We are certainly experiencing a wonderful summer of sport with Silverstone, Wimbledon and the British Open completed and the Ashes now in full swing.
Whether you’re either attending these events live or watching from the comfort of your home, it’s a great opportunity to pay attention to some of the behavioural nuances that occur in the heat of battle to help athletes perform under pressure.
There is no doubt that elite athletes spend a substantial proportion of their time working on their technical skills and physical condition, however the ability to execute these skills in competition, when it counts, relies on the use of mental and tactical skills.
In our last article on the mind’s role in sport - Focusing when it counts – how mindfulness can support high performance - we shared how elite atheletes integrate mindfulness into their practice to assist with focus.
The key point to note of is that elite athletes are practising mental and tactical skills to enhance their performance. It’s worth reminding viewers this summer that determination, grit, resilence, focus and confidence are skills that elite athletes train over many years of their development and continue to do so during their professional careers.
The goal is to match the demands of competitive play. Training the skills required to do this is what players on the professional circuit – they train to compete.
Research into elite athletes and their practice regimes indicates that an athlete will spend up to 99% of their time training, and the remaining time competing. This means that if you want to make changes to the way that you play competitively you must put more focus on the quality of your practice time. Moreover, you need to train your mind in your practice in a similar way to how you train your physical and technical skills. Thus, our recommendation is to deliberately practise the competitive skills in your training. In keeping with the Wimbledon theme, here are six strategies to achieve deliberate practice of your competitive tennis skills to make training matter:
1. Play competitive shots and set plays on the training court that demonstrate your strengths and style of play.
2. Simulate competitive matches and conditions starting with your pre-match routine.
3. Prepare for your opponents and playing conditions through varying hitting partners and training environments.
4. Incorporate your on-court between points and change-of-end routines into your practice.
5. Add outcomes to your practice drills to emphasise consequences.
6. Maintain your practice routines despite the technical weaknesses you are experiencing.
The general theme of these six strategies is to bring the two worlds of training and competition closer. Look at your mental approach on the training court and in practice matches. Compare it to your mental approach in competitive matches. Often players change their thoughts, feelings, and behaviour simply because it is a ‘competitive’ environment. Why make it a competition within yourself as well as between yourselves? Dedicate your energy towards designing and implementing quality practice that is reflected in your competitive matches. Quality practice results in getting a closer fit between your skill resources and the demands of competition.
ISEH Sport and Exercise Psychologist Andrea Furst works together with athletes from a range of sports and levels of competitions to help atheltes match the psychological demands of competition. Her aim is to improve communication between body and brain, and thus contribute to consistent, sustainable high performance when it counts under pressure.
Read Andrea Furst’s profile
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