Mental Game - Mental Preparation for games

Mental Preparation for games

Many coaches think their team will perform well if they can get all athletes hyped up before competition. Thus coaches use pep talks, team cheers, and loud ‘pump up’ music as a means to get athletes psyched up for competition.

Unfortunately, these ‘get psyched’ techniques do not work for every athlete. Every athlete is different when you talk about optimal pregame intensity. If you have athletes that are more anxious, psych up strategies move these athletes into an over-anxious state. Anxious athletes may take several minutes to settle into their game, and for some of these athletes, they never seem to come down from that nervous feeling for the duration of the game. To make matters worse, the more important the game, the more revved up these athletes become, which usually leads to tight play and early mistakes.

As an athlete, you want to be in an optimal zone of intensity prior to competition, that is you need to move into a zone where you are mentally prepared, emotionally ready and properly focused for the start of a game. If you are more of a nervous or anxious type athlete, you would be better served to learn how to calm down prior to a competition.

When your heart is pounding, your thoughts are racing, your focus is pulled into a thousand directions and you become overwhelmed with anxiety, it's impossible to play at your peak.

Therefore, you might benefit from learning how to relax your mind and body prior to competition so you can be mentally ready to perform well when the whistle blows.