Psychological Skills Training

Psychological Skills Training

What exactly is Psychological Skills Training and for a coach or instructor, what advantage is gained by its implementation? In other words, why bother?

Psychological Skills Training (PST) is typically more comprehensive than a few short sessions with a few simple interventions that a coach or instructor might suggest. PST usually integrates cognitive and relaxation techniques in a more encompassing approach to mental training and as a complement to physical training. Individualism is a hallmark of most PST programs. (Gill, 2000)

The Importance of Mental Skills

Why are mental skills so important to performance and why are they often neglected by coaches and athletes? Yogi Berra has been quoted as saying, "sport is 90% mental and 50% physical." You can question his mathematical savvy, but if you're an athlete, coach or fan, you can't question his wisdom. (Hacker, 2000) Many athlete's understand that while developing oneself to their physical potential is a critical element in performance potential, it is often a deficit in our psychological game rather than errors in our physical performance that keep us from performing at optimum levels in practice, games or matches. Spud McKenzie, the Budweiser poster puppy, suggested that it is important to say when, but also emphasized the critical element of knowing "when to say when". It is often the successful athlete has recognized what needed to be done and the unsuccessful athlete was unable to do so. As a consequence, it is not the physical talents or abilities that separate athletes and teams, or successful versus less successful performance, rather, the psychological dimension that most frequently explains a given sport outcome or individual performance. For this reason games are played. Prior to each contest, judgment could be made with regard to which team or individual is the "more highly skilled". If games were decided on who is the most physically gifted and/or talented individuals or teams, it would prove to be an exercise in futility to compete. As a result, whether you are an athlete or a coach, mastering the mental game of sport will allow you to achieve a level of success as a competitor than you could otherwise not achieve by focusing exclusively on the physical side of sport.

PST - The Initial Learning Phase

The four commonly used PST techniques are: arousal regulation (progressive relaxation, meditation, etc.), cognitive restructuring (positive self-talk, thought-stopping-centering, etc.), a goal setting program and imagery training.

Whichever technique of PST addressed should be incorporated as part of a regular daily practice and game routine, not necessarily separate from or in addition to the participants normal sport activities. In this way, rather than adding another "thing to do" in a day, mental practice can be incorporated into the arena where it is needed to be used. Just as physical skills are first practiced in a controlled environment in order to sharpen and automate performance, the same principle should be followed for PST. As an athlete becomes more proficient in practicing the skills, they will gradually begin to apply and utilize these techniques in a consistent, ongoing manner.

Primarily the coach should work with the athlete to provide the particular content that is essential for each sport and individual. The athlete and coach must work through the semantics to arrive at the most meaningful descriptions of task-relevant items, and significant language. Often there is a tendency for coaches to tell athletes what they should be thinking of and concentrating on in competitions without verifying the significance with the participant. As participants apply goal setting or practice positive self-talk as part of their daily training schedule, proficiency through consistency can be attained.

Rushall, (1995) suggests that there are two stages in a contest that require different forms of task-relevant thinking:

In the early stages of a competition when fatigue is not evident, task-relevant thinking has to be modified. It is likely that the thinking of specific, detailed technique features that control physical movements would cause performance to worsen. This is because of the phenomenon known as "cognitive interference" (when one thinks of what they are doing when performing a highly skilled activity in a non-fatigued state, the thoughts interfere with the efficiency of automated skilled performance). When an athlete is fresh, task-relevant thinking should be limited to tactical and decision-making content (e.g., anticipation, recognition of relevant cues) and general capacity features such as smoothness, length, evenness, rhythm, etc. The detailed technique features of physical actions should be left to the automatic neuromuscular patterns that have been developed through training. However, at the onset of the next performance stage, which is usually signaled by the first hint of fatigue, it is necessary to begin to concentrate on specific, detailed technique thoughts along with other task-relevant items. This is required to avoid any accumulated fatigue causing a loss in technique efficiency. The transfer of control to conscious thinking about skilled activities should maintain performance efficiency and form. As a competition progresses and fatigue increases, task-relevant thinking should gradually include increasing amounts of specific technique content so that performance efficiency is sustained.

PST - The Development Phase

Coaches must assist the Athletes in developing competition strategies. These strategies should be developed in a step-like fashion and should be included in practice activities.

As athletes are given the responsibility for planning and deciding what is to be included in competition strategies, it is no longer "a mental strategy", but rather "my mental strategy". This differs to the common practice of the coach "instructing" an athlete what to do in a contest.

Competition strategies consist of developing all the thoughts and consequent behaviors in a practice format, which need to occur in an actual contest. This requires that every activity and thought must be examined, requiring distractions and irrelevant thoughts to be eliminated.

There are some significant structures that need to be included in the way competition strategies are formed.

1. If the event is of long duration, it needs to be broken into partitions. Those partitions should be short enough for the athlete