When Sports Becomes a Head Game (article)

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/weeki ... ref=slogin

When Sports Becomes a Head Game


By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: February 26, 2006
THE snowboarder Shaun White shot like a champagne cork to victory in the halfpipe, but these Olympic Games, which end today, brought far more bitters than bubbly for the American team, from the skier Bode Miller's mishaps and the hockey captain Mike Modano's moaning to the skater Sasha Cohen's stumble.

The slips, slides and misses, in part, may reflect conditions: the state of the snow, the weather, equipment problems. Yet when athletes blow a performance, they know it. And the more important the event, the more deeply troubling the experience. For many athletes, researchers say, any hope of a comeback will depend at least as much on psychological tinkering as training technique.

Athletes and coaches have always had pet theories about why people falter under pressure, and some of these notions have proved to be more than superstition. By the time they get to the Olympics, after all, athletes have practiced so much that their reflexes are almost automatic, so factors like anxiety, focus and confidence become more important.

"To motivate athletes we have encouraged visualization, or shown them highlight films of their past successes, maybe set to music," said Hap Davis, a psychologist at the Canadian Sports Center in Calgary.

That makes some sense, research suggests, because such techniques can both banish lingering doubts and provide valuable distraction.

In studies of golfers and soccer players, Sian Beilock, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, has shown that elite athletes perform superbly when distracted but begin to make mistakes as soon as they are told to pay more attention to their movements. "I think what happens in high pressure situations is that the athletes start paying attention to things they're not used to thinking about at all," she said. The result, she said, is that in these stressful situations "they can feel as if they are performing a different skill."

But a flat-line mental state may be harder to induce than once assumed, psychologists are learning.

Big losses in particular â€â€

[bvpv07]

quite interesting

it's amazing how much thoughts can affect a performance

[JTred]

The thing I hear from my coach most often is, "Don't think!" It's usually the best advice too.

[bvpv07]

yes, much better than overthinking (which I have a tendency to do )

[DecaRag]

I'm sure there are others that have experienced a period of mental anguish where nothing seems to make your approach and plant seem normal, so vaulting seems impossible - even after years of success. As a coach, when you have an athlete that experiences this, it is difficult to find a way to break out of the "funk".

I've had suggestions from coaches to go back to basics, drive drills with a short approach and smaller pole, watch videos for visualization, etc...

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has experienced this and what seemed to help get over the mental aspect of a slump.

[vaultmd]

I doubt if it would work with certain other types of performance anxiety

[CHC04Vault]

When i was younger (like 12) i started to have trouble throwing to first when i was playing baseball. I could make hard throws, like ones that i had to spin and throw or double plays, but easy ones just went over the first baseman's head. For a good month i couldn't play infield. Finally my dad (who had the same problem once) took 5 strips of tape and put them on each of my five fingers. He said i was thinking way to much and that was causing me to throw over. With the tape on my fingers there was a new feeling on the ball so i thought about the distraction not the throw and i ended up being cured. I dunno how you can do that with the vault, but i find distractions do help.

[ec1vaulter]

The best way to do this in the vault is to eliminate one of the variables. There are so many things that one must deal with without emotional stress in the pole vault... are my steps on? what pole should i use? how does my plant look? am I deep enough in the pit? etc. etc.

I had a problem in college, after falling in the box and causing serious a serious knee injury, where I was terrified to plant the pole. If I did plant, I was taking off on the wrong leg. To solve the problem we eliminated a veriable. My approach mark was removed and I was told to go to the end of the runway and walk towards the pit until it seemed like a good distance, then start from there. Using a shorter pole, most experienced vaulters end up adjusting their steps to make them correct. It isn't technically the best way to do things, but I was able to plant the pole again. It was also a technique I have used once since starting coaching myself.

Bottom line... the less variables, the easier it is to overcome the others.