Pre-Mentality

 PRE-MENTALITY

(The Mental Athlete)

 

By: Christopher Mack, C1, Quiet Fire Youth Track Club, CA

 

We spend hours practicing our athletes physically, but how much time do we spend practicing the mental aspect of our sport.

 

Joan Benoit, Olympic Gold Medalist believes that running is 80% mental.  Professional athletes spend a lot of time and money with Sports Psychologists to help perfect techniques such as positive self-talk, affirmations, goal setting and visualization.

 

Psychologist in the early 1980’s spent hours explaining to athletes and teams the

importance of mental training techniques and skills.  Today we see athletes are hungry to

learn how to improve their competitive winning edge. 

 

If two athletes of equal ability, the athlete with the mental edge most often will win.

 

Mental training takes the same commitment like we trains the athlete’s body.  Daily mental

practice prepares the athlete for all possibilities and helps the athlete cope positively with the

unexpected, rather than being psyched out. 

 

Developing these five steps in your training approach can be very beneficial in your athletes

overall performance and giving them that competitive edge over their competitors.

 

1. Keep a mental log:  An athlete journal - To help you analyze your athletes thinking pattern and their strengths and weaknesses.
2. Goal setting:  Help your athlete to set realistic short and long term goals. Monitor the results throughout the season.
3. Positive self talk or affirmations:  Help your athlete change their negative thoughts to positive thoughts.  Negative:  I don’t want to let Coach Shelton down. Positive: Coach Shelton believes in me and I believe in myself.
4. Relaxation:  It is important to be relaxed during competition.  The mind must be ready and alert to respond quickly to the heat of competition.
5. Visualization/Mental rehearsal:  The images, feeling, and sounds we have in our mind’s eyes have great power.  Our mind is one our greatest gifts.  Set a competition visualization guide for your athlete’s events.

 

By using mental training strategies, the athlete creates a more personal control over what happens in competition.  Mental training also develops a mental toughness and training concentration that is sometimes lacking in the athletes we coach.

 

Steve Prefontaine, one of America’s greatest distance runner’s, is most remembered for his mental toughness in training and competition.  Two of his notable quotes:

 

 “Most people run a race to see who is fastest, I run a race to see who has the most guts.” 

 

“I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.”

 

Many times athletes practice extremely well be compete poor and below their potential.  This is due to competition anxiety.  Rehearing competition visualization with your athletes gives them the opportunity to see themselves in many different competition settings.  As you help your athletes train their mind in conjunction with the physical training, you will see an increase in their performance and confidence.

 

Are you ready to take your athletes to the next level?  Think PRE!

Coach Chris

Quiet Fire Youth Track Club
 coachc4qf@aol.com
  

Related posts:

1. Guided Imagery May Improve Athlectic Performance
2. Angela Williams A Youth Track & Field Icon
3. Is Only Running The Best Thing???
4. Something New At TrackMom.com
5. How To Win Gold