To cope with our opponent fear

Tackling one’s fears is a fundamental aspect of young athletes training. Talking about the fears that you feel during the competitions permits to understand that they are part of the competitive commitment and not a symptom of  psychological problems. So, we talk to our athletes about their fears, what blocks them during a game, what are the situations determining this emotion.
Often athletes complain of having competed against opponents stronger than themselves, it happens in team sports but also in sport of opposition (from tennis to boxing, from fencing to wrestling). So what do we do? Do we adapt to this fear and give up because in our minds the result seems obvious? I would say that this is what often happens. Maybe even with the participation of coaches who conceive fear as an emotion of  weak person or themselves do not know how to train the competitive confidence in their athletes.

As performance and sport psychologists we have a duty to pass on the idea, to coaches and athletes, that with the daily work we will overcome the fears. So we deal with this issue openly with the athletes asking: “What are your worst fears?” Let them express in relation to the behaviors they show in these moments and then we start with them a work based on awareness, on the redefinition of fear as a step in the psychological development of the athlete and teach them the psychological strategies and techniques, which are however closely related to the type of sport and the characteristics of each athlete.

0 Responses to “To cope with our opponent fear”


  • No Comments

Leave a Reply