Personal Training for your Mind

Strengthening your mind is just as important as training your body. Whether you are an athlete, a business professional, or part of a team, mental strength can be the key to unlocking your full potential. I want to share with you some effective personal training methods to boost your mental performance. These techniques are practical, easy to apply, and designed to help you stay sharp, focused, and resilient.

A Holistic Approach to Development

The percentage difference between first and second place in elite sport is tiny, less than 1%. For example, in the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the difference between gold and silver medals in swimming events was 0.72%; between third place (bronze and the final podium spot) and fourth place was 0.34%. In athletics, for all running events (from the 100m to Marathon) the difference between gold and silver was 0.66%; between bronze and fourth place was 0.4%. For athletes that had dedicated the previous four years of their lives to their discipline, being on the wrong end of this must be devastating.

So, what might make the difference? What might give athletes a fraction of a percent improvement that could mean gold rather than silver, or a podium finish versus fourth? At the elite end of sport, technical, tactical and physical components of performance tend to level out, meaning that athletes’ mindset is often the deciding factor in victory or defeat (as discussed by performance psychologist Tom Bates in the clip below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMKp5IqIK2A&feature=youtu.be

Unfortunately, in many sports the psychological side of performance is often neglected, with football being one of the worst culprits¹. Sport psychology does, however, suffer from a number of issues. One of the main ones being stigmatised as issue-related – you only see a psychologist if you have problems. Research also needs to improve – access to elite athletes is extremely limited meaning much of the research is conducted lower down the performance ladder² limiting its applicability to the top end of sport. There also tends to be friction between practitioners (those working in elite sport) and researchers (those telling them how they should be doing it)³.  It has been suggested that a more ‘pracademic’ approach - combining the experience of those working in industry with those in research – could be beneficial in moving sport psychology forward. This would require more collaboration from both sides and re-focusing research on what really matters rather than producing it for its own sake⁴.

Figure 1: Scholar-Practitioner Continuum⁵

With barriers to consultation and research at the elite end, it may be sensible to focus more on the developmental stages in sport to encourage youth athletes to engage more readily with sport psychology and avoid some of the ‘old-school’ attitudes of seeking support as being for the weak. In my personal experience it is the opposite, athletes who engage with the process want to ensure that they squeeze every last drop out of their talent and explore every possible avenue to do so. It is a pity when people do not reach their potential through not wanting to engage with criticism or any negative aspects of their own performance.

Another issue with sport psychology is the vagueness of some of the terms used. Take ‘mental toughness’, for example. If you were to ask 10 different people what their definition was, they would probably give 10 different answers (with some concepts overlapping no doubt). A lot of work in this area has centred on exploring the differences between the top ‘super-elite’ athletes and those just below them ^{6 7 8}. These studies often produce shopping lists of the qualities that great athletes possess, again with some differences and some similarities. Items on these lists might include self-belief, attentional control, optimism, thriving when challenged⁹; or maybe commitment, motivation to succeed, coping under pressure, or working on weaknesses¹⁰. A recent study¹¹ proposed that there are actually (to this point) 48 proposed psychosocial factors that influence development – with the social part also acknowledging the effects of important others in the process (coaches and parents in particular).

 An alternative to matching existing behaviours of developing players to ideal behaviours of those already at the elite level may be to instead look at what young athletes have in terms of their existing strengths and weaknesses. A ‘super strengths’ approach¹² works on the premise that a player’s strengths should get them in the team, but their weaknesses should not get them out. An analogy of a boat is used here: your strengths fill the sails and allow the boat to move faster. If you have a weakness that is above the water line it will not sink the boat, so as an athlete you are probably better off continuing to work on your strengths. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo is not known for his defensive abilities but his attacking prowess more than compensates for this. If, however, you have a weakness that is below the water line it will sink the boat and needs addressing. For example, a goalkeeper who is particularly one-footed may struggle to play out from the back effectively.

Figure 2: ‘Super Strengths’ approach¹²

Measuring behaviour and attitudes in psychology is really difficult! If you want to measure how fast a player is, you can use timing gates and a tape measure and obtain a pretty accurate numerical score. When trying to measure thoughts and feelings, it becomes much harder for a number of reasons. These include an enormous amount of cognitive biases (thinking mistakes) in the human brain that often prevent us from being honest about our own performance or assessing others accurately (see example below that shows 188 of these – you may need to zoom in or see the link in the reference section).

Figure 3: Cognitive Bias Codex¹³

The methods used all have their own inherent weaknesses and strengths. Sport psychology may be guilty of using too narrow an approach and not looking at behaviours from a number of angles at times³. Although this is a time-consuming affair, gathering as much information (quantitative and qualitative i.e., numbers and words) with as many different methods (performance profile, questionnaire, observations, interviews, stats, video) from as many different sources (players, parents, coaches, teammates, performance analysts) is vital¹⁴. This will provide a picture that is as comprehensive of athletes’ current ‘super strengths’ and whether their weaknesses are likely to ‘sink the boat’¹².

It is also important to look at the player holistically i.e., not just what you see in terms of current performance (based on limited technical and physical attributes) but also the context in which they perform and what they are potentially capable of in the future. There are a huge number of different variables that affect developing athletes from a biopsychosocial perspective¹⁵. The ‘bio’ part generally relates to a player’s genetic make-up and abilities, ‘psycho’ to attitudes and beliefs and ‘social’ to demographic factors (such as socio-economic status). It may be that they are an early or late developer in terms of physical, social and psychological factors. Family situations have a massive effect on performance – are they from a stable family with a steady income or is the opposite true? How might that affect them positively or negatively? What about number, order and age differences of siblings? Are they experiencing a growth spurt in adolescence and how does that affect their co-ordination and confidence? Are they born early or late in the selection year (relative age effect)? Are they getting enough rest, proper nutrition and hydration? How is their mental health? These questions could fill the several pages due to their complexity. Unfortunately, in youth development in sport, these complexities are not accounted for when making decisions on selection and release – decisions that may ultimately affect the players for the rest of their lives⁴.

Figure 4: Example of biopsychosocial factors¹⁵

In summary, when profiling players and developing action plans it is important not to take too narrow a focus. Physical and technical aspects are important but paint a misleading picture. These undoubtedly should not be neglected, but current performance is a poor indicator of long-term potential. It may be psychosocial factors (e.g., resilience and determination) that help players overcome barriers in the long-term and these may be better indicators of future success. Just exploring one aspect does not allow for a full assessment of a player’s current or future performance. Profiling the whole player (technical/tactical, physical and psychosocial factors) gives them a better chance of identifying and developing the key areas for the best chance of achieving their full potential.

¹ Pain M and Harwood C (2004) Knowledge and perceptions of sport psychology within English soccer. Journal of Sports Sciences, 22 (9), p813 — 826

² Cruickshank & Collins (2012) Culture Change in Elite Sport Performance Teams: Examining and Advancing Effectiveness in the New Era. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 24 (3), p338 - 355

³ Abbott & Collins (2004) Eliminating the dichotomy between theory and practice in talent identification and development: considering the role of psychology. Journal of Sports Sciences, 22, p395 – 408

⁴ Collins D, MacNamara A and Cruickshank A (2018): Research and Practice in Talent Identification and Development—Some Thoughts on the State of Play, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 0: p1 – 12

⁵ Wasserman IC and Kram K (2009) Enacting the Scholar— Practitioner RoleAn Exploration of Narratives. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 45 (1), p12 - 38

⁶ Orlick T and Partington J (1988) Mental Links to Excellence. Sport Psychologist, 2 (2) p105 – 130

⁷Collins, D and MacNamara Á (2017) Making champs and super­champs ­ Current views, contradictions, and future directions. Frontiers in Psychology, 8 p823

⁸ Collins D, Macnamara A and Mccarthy N(2015) Super champions, champions and almosts: Important differences and commonalities on the rocky road. Frontiers in Psychology 6, 2009

⁹ Gordon S and Gucciardi F (2011) A Strengths-Based Approach to Coaching Mental Toughness. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action 2 (3), p143 - 155

¹⁰ MacNamara A, Button A and Collins D (2010a) The Role of Psychological Characteristics in Facilitating the Pathway to Elite Performance Part 1: Identifying Mental Skills and Behaviors. The Sport Psychologist, 24, p52 – 73

¹¹ Gledhill A, Harwood, C and Forsdyke D (2017) Psychosocial factors associated with talent development in football: A systematic review. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 1, p93 – 112

¹² Ludlam KE, Butt J, Bawden M, Lindsay P and Maynard IW (2015) A Strengths-Based Consultancy Approach in Elite Sport: Exploring Super-Strengths. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 28 (2)

¹³ Manoogian J  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cognitive_bias_codex_en.svg [date accessed 2/2/22)

¹⁴ Barney EG (2015) Preliminary stages in the validation of a talent identification model in

Cricket. PhD thesis Bangor University.

¹⁵ Bailey R, Collins D, Ford P, MacNamara A, Toms M, Pearce G (2010) Participant Development in Sport:  An Academic Review. p1 – 138 http://www.sportni.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ParticipantDevelopmentinSport.pdf [date accessed 2/2/22]