everyone is so lucky. Feelings of anxiety about retirement may be lessened, too, if the athlete has been planning for retirement for some time, and they have a plan for the future to look forward to (eg employment, a holiday, leisure time etc). To start you thinking about future career options, I highly recommend the book ‘What colour is your parachute?’ by Richard Nelson Bolles. It’s been a best seller since the 1970s and is revised every year, and although written by an American author and is not ‘sport-based’, it has excellent practical information in it to start you thinking about your own network around you, your own strengths and weaknesses, and other job possibilities.
Burnout Burnout is a condition where an athlete feels mentally and physically exhausted in playing a particular sport, and it doesn’t
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feel worth the effort to train for that sport any more. These feelings can sneak up on an athlete, so that at the end of one season the athlete feels ready to continue in the sport, but by the beginning of the next season they realise that they feel disengaged and uncaring toward the sport. Athletes who are burned out feel like they have given everything they can, but no longer find the sport enjoyable or the competition satisfying. The trick for an athlete is to retire before they get to this state. The symptoms of burnout may be similar to other psychological problems (like depression), so it is important to be aware of the symptoms and treat them seriously. Physical symptoms of burnout include feeling tired and drained most of the time, lowered immunity, frequent headaches or back pain, or a change in appetite or sleeping patterns. Emotional signs of burnout include a sense of failure and self doubt, feeling helpless, trapped or defeated, detachment, or feeling alone, increasingly cynical or having a negative outlook, feeling decreased satisfaction. The behavioural symptoms of burnout include withdrawing from responsibilities, isolating yourself from others, procrastinating, using food, drugs or alcohol to cope with life, taking out your frustrations on others, or skipping out of commitments early. Strategies for recovering from burnout include: 1. Slow Down Take a break, and cut back on commitments to look after yourself. Be gentle on yourself and understand that it is time to look after yourself. 2. Get Support This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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When burned out, your first thought may be to isolate yourself, but it is better to turn to loved ones for support. Share your feelings. 3. Re-evaluate your goals and priorities Burnout is a sign that something in your life wasn’t working as well as it could be, so it’ is time to re-evaluate your hopes and dreams. This time can be an opportunity to rediscover what you really want to do with your life. 4. Acknowledge the losses By changing your life, you may need to deal with the loss of the dream you had when you entered your sport. Or it might be the loss of identity that goes with being an athlete or team member, as well as the loss of friends, sense of community, or sense of mastery that goes with being at that level of sport. Life can still be meaningful and worthwhile, but it will be in a different way to the way it was in the past, and it may take some time to develop.
Personality Assessment The best personality test I know is The Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS) inventory, by Nideffer (1996). It was the research instrument used in a very large study of AFL players, back in 1999 and 2000 by Alex Bartsch and myself. The TAIS was also the instrument I introduced at the 1997 AFL Draft Camp, and it is still used to this day. In the past, I have assisted some AFL Clubs in compiling a list of potential players (based on characteristics particular clubs wanted from their players, ie. who would fit in with the team’s culture and the coach’s style).
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The TAIS is scored and each of the 21 subscales is given a score. The relative height (on the profile) tells the story of the athlete’s preferred ‘style’. Here is what a blank profile looks like (over the page).
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Attentional abilities
There are a set of six subscales (three sets of two: BET-OET, BITOIT, and NAR-RED) on the TAIS profile that, together, indicate where the athlete is attending (ie. to messages inside their head or to the cues around them), as well as their effectiveness. The relative position on the profile of the athlete’s scores on the first pair of subscales indicates how well an athlete can read the play (which is vital in all ball sports). The second pair indicates how well the athlete can strategise (ie. think up other solutions), and the third pair indicates how well a person can swap between reading the play or strategising (as the situation calls for it), or whether they stick with just one style as a preference.
Interpersonal abilities The subscales (going from left to right, after the first six attentional subscales) are to do with information processing (INFP, whether a player prefers a fast-paced environment or slow moving/stable), and the athlete’s control of behavioural impulses (BCON, where a high score often indicates a player likely to take risks, making them perhaps prone to injury if the attentional subscales show errors of judgement are likely, or the inability to follow doctor’s instructions in rehabilitation, or following a coach’s directive).
The next two subscales, control (CON) and self esteem (SES) are used in conjunction with the depression (DEP) subscale, to give a This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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measure of Leadership potential. Then comes an indication of the athlete’s responsiveness to physical challenges (P/O) and their preference for making decisions quickly (OBS). You can imagine this might give an indication of a player’s ability to get rid of the ball before getting caught by an opposition player (looking at OBS and the attentional subscales).
Then the next subscales are extroversion (EXT, the degree to which the athlete likes to be with others) and introversion (INT, the degree to which the athlete likes to be apart from others). This says nothing about their ability – it is just a preference. I would not compare INT and EXT to Reversal theory’s Telic and Paratelic subscales if an athlete has answered questions in a sport setting (eg. using the T/PSI or T/PI) because these are preferences expressed by the athlete whereas the TAIS questions are based on everyday life preferences, which may or may not give the same responses as for sport preferences. (Knowing the number of people who have answered the T/PSI as a ‘life’ type questionnaire, about 50% say that it is not how they are with ‘sport’, so I would say there is not much correlation between them unless the athlete answering the TAIS has be asked to do so referring to their behaviours in a sport setting.) Lastly, of the subscales drawn on the profile, are three subscales to do with verbal expression. They are intellectual expression (IEX, the degree to which an athlete feels inclined to share their ideas with others), positive affect expression (PAE, the degree to which an athlete offers encouragement or praise to others) and negative This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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affect expression (NAE, the degree to which an athlete offers negative feedback – criticism, constructive or otherwise) to others. The original version of the TAIS (1976) ended here, but the revised edition (in 1996) added two new subscales, focus over time (FOT, referring to a person’s willingness to put other distractions away in order to concentrate on the task at hand) and performance under pressure (PUP), and these aren’t drawn on the profile but are written on the right hand side (along with the depression score). I imagine that Shane Warne would score high on both these subscales – the number of times his private life was swirling in the media and yet he managed to play brilliantly for Australia in spite of it all!
The PUP subscale, I think, is almost the most valuable one there. In our study of AFL football players, a certain subgroup scored high on this subscale. They were either (or both) the captains of the team, and/or players who won or scored high on individual honours like Brownlow medals, Coleman medals, Rising Star awards etc. It seems to be an excellent indicator of a champion player.
Using the TAIS for selection When I’ve worked with a Club or an organisation to help with selection of potential recruits, I’ve had a conversation to discuss the requirements of the task (ie. what are the qualities the This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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club/organisation thinks are important), including the relative importance (ie. ranking and ‘quantity’ of that characteristic compared to others) and I then find combinations of TAIS subscales that measure that quality.
For instance, if you’re looking to recruit a midfielder, I’d expect that reading the play (BET-OET) would be a very important skill, and if you want that person to be able to think laterally and strategise (if things aren’t going well), then ‘thinking’ (BIT-OIT) would be high too. I would always want a player with a high performance under pressure (PUP) score (probably more than any other TAIS quality). If I wanted a good leader who leads by example (High P/O together with Moderately-High CON minus low DEP), or who leads by verbal commands and encouragement (High PAE together with Moderately-High CON minus low DEP), I might look for a combination of scores.
OK, now have a think about the personality requirements of the sport you play/coach, specifically, a positional role (if you play in a team), or for an individual sport. What helps a person excel in that role? Write down a few characteristics here: eg. archer who needs to gather lots of information and strategise ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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Now, look back over the description of the subscales and match the subscale code (INFP, BCON, BET-OET etc) to the ‘personality characteristic’ you want to be measured by the TAIS. eg. archer who needs to calculate wind speed, target distance etc might need high INFP and high BIT-low OIT ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Alright, we’ve had a go at identifying the relevant personality characteristics, but sometimes a role requires more of one quality than another (ie. they are not equally important). In that case, there are a few more steps... I would prioritise these desired qualities, and then identify the range of scores on each TAIS subscale (for each quality) that classified a particular performer as being ‘ideal’ (given a score of 5), ‘excellent’ (a score of 4), ‘good’ a score of 3), ‘satisfactory’ (a score of 2), ‘not satisfactory’ (a sore of 1) and ‘not at all ideal’ (a score of 0). You should aim to end up with a numerical score that allows you to compare one individual to another. This is true of each quality is ranked equally important. If they are not, you ought to consider a multiplier to influence the importance.
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After discussions with the club or organisation about the relative importance of each characteristic, the most important factor might be given a 1, while the second and third factors are equally ranked, and may be multiplied by a factor of 0.8, and the fourth factor multiplied by 0.65, and the fifth factor multiplied by 0.4), and then a single score would reflect how a particular potential recruit compared to another potential recruit. This is the basis of objective ranking based purely on the characteristics the club/organisation believes will be important for the recruit to possess.
That is, if you identified five qualities that were important in a particular role, and one was vital, and the next two factors were very important (but equally so), and the next was less important but useful, and the fifth factor was the least important, you might have an equation like this (using the multipliers we mooted in the previous paragraph, which are purely arbitrary for this example): S = (PUP x 1.0) + ((BET-OET) x 0.8) + ((BIT-OIT) x 0.8) + ((P/O + (CON - DEP) x 0.65) + (PAE + (CON – DEP) x 0.4), where ‘S’ stands for the selected candidate
If you had to choose one candidate from a pool of 3 potential players, which one might you select, using the formula we came up with and given the following ratings for each of the five subscale combinations?
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Qualities
Player 1
Player 2
Player 3
PUP
3
4
2
BET-OIT
4
3
5
BIT-OIT
3
2
4
P/O & CON-DEP
5
4
3
PAE & CON-DEP
4
4
5
Here is the formula again: S = (PUP x 1.0) + ((BET-OET) x 0.8) + ((BIT-OIT) x 0.8) + ((P/O + (CON - DEP) x 0.65) + (PAE + (CON – DEP) x 0.4) Calculations: For Player 1, (3 x 1) + (4 x 0.8) + (3 x 0.8) + (5 x 0.65) + (4 x 0.4) = 3 + 3.2 + 2.4 + 3.25 + 1.6 = 13.45 For Player 2, (4 x 1) + (3 x 0.8) + (2 x 0.8) + (4 x 0.65) + (4 x 0.4) = 4 + 2.4 + 1.6 + 2.6 + 1.6 = 12.2 For Player 3, (2 x 1) + (5 x 0.8) + (4 x 0.8) + (3 x 0.65) + (5 x 0.4) = 2 + 4 + 3.2 + 1.95 + 2 = 13.15 So, based on these calculations, Player 1 would be preferred, then Player 3, then Player 2. If, like at the AFL Draft Camp, a player might be selected by another club before your club got a chance to select them, then that player would be (literally) ruled out, and the next best available player would then be due to be selected.
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Fear of Failure A fear of failure can drive some people to achieve and persist in the face of challenge and adversity so that they are thought of as being a successful athlete, but it can also lead to a lot of self doubt and is generally an unpleasant state to be in for the duration of a sporting career. At it’s most debilitating, fear of failure can cause an athlete to underachieve in the face of high anxiety, leading an athlete to a life of learned helplessness, where they don’t feel in control of their performance nor trust their feelings. Success oriented people tend to be optimistic and they adopt a proactive and positive orientation to tasks. They respond to setbacks with optimism and enthusiasm. Failure avoiders are usually anxious, and motivated by a fear of failure. They live in self doubt and aren’t confident their hard work can avoid failure or achieve success. These people are likely to be adversely affected by setbacks, as they confirm their doubts about whether they can avoid failure. Failure avoiders lack resilience. In response to a fear of failure they may actively sabotage their chances of success (eg. procrastination, or not trying hard enough, or not putting in the hard work) so that they have an excuse at the ready if they don’t perform as well as others expect of them (as ‘save face’ so they can say that their ability is unchallenged, it’s just their aptitude that is at fault). On the other hand, failure accepters are those who may
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have started out as failure avoiders but now have developed tendencies of learned helplessness. They are disengaged from tasks to the point that they don’t even try any more. They are unmotivated and have no resilience.
According to the above model, with work supported by others, there are two types of failure fearers. The over-striver avoids failure by succeeding (as opposed to the success oriented person who achieves in order to attain success). In an AFL example (and I want to point out that he has never been a client of mine), I would suggest that Glenn Archer (ex-North Melbourne Football Club ‘hard nut’) falls into this category. Since retiring, Glenn has been open about how playing football at the highest level was an unpleasant experience for him, and that he never felt truly competent, and was driven by a fear of failure. He says he often vomited before matches because he was so worried about being able to perform to the standards expected of him.
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If over-strivers do not succeed, failure is seen as proof of their suspected incompetence, and this leads them to develop selfprotection strategies (eg. blame others, find excuses etc). One way self protectors avoid the implications of failure is by self handicapping, where the athlete highlights the obstacles to successful performance (eg. putting in reduced effort, reducing the quality of training/practice, or procrastination). The other self protection method is to set unrealistically low expectations prior to competition. So, how do we move toward a success orientation and leave fear of failure behind? Four factors have been identified which promote success orientation: Self belief; Value and relevance; Mastery (or Learning) focus; and, Control. We’ll look at those in more detail. Self belief is the athete’s belief and confidence in their ability to do well in the area that they set out to do well in; that they can meet the challenges as they arise; and perform to the best of their ability. It’s often related to past performances. Those who have succeeded in the past are most likely to think that success is not far away in the future. Those high in self belief tend to generate and try alternative courses of action when they don’t meet with initial success (ie. they have high levels of persistence). Strategies to build self belief include breaking training up into small units (‘chunking’) so the athlete can experience small successes along the way. Learning time management skills helps a person feel more in control of their life, and thus feel more competent. To build self belief, one has to remove or challenge negative thinking This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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(see earlier sections of this book regarding getting rid of your inner leprechaun!). Finally, one should reduce emphasis on comparing oneself against others and just use yourself as a yardstick to see how much you have improved. This, after all, is something within your own control. When people see the relevance and usefulness of what they are doing, they tend to be more engaged in the tasks, and therefore in a stronger position to achieve. A coach can help here, by stressing how the training drill is useful for the final skill to be used in competition. Coaches ought to be a good role model by showing that they value what they are teaching. A mastery focus means the athlete is striving to improve by working hard, learning more, and solving problems. The athlete is doing a good job for its own satisfaction (not just for a reward at the end, if they are lucky). Those who are mastery or learning focused see their involvement in tasks as reflecting more on their effort than their ability, and failure is viewed as diagnostic feedback that can lead to later success. Emphasis on the outcome (ie. what might possibly transpire as a result of success) is not a useful strategy, as ‘outcome’ is not always within the athlete’s sphere of influence (ie. you can’t control how well your opponent has trained, or your opponent’s level of ability). It is far more productive to concentrate on those things the athlete actually has control over, and these are to do with effort, ability, strategy, and persistence. Ways to improve a mastery or learning focus within a team is to have an athlete pair up with another for peer tutoring, or use cooperative learning methods, or even collaborative learning. This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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‘Control’ refers to the extent to which people believe they are able to avoid failure and achieve success. Those who believe they have little or no control over the outcomes are increasingly uncertain as to whether they can avoid failure or bring about success (because to them it seems random), so they are more likely to engage in counter productive behaviours (eg. not trying hard enough). A sense of control is developed when there is focus on the connection between the athlete’s effort (and strategy) and the outcome, and goal setting is where I would start working with an athlete like this. Finally, feedback that is task-based (ie. saying specifically how the athlete can improve) enhances perceived control, and more likely to lead to improvement.
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Roles in supporting the athlete The role of the sport psychologist The sport psychologist exists in their relationship with the athlete and coach in very much a subordinate role: the aim of the sport psychologist is to make the athlete and coach look good (ie. work with the athlete – or coach – so that he or she performs to the best of their potential). You might be secretly very excited to be working with a particular team or individual but you need to make sure that excitement or awe doesn’t compromise your effectiveness.
How do you know if the sport psychologist is effective? Because a sport psychologist works with an athlete or coach on their thinking patterns (ie. it all happens inside their head), it’s difficult to demonstrate how effective a sport psychologist’s work has been. This is particularly true if you’ve been given carte blanche to work with athletes to get them in their best form possible and the coach is not aware of the exact nature of your work with a particular athlete (which is usually true due to the confidentiality of your meetings with an athlete). Some of my colleagues have recommended using a rating scale during their session with the athlete. Upon ascertaining the issue and getting agreement with the athlete as to the direction the session will take, about 15 minutes before the end of the hour long session (ie. so they might’ve been working on that issue for 20
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minutes or so by then), they would ask the athlete to rate whether they thought the session was on track for addressing the issue (or if they had been side tracked and are now talking about an issue that is off topic). This solution might be good for measuring effectiveness as a sport psychologist with a particular athlete, but it doesn’t really solve the issue of measuring effectiveness within a team. I would suggest, if you are hired by a coach or a sporting organisation to work with a team that you discuss at the outset what their expectations are for your involvement (including the frequency and detail required to report during the year and the level of confidentiality they would expect you to keep with your clients). If you cannot negotiate a settlement that suits you both, walk away. You don’t need your reputation to be sullied in a very small marketplace (ie. Clubs who can afford to and are prepared to use a sport psychologist are small in number!). The important thing is to be upfront at the beginning, so everything is transparent and there is no perception of deception. (Perception is reality in many people’s minds, and it is very difficult to alter a poor reputation, even if untrue.) I’ve found, when working with a team, that about a third of the team reckon they know it all and don’t really want to talk with the sport psychologist. About a third of the group are really keen to see how a sport psychologist can help them, and are enthusiastic about learning more, and about a third are willing to wait and see
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what impact a sport psychologist might have for them. So, the way I feel is that you’ve got about two thirds of the team on side, and I would then try to do things that might educate the other third that builds rapport and leaves the door open in case they change their mind! I would definitely recommend documenting the type of work you do when working with a team. As a psychologist, I am required to keep detailed notes on all of my clients, but those are made to be kept in confidence (ie. for personal reference, and to be provided in court if there is a subpoena). From those, however, I might want to list the types of issues covered and their frequency (both between, and within, individuals). For example, I might see one athlete three times for an anxiety issue, and another three athletes once for an anxiety issue (ie. same issue presented 6 times, but for 4 different clients). Apart from the more ‘clinical’ type of issues, I would list the educational sessions I ran with the group, as well as any other group sessions (ie. mid year or end of year reviews etc) or specialty services (eg. assisting interpreting data from personality tests, selection of players or coaching staff) to demonstrate my value.
The role of the coach The coach is the boss, as far as I am concerned, and the sport psychologist works for the coach to help get everyone on the team (whether we’re talking about an individual athlete and his or her informal support network, or the number of players on a team,
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other support staff etc) ‘onto the same page’. If the team is a large one, there may be more than one assistant coach, but the head coach is the boss because the team’s performance ultimately rests on their shoulders. The coach is responsible for the team (or individual athlete’s) technique or skill level, and decisions about strategy (eg. game plan). Because the coach imparts expertise to an athlete (or group of players), some of my best work as a sport psych has been to help the coach frame the message. For instance, some members of a team may not want to know all the background or reasoning to a particular strategic decision, and really only want to know their role and what their key performance indicators are at that time. Other players may want to know everything. A coach has to pitch the correct amount of information to a group of people that satisfies the learning styles of individual players. The best piece of advice I have is for coaches to keep match day information to 3-4 points maximum, with perhaps one key work to sum up each point written on the whiteboard. (By all means, ‘educate’ those players who want more information ahead of match day with all the information they need, but keep it simple on match day.) I’m not a big fan of the ‘ra-ra’ type of revving up that might go on pre-match (but then again, I’m an extremely telic person which you’ll know what that is if you’ve read my section on arousal
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control), but you have to consider what it is that your team (or athlete) needs, and pitch the message the way that suits them best (and which leads to the best performance). Consider perhaps that some members of the team may need a ‘rara’ type of message (ie. the paratelics), and others would prefer a reminder of key performance indicators (the telics). The coach might deliver the 3-4 points well ahead of the start of the match/competition (ie. over an hour before) and then the athlete prepares him or herself in the way they prefer. The paratelics might have lockers relatively close together, away from the more telic team members because their style of preparation will be quite different. Paratelics tend to enjoy more larrikin behaviour or physical exertion (like bumping) to build excitement prior to a match, whilst telics prefer to think ‘on task’ and be more chilled in their approach. Telics would probably prefer to listen to their own music on headsets. (If you saw into the rooms of the New Zealand All Blacks in their semi-final match against Australia in the 2011 Rugby World Cup, this is exactly what happened. I find it fascinating to watch the way in which teams prepare for a major event.)
The role of game day support personnel Support personnel might include assistant coaches, medical staff (eg. doctors, physiotherapists, masseurs), trainers, strappers, video analysts, scouts, team managers, drink runners, runners and
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the sport psychologist would normally be part of this group. Everyone would have a prescribed role to play on match day. For an important match (like a Grand Final), all of the support personnel should be making sure they are focused on doing their job to the best of their ability (and not being caught up in the hype of the day). “Is what you are doing / thinking right now helpful to your team’s performance?” is a great message to have up in the rooms, to remind people to think and act ‘on task’ and not to be distracted.
The role of family members Family members ought to be a cheer squad for an athlete, and offer whatever material, financial or emotional support they (as a family) decide they are able. It should be noted though, that many elite athletes are unable to continue in their sport because their parents aren’t able to continue supporting them at that level any longer due to competing demands for resources (eg. money, time, presence etc). When resources are scarce, priorities have to be drawn up and maybe having an elite athlete in the family may not be as important as all living in the same city together, or putting food on the table. This is a fact of life, and often the athlete who wins the championship may not necessarily be the most talented, but is the one who perseveres the longest (due to the drop out of his or her competitors) – it’s just a fact of life.
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Conflict over roles Conflict doesn’t exist if there is good communication and everyone is in agreement about what is best for the athlete or team. Everyone needs to be clear about their roles. If roles change over time, new agreements ought to be reached so that the assumption that everyone is happy still doing what they always did (or happy doing the new role) applies. I think what worries me more is the ‘parent as coach’ relationship. A parent’s role is to be a cheer squad member and the boundaries can become blurred when a coach needs to be critical of the athlete. If a parent is the coach, the child athlete needs to know the parent is there for them first and foremost, and then the coach.
Other sources of information Sport psychology techniques may be used in different ways by my colleagues, so it may be worth Googling (‘sport psychology resources’) to see some excellent (and sometimes free!) resources (http://www.appliedsportpsych.org/resource-center; http://www.peaksports.com/free_newsletter.php although I personally find this guy a bit too persistent in his marketing; http://psych.la.psu.edu/undergrad/sports.html; and I like US sport psychologist Karlene Sugarman’s website for clarity http://psych.la.psu.edu/undergrad/sports.html). One of my favourites is www.competitivedge.com (and look on the left side for newsletter sign up and archives). Sign up for the free email
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newsletter. It gets sent out less regularly than a decade ago, but the information in it is ‘gold’ (and if you ignore all the ‘buy me’ prompts, you don’t have to purchase anything). I really like Alan Goldberg’s site because he says things I would, so I’m happy to recommend it (even though he is an American!). His newsletters are usually on a theme, and have three sections: one each for parents, athletes and coaches based on that one theme. I could spend ages looking through his archived newsletters – they’re a great resource. If you are after theoretical (ie. research) topics, a good place to look is at a journal called Athletic Insight (http://www.athleticinsight.com/). The issues used to be free, but now they are sold by subscription, but at least you can see the Abstract and see who the authors were (and if so motivated, you could be the detective and Google that author, noting the institution where they worked, and perhaps you might see the list of research papers they have published or get an email address to contact them in person). Look at the Back Issues (left side of screen) to see the sorts of topics addressed by sport psychologists from around the world. A great way to meet practicing sport psychologists in person is to attend a sport psychology conference. Here, experts gather to share information about their latest research and practice trends. I run an annual sport psychology conference that’s open to anyone interested in sport (although it is pitched to practicing sport
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 131 Michelle Pain, PhD
psychologists). At the moment, the website is here http://www.pocketpsychology.com.au/Pocket_Psychology/Confere nce_details.html but these links get broken over time, so be prepared to Google ‘Victorian Sport Psychology Conference’ to find the details in the future. Lastly, many of Australia’s sport psychologists are based in tertiary institutions (because it’s difficult to earn a full time living as a sport psychologist), and they are usually very friendly and approachable if you make a time to talk with them. I did that when I was at secondary school, and Dr Christina Lee very graciously spent about 30 minutes talking with me about the current state of sport psychology in Australia. Each year, I answer about 30 emails (my preferred mode of contact) from students from all around the world, and I’m generally happy to ‘give back’ to the profession.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 132 Michelle Pain, PhD
The dream Fuel the dream To get quality results, you have to give your body quality fuel to live on. You have to get enough sleep, eat the right foods and drink the right drinks, follow up on rehabilitation recommendations, and take control of negative thoughts etc. If you’re in it for the long haul, you have to take responsibility for yourself. I saw this on an email that does the rounds occasionally. I have no idea who wrote it, but I like the sentiment and imagery. “A science teacher brought a big jar into the classroom and filled it to the brim with large rocks and asked her class “is the jar full yet?” and they thought it was. She then took a bucket of sand and tipped it into the jar with the rocks in it, managing to put more into the jar than the students thought possible. She then asked ‘Is it full yet?” and they agreed it was. And then she tipped a bucket of water into the jar with the rocks and sand, and emptied it into the jar. Now it was finally full.” If the rocks represented all the things we thought were important to us (that we need to do), and the sand represents the things we should do, and the water represents the things that pop up unexpectedly that we also take into account, we can actually fit a lot more into our lives than we originally thought. If we fill our jar with unimportant clutter, we tend to lead unfulfilled lives. It’s
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 133 Michelle Pain, PhD
important for us to have a jar filled with the things that are important to us, and the other stuff will either fit in around it, or be tossed away (because it’s not as important as we thought it was). Being an elite athlete is all about making priorities, and paying attention to the things that matter.
Live the dream You have the chance to do what you want to do. You spend a lot of time following your dream (with training and all the associated activities that go with being a committed athlete, including forgoing having ‘a normal life’) so you need to make sure it is worth it. Enjoy the process. It’s fun being with like-minded, committed athletes and coaches, all striving for excellence. It’s all about the journey – who you meet and have a chance to be influenced by, over the course of your sporting career. It’s not just about the outcome (the medals or trophies won); if it was, ‘success’ would be fleeting. It is about developing into a well rounded person who has compassion and empathy for those who come after, and respect for those who have gone on ahead of you. Don’t be overwhelmed by your opponents. They may be further along the journey that you are, and besides, all you have to do is be the best you can be, and not score yourself against any other criteria. If you’re getting every gram of talent out of your God-given ability - that is the true measure of ‘success’.
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Share your dream Teamwork is really important. Rarely does a performer work truly alone. There’s usually a coach, and perhaps there are others who perform along side you, support staff (like trainers, fitness staff, physios, psychologist, nutritionist etc) and family have usually given support along the way too. Success is way sweeter when it is shared with others. Take the time to let your early coaches know how you are going, and how you appreciated them working with you to help you become the athlete you are now. Lots of people will have done their job well in order for you to ‘have a crack’ at experiencing success, and it’s important for your mental health to acknowledge their efforts too. When athletes retire, they often don’t remember how they felt at the time they won a particular trophy or medal. It’s a bit of a blur. But they can describe in great detail the characters they met along the way – their toughest competitors, or their most inspirational team mates or supporters. They’ll remember that part of the journal easily. It’s the journey that’s the most important part of a person’s sporting career, whether they get to be an elite athlete or not, but it’s also very satisfying – something no-one can ever take away from you - knowing you are at the pinnacle of performances, so that’s why athletes strive to be the best.
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Acknowledgements I want to acknowledge the people whose shoulders I now stand upon. I am tall only because of these people. I haven’t just ‘arrived’ out of the blue, and I am conscious of giving recognition to all those who gave time to help me along the way (and there are many). This book serves as a bit of an autobiography for me, because it represents around 25 years experience as a sport psychologist – nearly my entire adult life!
I’ve purposely chosen particular people to be around me as mentors (whether they know it or not), and I recommend you do the same. Actively seek out people who can help you. They don’t have to be from the same field of study or work – people have all sorts of skills they can offer, and most people are keen to pass on their knowledge. Finally, be prepared to share your knowledge because it’s really rewarding to see improvement in yourself and others. That’s why we’re in sport, isn’t it?
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SISSCGP310A Workbook Support athletes to adopt principles of sport psychology
Name: Organisation: Date __________________
NOTE If you are doing this workbook for assessment (as opposed to personal interest), where the workbook asks you to use sport psychology techniques you must base your answers on those of a competing athlete or coach.
If you want your responses to be assessed for accuracy and/or completeness by Dr Michelle Pain (for payment), please go to the website (www.pocketpsychology.com.au) to confirm her availability for assessing your work, and see the procedure for sending a copy of your completed workbook. Do not send your original document.
I recommend printing off the SISSCGP310A Workbook so you can write on the spaces provided. You may want to print up a few extra of the last page if your answers take up more space than is provided.
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 137 Michelle Pain, PhD
1. How does a sport psychologist work? 1.1 How would you explain the role of sport psychology in helping an athlete reach their best performance? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
“I’ve seen athletes try so hard they are their own worst enemy. They want it so badly, and yet their performances are spiralling out of control. They just don’t understand it. No-one wants it as badly as them, yet it’s just not happening for them when it matters most. What’s going on? This sort of thing happens because the athlete has been heaping pressure on him- or her- self. They have a plan, but life just isn’t following the plan... They feel out of control – feelings they don’t really like, so it’s scary – and it feels like they’ll never be ‘talented’ again… “ 1.2 What would you do with an athlete like this? Suggest some strategies that you think might help them. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
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1.3 From your reading of newspapers or watching of television etc, who do you think might benefit from talking with a sport psychologist? Please give three names of athletes/players (and the sport/club) and say why you think they might benefit from seeing a sport psychologist. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
1.4 Choose one of your examples of an athlete who would benefit from working with a sport psychologist (above) and, from your reading of Sport Psychology Tools for Every Coach and Athlete, suggest a couple of strategies (if you were the sport psychologist) that you would you employ in the treatment of this athlete? (ie. identify the methods of psychological preparation you think might help them) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 139 Michelle Pain, PhD
1.5. How would you know if an athlete was feeling unmotivated? What sorts of behaviours might they exhibit? Who might encourage an athlete feeling ‘unmotivated’ to talk with a sport psychologist? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
1.6 What could a person say to an athlete that might encourage them to speak with a sport psychologist, if they (or the athlete) felt there was a problem? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
1.7 What qualifications must a person go through in order to be called a sport psychologist in Australia? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 140 Michelle Pain, PhD
2. Communication 2.1 Give an example of how positive feedback has helped your performance. Why did it affect you that way? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 2.2 Give an example of how positive feedback has hindered your performance. Why did it affect you that way? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 2.3 Give an example of how negative feedback has helped your performance. Why did it affect you that way? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 2.4 Give an example of how negative feedback has hindered your performance. Why did it affect you that way? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 2.5 Regarding communication style, describe how an athlete and coach should discuss the athlete’s strategy for playing in a match or competing in an event. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 141 Michelle Pain, PhD
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
2.6 What would the coach do or say to make the communication inappropriate to the setting? Give two examples. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 142 Michelle Pain, PhD
2.7 If you were the sport psychologist for a team, how would you encourage a nervous player to speak to the coach if the player wasn’t sure of their long term future at the club? _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________
2.8 ‘The only way to know if an athlete should see a sport psychologist is by asking that athlete’. True or false? Give reasons for your answer. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________
2.9 ‘What an athlete says is more important than how they say it.’ True or false? Give reasons for your answer. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 2.10 ‘The sport psychologist suggests strategies to the athlete without regard to the athlete’s personal situation (eg. strengths and weaknesses).’ True or false? Give reasons for your answer. This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 143 Michelle Pain, PhD
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Implementing sport psychology techniques 3.1 Create a relaxation sound file Lie down, or sit, somewhere comfortably. Take a deep breath, and fill your lungs more than you usually would in your day-to-day life…(wait a second or two more)…then breathe out. Keep breathing slowly as you now tense your forehead. Squish it right up so you have deep furrows in your brow, and you are screwing your eyes right up. Hold it like this for a few more seconds….and now relax. Notice the difference in how your muscles feel right now, now that they are relaxed. Keep breathing slowly. Now I want you to clench your jaw. Show your teeth and tense your jaw and neck. Hold it there a few more seconds…and now relax…move your lips and mouth, roll your head slowly in a circle, first one way, then the next…notice how it feels to be more relaxed in your jaw and neck. Now I want you to work on your fingers, hands and arms. Make tight fists, bend your elbows towards you, and tense your biceps, triceps and forearms all at the same time. Breath slowly and hold it for a few seconds more….and now un-tense those muscle groups – wiggle your fingers - and notice how it feels to be more relaxed in those muscles. Keep breathing slowly, and now tense your stomach and lower back muscles. Hold it a bit longer…and now relax. Continue to breath in and out slowly. Tense your buttocks now….hold it a few more seconds…and now relax those muscles. Tense your quadriceps (muscles on the front of your upper leg) now, as well as your calf muscles. Tense them up…hold it for a few more seconds….now This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 144 Michelle Pain, PhD
relax them. Feel how it should be when you feel relaxed there. Finally, curl your toes and tense them too. Hold it….and now relax. Now that you’ve tensed all parts of your body in turn, take a moment to analyse what part of your body still feels tension. If you still feel tense in any muscle group, just tense it consciously, and then consciously un-tense it, so you feel relaxed there too. Your body should feel a little heavy, but relaxed. Keep breathing slowly, in and out. For this project, find a way to record your own relaxation sequence so that you can play it and listen to it back. You need to make sure you read much slower than you usually speak. It’s meant to be a calming experience, so take your time and speak clearly. You may have a recording app on your phone, or you might like to investigate using a microphone (or headset and microphone) and computer, logging into the website at Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) or equivalent software. Save the output so you could put it on your phone, iPod or mp3 player.
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4. Dealing with your internal voice 4.1 Countering (General messages) You’re not good enough to be here (Now you have a go at countering this message) ______________________________________________________________ You’re only going to stuff it up ______________________________________________________________ You’ll never be any good ______________________________________________________________ 4.2 Countering (Sport-specific messages) Create an example for your sport here: (Original) Negative message ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ Now, counter your negative message with something more positive: ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ (Optional) If you are in a group right now, turn to the person next to you and discuss your example and why you think it will be effective. Do they have any constructive criticism for you to make your words more effective? Is there a better way to phrase that? This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 146 Michelle Pain, PhD
5. Visualisation 5.1 Use your sport, or one known to you, and identify when during the performance one might use internal visualisation and external visualisation. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
6. Key words and images 6.1 What skills or qualities would you most like to improve in yourself? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 6.2 Now, what word or picture sums up that skill or quality for you, which you could recall at appropriate times that would make you feel more confident and competent (because you imagine having that quality or skill as a result of saying that word to yourself or imagining that picture)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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7. Precompetition routines 7.1 Here is a script that you might adapt for your sport. It’s in five phases: the first and second phases aim to develop a more deeply relaxed frame of mind; the third phase introduces the skill with the view to rehearsing a successful outcome; the fourth phase shows the skill being integrated with the rest of the game; and, the fifth phase uses key words to leave the athlete feeling empowered. Notice the extensive use of sensations that occur in a visualisation exercise. For visualisation to appear more real to us (and be more effective as a tool to help us perform better), we try to incorporate as many of the five senses (ie. seeing, hearing, taste, touch and smell) as possible. Look at this example and make a note of where the senses are brought into the visualisation process. Phase 1 Close your eyes, and begin by taking three deep breaths. Inhale deeply, and exhale slowly… inhale deeply, and exhale slowly… inhale deeply, and exhale slowly. Good… now just relax… let yourself go, and no matter how deeply relaxed you become, you will always be in control and able to respond to anything that you choose to respond to… you will remember everything… Begin to concentrate on your right arm… Raise your right arm so it is in the air a little… open your hand with your palm facing upwards… good… Now pay attention to the feelings in your upper arm… in your forearm… in your hand… in your fingers. Notice any sensations that might be occurring in your right arm… you might notice the weight of your clothing or it’s texture where it touches your skin… you might have a tingling sensation in your hand and fingers… just observe the feelings…Now, notice the heaviness that occurs in your right arm as you exhale… just relax, and notice the feeling of comfortable, relaxed heaviness that develops in your right arm as you exhale… Take your left arm and position it so it is in the air like your right arm… Make a slight bend in your left wrist… good…now pay attention to the feelings This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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in your left hand. Notice as you inhale how your left hand begins to feel lighter… just relax, and notice as you inhale how your hand begins to feel lighter, as if it wants to lift up…You can create different feelings in your hands if you want to… all you have to do is find the right images. Do that now… Pay attention to your right hand again. Imagine you have a small weight attached to your wrist, and the weight is pulling your hand down, making it heavier and heavier with each breath you exhale… and heavier… and heavier… Just let yourself go…Good… take a moment to experience that heaviness… (wait 15 seconds). Now, get rid of that image and let the feelings of heaviness go…This time, pay attention to your left arm… imagine you have a helium balloon attached to your left wrist… Imagine that each time you inhale, the balloon is gently pulling your wrist up a little more, making your arm lighter and lighter… lighter … and lighter. Good. Just let yourself go… Good… take a moment to experience that lightness… (wait 15 seconds). Now, get rid of that image and let the feelings of lightness go… Phase 2 Good. Now just relax. If your left or right arm has moved, just settle yourself into a comfortable position. As your arm settles down, you will feel very comfortable…. You can increase this pleasant feeling by counting down from one to five… With every count, you will become more deeply relaxed. No matter how deeply relaxed you become, however, you will always be in control…One…relax all of the muscles in both your arms, in the fingers, … hands, … forearms, …and upper arms…. Just completely relax those muscles and enjoy the pleasant feeling of heaviness that occurs as you exhale and sink deeper and deeper. Two… relax the muscles in both legs…relax the muscles in your feet and toes… relax the muscles in your calves… relax the muscles in your thighs… Just completely relax all the muscles in both your arms and your legs, and notice how you exhale…the pleasant sensation of drifting down deeper and deeper…into a deep hypnotic state. Three…relax all your muscles in your forehead…cheeks…and jaw… Let your mouth open slightly as you relax the muscles in your jaw…Four… relax the muscles in your neck… and your shoulders… Just completely relax, deeper and deeper….and deeper…Five… relax the muscles in your chest… This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 149 Michelle Pain, PhD
and your back… and your stomach. Relax all your muscles and enjoy the pleasant sensations of being so deeply relaxed…For the next minute or two, just let yourself go…with each exhale, drift down deeper and deeper… That's good. (wait 30 seconds) Phase 3 Now, I want you to imagine you are about to _________(insert your skill here)… As you prepare to ________(do this skill), look to ________ (think of somewhere a little distance away that makes sense to your sport eg. where you want the ball to land; 50m away if crouching for a sprint start etc)… You have soft eyes…you are feeling focused and calm…you know what you have to do . At the same time, you are aware of everything around you… You can see everything… As you prepare, you decide on your strategy… you make up your mind that you are going to _________ (insert your strategy here), to __________ (insert first part of strategy here)…You feel _________ (insert relevant body sensation here eg. the ball in your hand; your knee resting on the track etc)… you can feel __________ (insert sensations here eg. the texture and weight of the ball, the sun on your back etc)…You can feel ________ (insert a bit more detail here eg. the seams where there isn't any fuzz; the smoothness of the leather etc). Notice the feeling of________ (insert even more detail relevant to your sport eg. your racquet in your hands as you grip it; the space around your fingers as you grip the bowling ball etc)… Notice how______ (eg. tightly you hold it, how it feels against your palm)… and your fingertips… Pay attention to your body’s weight distribution…notice how ______ (insert body movement that would occur immediately before you start to perform the skill eg. your centre of mass shifts toward your front foot as you bounce the ball and prepare to serve; you settle your hips back into the blocks and lean forward with the weight mostly balanced on your thumb and forefinger etc)… You feel very comfortable and balanced. Now, as you ____ (insert start of performance here eg. begin your toss; breath out deeply, waiting for the gun to go off etc), your attention narrows and you focus on the spot where ______ (insert focus point here eg. you are This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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tossing the ball; the point on the line between your fingers etc)… As your concentration narrows, you ________ (insert the ‘moment of truth’ point here eg. see the ball come into view very clearly; hear the gun go off; feel your foot making connection with the ball - Put some more detail here eg. You see the ball…it's colour… you see it rotate.) As you _________ (insert start of performance here eg. watch the ball, start to become upright from the starting position), you ________ (insert the follow through here eg. feel your racquet coming through; you feel your legs blast out of the blocks and you smoothly drive and move to upright running stance etc. Describe the movement and follow through in more detail here. eg. You can see it make contact with the ball, and you can feel your weight and your centre of mass transferring, moving forward, coming through at the moment your racquet contacts the ball)… Now you feel _______ (eg. the follow-through of your racquet, your legs pounding rhythmically). Quickly, your attention broadens again and you see ______(eg. the whole court, your competitors around you) and you hear (eg. the roar of the crowd). You can feel yourself re-centre as you bring your legs under you. You feel balanced and centered. You are ready to move in any direction…
Phase 4 Good. Now lets just imagine you (performing in your sport) where things can happen at their regular speed…let your imagination go… get completely involved… You will feel and see everything as if you were actually performing in competition. You will feel confident… in control… You'll find it easy to move and get into position, to feel your weight move into correct position…You seem to have all the time in the world to prepare… you just know you can do anything you want… Just let yourself enjoy all of the feelings and sensations that come with playing 'in the zone'…(wait 30 seconds)
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Phase 5 Good…In a moment, it will be time to leave this pleasant state…Before you do, however, you need to know that you can create the feelings that you have now when you are playing 'in the zone' whenever you want to… You will be able to do this yourself by taking a deep centering breath, … inhaling deeply… attending to the expansion of muscles in your abdomen as you inhale… As you exhale,…relax the chest, neck and shoulder muscles, and say "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here) Remember, whenever you want to settle yourself down and to improve your concentration… you simply take a deep, centering breath… Then, on the exhale, you say to yourself "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here). Imagine you are going through this process right now… imagine you are about to ______ (eg. kick for goal, serve in a match)…you can feel the pressure…you notice you are a little tight in the neck and shoulders, and that you are gripping the _______ (eg. ball, racquet) a little too tightly…you are worried about _____ (eg. making the distance, your accuracy, coming out of the blocks cleanly) …Feel the pressure… Now, look _________ (eg. at the court, at the goals, across the net, or into the distance)… As you look there, take that deep centering breath… and as you breath out you say to yourself "___________ and __________" (insert your two key words here). At the end of the exhale, notice that you have soft eyes… you see ____ (eg. all the area around you, the whole court)... you feel comfortable… Take one more centering breath and repeat your phrase just before you ____(eg. begin your ball toss, get down on the blocks, begin your run up)… Then, as your concentration narrows you focus on the spot where you are _____ (eg. tossing the ball, intending on taking your first step out of the blocks)… Just give yourself some time to practice this…feeling the tension… and taking your deep breath, saying your words, and noticing how much more calm and confident you feel…(wait for 30 seconds). Alright…it's time to return to your normal activities…to do that, count backwards from three to one… On the count of three, take a deep breath,
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holding it momentarily…On the count of two…stretch your arms and your legs and exhale…On the count of one, open your eyes and you will be wide awake… ready to do things you normally do at this time… you're feeling good… comfortable…. and relaxed. Ready?…three…take a deep breath…two… stretch your arms and legs and exhale…one…open your eyes, wide awake. Go through this script and make changes that are relevant to you and your sport. Where I have written in normal type, this is for you to add information relative to your sport (so you wouldn’t read that out if you were reading it back!). It would be a good idea (once your script is in order) to record your own script – again, speaking slowly and clearly, and perhaps if you are very sophisticated, using ‘relaxing’ background music playing I the background! – using your devices or through the Audacity website (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/).
8. Arousal control 8.1. On a rating scale of 1 – 9 (where 1 represents very telic and 9 represents very paratelic), circle the number that best reflects your preference for arousal. Very Telic 1
‘Flexible’ 2
3
4
5
Very Paratelic 6
7
8
9
(Optional) If you are with a team, estimate where your team mates fall on this scale too. Write their initials below the numbers to signify your estimation of their arousal preference. Very Telic 1
‘Flexible’ 2
3
4
5
Very Paratelic 6
7
8
9
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 153 Michelle Pain, PhD
8.2 Complete the T/PI , following the instructions for answering the questions, and for scoring the inventory. Telic/Paratelic Instrument (Pain, 2011) Instructions: Think back to a time when you performed well, or better than you expected, and try to think specifically how you prepared yourself for that competition. Circle the number that best represents how you remember feeling at the time. Not at all true of me
Very true of me
1. I wasn’t stressed about what the outcome might be 1
2
3
4
5
6
2. I felt really hyped up
1
2
3
4
5
6
3. I felt angry or agitated
1
2
3
4
5
6
4. I felt loose and relaxed
1
2
3
4
5
6
5. I felt serious-minded
1
2
3
4
5
6
6. I was happy to chat to others before the event 1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
9. I wanted to have fun
1
2
3
4
5
6
10. I wanted to feel ‘in control’
1
2
3
4
5
6
4
5
6
5
6
7. My heart rate was racing 8. I was comfortable with my preparation
11. I felt mischievous and wanted to stir things up a bit 1
2
3
12. I felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for my event 1
2
3
4
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Use the Scoring Sheet to calculate your T/PI score. Use the position of your circled response on the Instrument to identify the score for each item, them total the 12 items to get your T/PI score.
Telic/Paratelic Instrument Scoring Sheet 1. I wasn’t stressed about what the outcome might be 6
5
4
3
2
1
2. I felt really hyped up
1
2
3
4
5
6
3. I felt angry or agitated
1
2
3
4
5
6
4. I felt loose and relaxed
6
5
4
3
2
1
5. I felt serious-minded
6
5
4
3
2
1
6. I was happy to chat to others before the event 7. My heart rate was racing
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
6
5
4
3
2
1
5
6
8. I was comfortable with my preparation 9. I wanted to have fun 10. I wanted to feel ‘in control’ 11. I felt mischievous and wanted to stir things up a bit 1
2
3
4
12. I felt like I had all the time in the world to prepare for my event 6
5
4
3
2
1
8.3 What is your score on the T/PI? ___________
8.4 Circle the classification relevant to your score. Extremely telic
Telic
Paratelic
Extremely paratelic
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 155 Michelle Pain, PhD
8.5 Do you agree with your classification? Does it agree with your ranking? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
8.6 What does this score say about ‘your optimal state of arousal’? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
(Optional) If you are with a team, check your team mates’ scores. Comment on whether their scores fit your predictions of where they would fit on the 9 point rating scale, and whether they though the T/PI correctly classified them as being Telic or Paratelic. If it doesn’t, suggest why this might be the case. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
8.7 What are the symptoms you might associate with being under aroused (ie the left side of the Inverted U hypothesis, or the bottom left side of the Reversal Theory diagram)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 156 Michelle Pain, PhD
8.8 Name some songs you might put on a playlist to help you feel more excited if you recognised that you were under aroused. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
8.9 If you felt you needed to become more motivated, what strategies could you take to change how you felt (to put yourself in your optimal arousal state)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 8.10 What are the symptoms you might associate with being over aroused (ie the right side of the Inverted U hypothesis, or the bottom right side of the Reversal Theory diagram)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 8.11 Name some songs you might put on a playlist to help you feel more relaxed if you recognised that you were over aroused. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 8.12 If you felt you needed to become more relaxed, what strategies could you take to change how you felt (to put yourself in your optimal arousal state)? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 157 Michelle Pain, PhD
9. Goal setting 9.1 What are S-M-A-R-T goals? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9.2 Write down the (SMART) goals you want to achieve that are into the future (ie 5 or more years away). These are your long term goals. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9.3 Now, what goals do you want to achieve within 3 years, ones that you won’t complete in the next 12 months? These are medium term goals. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9.4 What are the goals you want to achieve in the next 12 months? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 158 Michelle Pain, PhD
9.5 Read over your list of long, medium and short term goals, and put an asterisk (*) next to any goals listed that are extremely important to you. 9.6 Is there a theme to those you’ve asterisked? (ie Are they mostly sport-related goals, or non-sport-related goals, or a mix?) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 9.7 What motivates you to attain your goals? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 9.8 What is the relationship between goals and motivation? (Hint: Think of the rubber band example, and the benefit of identifying SMART goals.) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9.9 How can having (SMART) goals affect performance for an athlete? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 9.10 Identify 8 key performance indicators (KPIs) for your role in your sport. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 159 Michelle Pain, PhD
9.11 Put each KPI onto a ‘spoke’ on the spider web profile and then rate yourself on each of the KPIs (with a score toward the centre indicating ‘unsatisfactory’ and a score toward the outer ring indicating ‘superior’).
(Optional) Ask a coach or respected ‘other’ to rate you on the same qualities (spokes) and draw up the spider web in different coloured pens. Comment on the discrepancy (or otherwise) of both scores on a particular quality. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 160 Michelle Pain, PhD
9.12 Print off the Achievement Management Plan (over the page). identify a general sporting goal you may have. 9.13 Break the general skill into it’s smallest components, and write the SMART subgoals down in chronological order (ie in the order in which you carry out that skill), starting from beginning to end. That is, if you executed each step correctly, you’d have a perfect execution overall and the skill would be one you might see in an elite athlete. 9.14 Divide the small cells with a diagonal ( / ). For each subgoal, pick out a realistic expected value to start with (based on your current level of fitness or skill etc), and put the expected value on the right side of the diagonal ( / E). 9.15 After training has occurred (or competition), evaluate how you went (ie. to give you your actual value, which goes in front of the diagonal ( A / E). 9.16 Look at the difference between the A and E values and create new E values. If A is equal to or exceeds E, make E a tougher target in the next round. If A is a little less than E, perhaps consider making E a little tougher, or keeping it the same in the next round. If A is much less than E, you will need to reduce your target to make it easier to be attain in the next round. Fill the page (ie 8 sessions of either training or competition). If you get to 100% in a cell three times consecutively, you can stop recording that sub-skill in the future. If you don’t have time to do this over a number of weeks in a real life situation, create a hypothetical (made up) scenario. Include examples where you haven’t reached your target for a particular subgoal, or have become injured, and show how you’ve needed to modify your expectations.
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 161 Michelle Pain, PhD
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 162 Michelle Pain, PhD
10. Organisational Policies and Procedures, and the Sport Psychologist as Support Personnel 10.1 What does ‘confidentiality’ mean for a sport psychologist? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.2 Why is confidentiality an issue when working with an athlete who is a member of a team? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 163 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.3 List the types of support personnel that currently work with one of Australia’s national teams. What roles do they perform in the support of the players? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.4 Support staff (other than the sport psychologist) might be the first person to identify that an athlete may have an issue that a sport psychologist would be best equipped to help with. Give an example where this might happen. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 164 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.5 If you worked as a sport psychologist with a team, according to the team’s organizational policies and procedures, who would you be entitled to speak with about a player’s ‘fitness to play’ if you were treating that player as a client? Tick all that apply: o
Anyone you wished, with the permission of the player/client
o
The media
o
The coach
o
The player’s manager (without the permission of the player)
o
The player’s family (eg. partner, parents etc)
o
The player’s parents (if the client is under 16 years of age)
o
The player’s parents (if the client is over 16 years of age)
o
The medical personnel associated with the team
o
The opposition
10.6 Give an example of how, if you were working as a sport psychologist, you might confirm that your athlete/client understood the strategies you were trying to teach them. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.7 Give an example of how, if you were working as a sport psychologist, you might encourage your athlete/client to clarify the issue if you were on the wrong tangent. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.8 If your athlete/client was very stressed, would you expect them to remember lots of details of the strategy you (as a sport psychologist) devised? What could you do about that? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 165 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.9 Give a specific example of organisational policies and procedures that might apply for a sport psychologist when working with an athlete or team: Code of Conduct (ie ‘team rules’) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Duty of care (‘first, do no harm’) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
Occupational health and safety (‘ensuring the safety of the athlete’) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 166 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.10 Think of some barriers that might prevent an athlete speaking with a sport psychologist about an issue (eg. culture, gender, personality) and choose one to say how you (as the sport psychologist) might address this, so the athlete felt more comfortable seeking your help. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 10.11 Think of some psychological barriers that might prevent an athlete speaking with a sport psychologist about an issue (eg. psychological disorders like depression or anxiety). How would an athlete/client with either depression or anxiety behave or what symptoms might you expect them to feel? (You may need to Google this one!) ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 167 Michelle Pain, PhD
10.12 Suggest how you might evaluate the effectiveness of a sport psychologist. ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 168 Michelle Pain, PhD
11. Sources of sport psychology information 11.1 Choose a sport psychology topic and Google to find out more about it. Write down at least three different websites where that topic is discussed (either techniques, or research methods). ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 11.2 Referring to your answer to 11.1, what are the authors’ names and who are they affiliated with? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 11.3 Identify a podcast with sport psychology content. Chose a topic that matches the one selected in 11.1. Who is the author (or guest speaker / expert) of the podcast? How recently was it broadcast? Is it a regular series, or a ‘one off’? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ If you want your responses to be assessed by Dr Michelle Pain (for payment), please go to the website (www.pocketpsychology.com) to confirm availability, and see the procedure for sending a copy of your completed workbook. This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
Sport Psychology Tools For Every Coach and Athlete 169 Michelle Pain, PhD
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ Print this page multiple times if you need more space to write
This license to distribute this eBook has been granted to Victoria University for students/staff enrolled in Diploma of Sports Development, SIS50610
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