You can perform any activity
to promote well-being and develop skills
to train and to compete
but
every motor, sport and mental action is regulated by our breath.
and if I breathe badly, I won’t get the results I train for.
Tag Archive for 'prestazione'
The 10 rules for successful training
- Self-awareness - The purpose of training is the improvement and optimization of all the athletes’ skills and the development of awareness of what they can do, what they still need to improve and what they need to learn.
- Want to learn - The athlete lives in a continuous process of improving the performances and they must be fully aware of it.
- Recognizing opportunities - Training consists of a set of situations to be addressed and resolved with the full commitment.
- Commitment with consistency and accuracy – Motivation is based on these two aspects that are the basis of any activity in which the athletes are engaged.
- Wanting to take risks - Training is not an exact science and even the best trainings are based on the athletes willingness to take the risk of making mistakes.
- Tolerate difficulties - The athletes must be aware that every time they reaches a level of performance higher than the previous one, he detaches the ticket to face new difficulties.
- Accepting defeats - In sport, mistakes happen frequently and they must be accepted as unavoidable facts; for top athletes, they may be infrequent but are often decisive in preventing a winning performance.
- Give importance to time – To become expert it takes a long time and the athletes must be fully aware of this condition.
- Collaborate with coaches and staff - Recognizing the coach and staff leadership is a decisive factor for the athletes’ success.
- Analyzing one’s own performance - The athletes must know how to evaluate they performances with specific and precise criteria, without evaluating them only in terms of results.
How many times we have heard we must be optimistic, that we have to believe we can win, or that “with everything we’ve done we deserve to achieve a great result.”
There is apparently nothing of wrong to have this thinking, “That’s the way to push ourselves” many people say.
They also add: “What should I tell: to lose? Nobody start a competition with the goal to lose, therefore, you must start the race with the will to win it, because if you don’t even think it, how will you get it?”
In short, “think positive and you will see that it will happen what do you want.”
Well, all these good thoughts are useless and they can become harmful, because at the first difficulties and errors during the race, the athlete will not be ready to react immediately because he expects to win, that is to say that she is focused on the result and not on what to do to get it. “I was ready … and then things didn’t go as I had expected.”
These are often the words of those who start with a too trusting attitude and then at the end of the performance they attributes the result to something out of themselves, without taking responsibility for what it has happened.
These thoughts, which represent the athletes’ expectations about the race, can really be considered as the performance killers. They are amazed by their own mistakes and the difficulties they face in the race and they have not prepared a plan to react effectively to these situations.
It is not enough said that sports, but not only them, should arouse high levels of physical and mental activation and be perceived as pleasant.
We know that many people are stimulate even through the feelings of anger and anxiety, I would say, however, that are not wellness-oriented and positive to teach the young athletes. Even the sports professionals (athletes of international level) have to learn to manage difficult times and competitive pressure with the same approach, taking pleasure and not suffering from their activities. What does it mean to be an athlete of the highest level and live performances with fear/anger and a feeling of unpleasantness.
If your athletes commit any of these mistakes, it means that you have not taught them to give value at their commitment in training:
- When you ask them to take a deep breath, they snort or sigh
- Without no reason they modify times and ways of the warm-up
- They say: “But I thought I was ready while …”
- They get angry or easily disappointed even in training
- In training they have result outcomes and less frequently process outcomes.
- They are focused on the results of their performance and not on how to perform effectively
- They are only partially aware that it is how you prepare yourself that determines the quality of the performance
- They think: “I have the technique therefor I know how to compete
- They are deluding themselves to do well only because they have done it before and they are not aware that every time it is different and the commitment must be consistent
- Usually from their favorite champs they take only the most superficial and most glamorous behaviors
TAIS is a system for assessing attentional and interpersonal style and these data show that élites’ emotional overload is an important component reducing their performance, including world record holders, who instead suffer less the environmental distractions and cognitive mental overload. This also explains why top athletes use psychological preparation programs to reduce competitive stress.
We handle an innovative aspect of psychology. It regards the psychology of performance.
The challenges:
• Know the best professional experiences to use as a yardstick of our professional action
• Understand what it means continuous improvement in this field
• Get in line or higher than the sector average
We have to evaluate ourselves in relation to:
• Short- and medium-term professional goals
• Psychological implications of this work for the psychologist
• Performance Profile required for these targets
• Who / what can promote my profession
• Risks and possible individual, professional and environmental difficulties
• Quality of the work program
• Quality of service provided
• Customer satisfaction
In any sport to be focused on the present is one of the key success factors and its main enemy are the emotions arising in the athletes’ mind to distract them from the performance.
Any young athlete who learned the necessary skills to be competitive at his/her sport level should devote much of the training to improve this competence to compete with a winning attitude.
Otherwise, the technique will not help anything, rather it will be a source of further frustration for the young athletes not able to use it in the race, because they are dominated by an emotional condition that hinders them.
If you want to be competitive you have to train vigorously your self-control, it’s the only way you can prove the fundamental value of the technical skills.
- Focus only on what you’re going to do.
- It’s easy but it’s difficult to be persistent, you must practice
- The focus is on the timing of the action and never on the technical issues
- The performance takes place in a natural and automatic, not analytical
- Delete mistakes returning each time with the mind to the timing of the next action
- Deep breath to reduce excessive pressure
- Pych-up to increase the useful tension to action
- Visualize the performance to delete doubts and concerns
- Have fun and pleasure for what you are doing
- Use pauses to restore physical and mental energy for the next action
The self-control of the sports performance is a very difficult task even for the expert athletes.
But who can be defined as an expert? Who is able to effectively manage a sequence of increasing challenges in specific situations.
Self-control is based on the development of the self-regulation skills in three distinct areas:
- behavioral self-regulation – the athletes act observing them-selves and strategically adjust their behaviors.It happens when an athlete misses a shot and decide what to do to correctl it in the next action,
- environmental self-regulation – the athletes adapt them-selves to environmental conditions or outcomes. In shooting sports the athlete can change the lens color as a function of the light conditions or may take more time before the execution.
- covert self-regulation – the athletea are aware of their cognitive and emotional processes and decide whether to persevere in those conditions or changing them. During the performance or training thoughts and emotions prepare the athlete to speak at his/her best or they can be a source of problems to solve.
The expert athlete must be accurate and consistent in performing these activities of self-regulation by monitoring in the same time the results of the performances, so as to be aware of what are the best conditions to compete effectively and increase self-confidence.
The mental coaching is the means by which to train these skills.
