Some athletes get so nervous earlier than competitions that they discover it troublesome to pay attention and even change into nauseous. In some instances, the anticipation of those emotions could trigger an athlete to keep away from competing, and even stop their sport.
These nervous sensations typically find themselves in particular areas of the physique. Commonest is muscle pressure within the shoulders and neck, or the feeling of “butterflies within the abdomen.”
In instances the place your athletes undergo greater than common from pre-competition jitters, you should use the next “localized rest” approach to scale back their nervous signs.
Localized Leisure Approach
This process is just like “progressive muscle rest,” by which the muscle teams all through the physique are sequentially tensed, then relaxed. Nonetheless, within the localized approach, solely the difficulty spots are tensed and relaxed.
Because of this, the approach could be utilized in a short time, whereas the athlete is sitting, standing and even strolling. Since closing the eyes and mendacity down is not required, it is applicable for the nervous minutes earlier than competitors and even throughout warm-up.
The approach must be mixed with constructive psychological imagery. In case your athletes are watching psychological photographs of themselves performing efficiently, damaging worry-producing ideas could be decreased.
Lowering Abdomen Butterflies
This is methods to apply the localized rest approach to an athlete with butterflies in her abdomen.
- Inform her to contact her abdomen muscular tissues as laborious as she will for 5 seconds. If she desires, she will concurrently take a deep breath and maintain it.
- After 5 seconds, instruct her to calm down her abdomen muscular tissues and exhale. Inform her to focus on the sensations of the abdomen space increasing, stress-free, and changing into heat because the blood flows again into the muscular tissues.
- Repeat the contraction/rest steps 4-6 occasions. On every successive repetition, have her improve the period of time she spends experiencing the sensation of rest.
- After the fourth or fifth repetition, instruct her to think about herself efficiently performing some side of her sport: for instance sinking a soar shot, spiking the volleyball, ending quick in a race, and many others.
- Proceed till the athlete says that her butterflies really feel higher.
You should utilize this system in any of the areas that historically change into tense in periods of stress: the abdomen, shoulders, arms (trembling), again of the neck, and many others.
References:
1. Damon Burton, Thomas Raedeke, Sport Psychology for Coaches, Human Kinetics, 2008. http://www.humankinetics.com
2. Brent Rushall, “On-Website Psychological Preparation for Athletes.” Psychological Coaching for Coaches and Athletes, by Terry Orlick, John Partington and John Salmela, Ottawa: The Teaching Affiliation of Canada, 1983.
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