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Tom Daley: When I first started diving and first started going into competition it was very much go in there, just have fun with the competition kind of thing. Just go in there and do what you can and I didn’t really have a plan. Now over the years I’ve kind of developed this kind of routine that I’ve got now. My routine now is just to go there and, go in there and want to do well and really have like a goal that you want to achieve, like a performance goal. Not worry about outcome goals, just think about the performance and think about each dive as it comes.
Shaunna Thompson: I’m always thinking about getting a first, a big powerful first step, and that’s the only thing I - it’s not the only thing I think about but it’s the most, it’s the thing that it’s in the front of my mind because if I take too short of a step then I always seem to stumble then on the, on the next steps. But if I take a big powerful step it’s just I don’t think about anything else after that because it’s all a blur and then I run a good race.
Jessica Ennis: I sit down with my coach and we kind of plan short term goals, so what I want to achieve from the indoor season, what competitions I want to do and what I want to get out of them. And then long term goals for year upon year. Um, and then during an actual heptathlon you kind of know where you’re at from your training and what you roughly want to get from each event.
Shaunna Thompson: Normally I like tap my feet back and forward before the starter says on your marks, and that gets me really psyched out, well not psyched out, psyched up because when I’m tapping my feet sometimes like I put in aggression, it makes me feel like right, I’ve got, I’m getting ready for this race now.
Tom Daley: The week in the competition I probably would watch a competition that I’ve done really well in to give me that extra confidence and to know that I can do the dives well. But then in competition I normally just have a drink of water before I go up to the board down at the bottom, and I walk up and then when I get onto five metre I do my visual run-through, and then on seven metre I do my dry land run-through and then by the time I’ve got onto ten metre I’ve done the whole dive before and I’m just ready to go out there and do it the best I can.
Shaunna Thompson: I went through a stage of not running well after I visualised I didn’t use it again, but sometimes I still use it.
Tom Daley: Now I always use visualisation when I go onto the board, I always do dry land run-throughs and I’m always making sure that I’m completely focused and don’t let pressure get to me, and make sure that I put 100% effort into every dive.
Pete Reed: I’d seen Hodgey train and he’d seen me train all those times, all those tough sessions, all those really dark winter days and freezing cold conditions, and we’ve seen each other go through a lot and come through a lot, and when you’re on the start line you can trust yourself and trust your team mates to get the job done, and we’ve worked hard and that’s how you can get real belief on the start line.
Shaunna Thompson: On the way to the competition I don’t really speak, I just put, keep my earphones in. And um, and sometimes I get like – depending on the competition I get really giddy because that like gets me hyped up
Tom Daley: Before a competition I would normally either eat some food or I listen to some music and just drink lots of water. I’m always eating like little bits throughout the competition to make sure I keep my energy levels up and always listening to music just to keep you in the zone kind of thing.
Interviewer: What kind of music?
Tom Daley: At the moment I’m really liking the Black Eyed Peas so that, they’re always on my iPod.
Whilst sport is a largely physical endeavour, the psychological aspects of sports performance should not be underestimated. Participation in competitive sport brings with it many psychological stresses, such as dealing with pressure and controlling nerves. So how do athletes cope with these stresses?
When you speak to athletes about how they cope with the pressures of competition, you often find that they have one thing in common – the use of a pre-competition routine. This is a set routine that an athlete goes through in the build up to a competition. In sports such as tennis, we get a glimpse of athletes’ routines, but what we see is often the tip of the iceberg. What takes place before they play, when they wake up, when they arrive at the venue, and on the start line?
The pre-competition routine will be unique to each athlete and can relate to aspects such as sleep, diet, rituals, music, physical warm-ups and psychological techniques. While the content of each athlete’s routine will be different, the overriding goal will be the same: to get them into their ideal performance state ready for competition. For some this ideal state will be relaxed and calm, but for others it’ll be the exact opposite. You’ll see this at the start of a 100m race where contrasts between athletes are evident. Some athletes like to remain still and stare ahead, whilst others like to jump up and down and be active, sometimes talking to themselves.
What might be included in a routine?
The exact content and structure of a pre-competition routine will vary from athlete to athlete, but there are three key psychological techniques that athletes commonly use to help them get into their ideal performance state before competition:
- imagery
- positive self-talk
- arousal control strategies
Imagery
You often see athletes appearing to run through a performance in their mind before executing it (for example a high jumper before a jump). This technique is known as imagery. Vealey and Greenleaf define imagery in Seeing is believing: Understanding and using imagery in sport as: "using all the senses to re-create or create an experience in the mind."
It’s commonly referred to as visualisation, but this term fails to cover the multi-sensory nature of imagery. Imagery is considered an important technique in sport and is associated with many positive outcomes including increased confidence, improved motivation, better skill learning and reduced anxiety.
Positive self-talk
Self-talk, as its name suggests, refers to the things people say to themselves. In Quantifying athlete self-talk, Hardy, Hall and Hardy define self-talk more thoroughly as: "a multidimensional phenomenon concerned with athletes’ verbalisations that are addressed to themselves, which can serve both instructional and motivational functions."
Self-talk can be internal (thoughts) or external (spoken words). The things we say to ourselves are thought to influence our performance. It’s believed that negative self-talk is more likely to lead to negative performance and positive self-talk is more likely to lead to positive performance.
Therefore, the deliberate use of positive self-talk is considered valuable psychological techniques in sport. Athletes who use self-talk say there are several beneficial outcomes including increased self-confidence, decreased anxiety, and better concentration.
Arousal control strategies
Arousal refers to the level of activation in our body, which ranges from deep sleep to extreme excitement. Being able to control arousal levels is an important skill in sport.
Each of us has optimal arousal levels for different tasks and so being able to move our arousal to these optimal levels can benefit performance. In order to do this an athlete needs to have strategies at their disposal to reduce their arousal levels (relaxation strategies) and increase their arousal levels (‘psyching-up’ strategies).
There are many different arousal control strategies that can be used. Examples of relaxation strategies include controlled breathing techniques and progressive muscle relaxation. Athletes may psyche themselves up through techniques such as vigorous activity and listening to upbeat music.
A sample pre-competition routine
Here’s an example of a pre-competition routine for a tennis player. It includes the use of imagery, self-talk and arousal control strategies.
Night before competition:
Get an early night and listen to my tried and tested progressive muscle relaxation mp3 in bed
Day of competition:
- 60 mins before = Begin my standard warm-up with a 10 minute jog
- 50 mins before = Stretching and drills
- 40 mins before = Visit toilet!
- 30 mins before = Tennis court – racket practice (my 6 key stokes)
- 10 mins before = Run through imagery of a previous successful match
- Immediately before = Take a deep breath, breathe out and repeat positive phrase "I am a winner"
Competition environments can be stressful and unpredictable. In contrast the pre-competition routine gives the athlete a sense of control in what can be an intimidating environment. Also, having a set routine to follow gives the competitor something to focus on and prevents them being distracted by irrelevant things that could have a negative effect on their performance.
Find out more
Interested in discovering more about the mind of an athlete?
The Open University has launched a new course ideal for those interested in the psychological aspects of sport and exercise participation. Content will be delivered through a selection of sport and exercise case studies, and will offer an insight into topics such as the psychological aspects of sports injury, exercise dependence, and psychological skills training.
Sample pre-race routine
Article by John F. Murray about pre-performance routines
The Lawn Tennis Association on pre-match preparation
Blog item on creating a pre-competition routine
References
'Quantifying athlete self-talk' by J Hardy, C. R Hall and L Hardy in the Journal of Sports Sciences (2005)
'Seeing is believing: Understanding and using imagery in sport' by R. S Vealey, and C. A Greenleaf in Applied sport psychology - personal growth to peak performance (5th ed. McGraw-Hill)
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Comments on: "Getting into the zone"
think2win has started a thread discussing Getting into the zone.
After watching the BBC's documentary, Olympic Dreams, I felt compelled t post a comment. I work with professional football clubs up and down the Country, specializing with the Centres of Excellence and academies players and coaches using advanced NLP techniques to overcome and address issues such as limited beliefs, fear of failure, motivation and confidence building. The area that gains much interest is rapport building techniques for coaches to build trust, respect and openness with their athletes. Body language is so important to control the correct mindset and also instal confidence and convey an unconscious rapport technique. Also to assist with conveying the correct message to the opposition. I found many young players, as soon as they sign professional papers adopt a "Fear of failure", letting coaches down, managing the parents expectations and this has a direct result of their performance. By introducing some NLP techniques, I and the coaches have witnessed amazing results/ Mental rehearsal work is also a vital part of the preparation, using modeling excellence techniques. i work with the coaches on feedback, use of positive language during feedback...no use of negative predicates and leaving out the "but" word!!! I'm now finding more and more younger players requesting one to one sessions as they now see psychology as a major part of enhancing their performance. Well done to the BBC for a fascinating insight to this most important area of becoming an elite sports person.
Regards, Bob Humphreys, Performance Consultant