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Competitive anxiety and sports performance
Competitive anxiety and sports performance
Competitive anxiety and sports performance
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The goal of every coach is to create an environment in which his athletes can flourish. Performance anxiety is a coach’s worst enemy simply because it can have a negative impact both mentally and physically on athletes. The mastery approach to coaching is a cognitive-behavioral intervention designed to promote a mastery-involving motivational climate (Smith, Smoll, Cumming, 2007). How a coach handles his athletes is essential for their confidence and ability to overcome any level of performance anxiety. Critical or punitive feedback from coaches can evoke high levels of negative affect in children who fear failure and disapproval, thereby contributing to a threatening athletic environment (Smith, Smoll, Cumming, 2007). The effectiveness of the coaching method depends completely on the coach, his personality, and the needs of the student-athletes. Each program and institution is unique and has different institutional goals and objectives that attract different student-athletes compared to other colleges or universities (Koivula, Hassmen, Fallby, 2002). With researchers taking on th...
In order to see outcomes in this area of improvement, we as coaches must re-evaluate not only our athletes, but, in addition, our coaching styles. Of course, we all want to tell ourselves that we are great coaches and it's the athletes who are not following direction...
Coaching is an integral part of helping achieve one’s maximum abilities. Dr. Gawande (2013) explains that, “Coaches are not teachers, but they teach. They’re not your boss—in professional tennis, golf, and skating, the athlete hires and fires the coach—but they can be bossy” (p. 3). It is difficult to say what is the exact function of a coach, however, they help bring forth another point of view different from our own and they also help bring about the right mindset in order to subdue a weakness.
The age of overwhelming strength and stamina governing sports is over, and the age of the mentally tough athlete has arrived. Athletes are no longer the superficial jocks and robots programmed to accomplish one goal, victory. Modern athletes ranging from the high school to professional levels are faced with many pressures and temptations, normally outside the realm of their sport. These pressures can inhibit an athlete’s performance substantially; therefore, the pressures need to be dealt with by psychologists. The effectiveness of sports psychology is demonstrated through the fields many theories, applications, and variety of techniques and procedures.
A student athlete faces adversity on a daily basis. With facing adversity a lot of times comes stress, and with stress anxiety can start to become a huge factor on how the student athlete performs. When speaking of performing, that’s on and off the field tasks. Student athletes are known to have many responsibilities. A problem many student athletes face is managing all their responsibilities while not feeling overwhelmed. Once the pressure of trying to manage all the responsibilities a student athlete might have begins to weigh down on him or her, that’s when one with anxiety can start to lose the “it” factor that allows them to perform.
In addition, athletes put a lot of pressure on themselves became they are always being assessed by their opponents, teammates, coaches and spectators. The athlete wants to push themselves so that they can please their audience and not looked down upon if they do something wrong. This may lead to increased competitive anxiety, and there are three areas associated with competitive anxiety. First is cognitive anxiety, which is constant thoughts about failure. Next is somatic anxiety, and this is the awareness of physical symptoms and increased negative arousal. Finally, prior to and during competitions self-confidence is usually an indicator of low competitive anxiety and is normally related to higher performance. Athletes seeking victory should be cautious of their inner perfectionism because if it turns negative it can lead to mental and physical health risks (Stoeber et al., 2007, ¶
Confidence can be defined as the positive feeling that you can achieve a certain goal. Confidence is not hoping for something to happen it is the something that u expect to happen. Self confidence is when a person believes he/she can achieve a certain goal on his/herself. A self confident athlete will show enthusiasm and be positive even if things do not go according to plan. For example, a confident team captain will not bring negative thoughts into the team players head when they are losing.
Anxiety and Athletic Performance Introduction Athletes today need to be able to cope with the anxiety and pressure that is placed on them in the competitive world of sports. A large deal of research has been done on examining the relationship between anxiety and performance within the field of athletics. This paper is going to show that the mind of an athlete has a lot to do with the result of the particular event. In order to show that anxiety in athletes is a significant problem, this paper is going to be set up in three different areas in order to explain exactly how anxiety affects the athlete. The first section of the paper is going to explain the history and terminology of the study of anxiety in athletes.
Manley, A. (2009). Expectancies and Their Consequences within the Coach-Athlete Relationship: An Athlete-Centred Investigatio. [online] Available at: http://eprints.chi.ac.uk/816/1/507136.pdf.
Sports psychology continues to evolve in order to ensure that comprehensive and evidence-based psychological services are available for athletes and teams. Giving athletes an understanding of their psychological functioning, and building the ability to implement a range of psychological strategies in competition enables athletes to both execute their skills and thrive under pressure as they strive to reach their performance potential.
Sports and performance anxiety often go hand-in-hand, while many athletes become "pumped up" during competition, when the rush of adrenaline is interpreted as anxiety, and negative thoughts begin to swirl, it can have devastating effects on the overall per...
Firstly, it is vital to note that anxiety, motivation, and concentration tremendously influence people's self-confidence and their performance at the long-run (Damon & Raedeke, P 188). Higher self-confidence reduces anxiety. The vice versa is also true. This is based on the fact that optimally confident sports people experience fewer doubts on self. Their worries reduce and give room for concentration in their activities. Additionally, motivated athletes are in a better position to strive towards achieving their goal. Motivation enables sports people to combat negativity and low self-esteem as they focus more on their goals other than obstacles. Therefore, it is fundamental to note that coaches and sports people must collaborate in finding any mechanisms that could stimulate and uphold self-esteem since it is, directly and indirectly, impactful to their
Jensen, C.R. & Overman, S.J. (2003). Administration and Management of Physical Education and Athletic Programs. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc.
Educational sport psychology focuses on improving elite athletic performance through psychological skills training. Improving cognitive behavior and development by increasing cognitive awareness and addressing and correcting negative cognitive behaviors through and assortment of training methods, psychological skills training (PST) is best defined. The compass of psychology skills training includes the development of five basic psychological skills: arousal recognition, goal setting, imagery, attention control and self-talk. Sport psychologists have determined th...
Three factors were identified that contribute to the affects anxiety and stress has on an athlete’s performance. These factors were sent to psychologists and sports analysts who ranked them according to their level of importance they believed each factor had. Seven experts’ rankings are included in the funny mathematical section. Each expert participated in a survey that ranked the factors on a scale from one to ten. The degree of strict agreement between all the experts was 0.2000. Although this may seem like a number of great significance, the experts did possess the same views, making it difficult for the level of agreement to be high.
The psychological factor thought to influence sports performance, anxiety is considered the most important. This concept has been the focus of sport psychologists for many of years as anxiety impacts performance in several of ways (Humara, 1999). Evident in the work of Raglin and Hanin (2000) as high levels of anxiety is harmful to performance. Majority of athletes consider anxiety to be an interfering factor to sports performance (Weinberg & Gould, 2011) as anxiety is seen be negative emotions that affect perceptions in sport settings. As anxiety is connected to not being able to think clearly and increased muscle tension and heart rate – in sport psychology anxiety is defined as a state of apprehension, tension and heightened arousal of the