Psychological factors– High performance athletes ensure that 90% of their sporting success is due to their ability and mental training . In professional sport of high level there are no big differences between some athletes and others in terms of potential, training or physical ability. Therefore, the psychological factors in sport are differential and determinant to achieve success.
Throughout the last years, the interest to know the psychological factors in the sport, has been increasing. This fact has caused the professionals related to psychology. And sports to have formulated the following question. What psychological variables determine sports performance?
What is clear is that mental factors affect athletic performance, not only in high level athletes. But for anyone who practices a sport. Currently. There is evidence to support a hypothesis: in sports, whether elite or leisure. It can be useful to develop certain psychological tools that increase the capacity and sports performance.
What are the psychological factors in sport that improve athletic performance?
We all know that practicing sports on a regular basis directly benefits our health. It has also been more than demonstrated that exercise has a positive influence on our mental health. And is that practicing sports has many benefits for our mind. Including greater attention, greater ability to work with others. And a potential increase in our self-confidence.
On the other hand, and following the thread of the introduction, the psychological factors in sports that most influence performance are self-confidence, motivation, emotional control and concentration.
- Motivation: it is very important in any task in which we want to optimize performance, especially in sports. Think that athletes are continually exposed to ups and downs, triumphs. And defeats and that in many cases in intrinsic motivation, love for what they do. What leads them to get up after a bad pass, a disastrous launch or a lot worse than they had in mind.
- Concentration: on the other hand athletes need a great capacity for concentration. All actions, even the simplest or the most intuitive, demand concentration. Any poorly executed movement can cause a failure, a fall or an injury that ruins months of preparation. Therefore, rarely, no matter how demanding the training, an athlete is distracted.
- Emotional control: developmental training exercises that help control emotions or doubts can make the difference between the success or failure of an athlete. In this sense, many of the times that an athlete’s performance is affected by low emotional control is because he has let emotions affect his concentration.
- Self-confidence: finally, the confidence in one’s own personal abilities to carry out an action successfully is an essential condition for which to achieve victory.
Mental techniques to control psychological factors in sport
The practice of professional sports requires a high degree of emotional involvement. This is because the psychological characteristics of the activity of the athlete are determined by the actions of the game. By the competitive objectives and by the traits of the athlete.
First, we must identify and analyze the weak and strong points of the athletes, in order to apply personalized techniques to optimize their performance. And confidence. Otherwise, the intervention may turn against the athlete himself.
The most used techniques to improve sports performance are:
- Control of attention: refers to internal and external attention. Internal attention is when an athlete focuses on aspects that take place in their own body (thoughts, self-talk, sensations or movements). External attention refers to when an athlete focuses on issues unrelated to him.
- Establishment of objectives: they help athletes to have a global vision of the work they must be doing and of the objectives they must achieve to achieve their final objective.
- Self-instructions: are short messages or verbalizations that we tell ourselves to motivate or concentrate. It is about using rational, positive, logi