Tag Archive for 'Baku'

The mental skills of the EG winners in Baku

Attending at European Games in Baku, I learned once again that in order to provide a high level of performance, that is, to perform at the best of your ability are necessary patience, toughness and motivation.

Patience is needed to get in that state of mind which the athletes have to repeat during the event what they have been prepared in training. When you are not in this state of mind it’s easy to become impulsive, rushing the action or to slow down for fear of making mistakes. In either case the athletes make a mistake and lose the movement fluidity, speed and accuracy.

Toughness is necessary because in every race there are hard times and mental and physical difficulties to be overcome successfully. Tenacity indicates how the athletes are combatives and persistents in this attitude throughout the race. In times of increased competitive pressure or after a mistake they have to work  to quickly find the optimal mental state to pass this obstacle. Many athletes instead fall into this trap, because they do not accept the difficulties and therefore not undertake to reset the mind and with patience to find the best state before continuing. They are not ready to continue, thinking instead that these mistakes should not happen and then they do not put in place a plan to correct immediately.

Motivation is necessary because it’s an expression of the intensity with which people want to achieve a specific goal. To compete the intensity must be at maximum, otherwise the athletes can not engage with patience and tenacity. International athletes want to win but some of them remain focused on this idea rather than focusing on what to do to achieve this goal. If stalled in the first phase, the motivation is nothing: it’s like to have a powerful  revving engine without to put the gears as it should.