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Becoming a sports psychologist essay
Importance of sports psychology
Importance of sports psychology
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Introduction
This essay will critically evaluate the most common psychological issues that occur with athletes during their careers; the most common issues that sport psychologists deal with are mental and emotional issues such as goal setting, imagery, concentration, stress and anxiety. The biggest names in sports have a sport psychologist besides them to keep them concentrated and motivated in case they lose interest in the sport according to Jarvis (2006). Sport rules the world, think about it everywhere we look there is a sporting event going on or an even that is being televised. According to Parker & Watson (2014) over the last three decades sport has been followed like a religion, now you may ask; what has this got to do with sport psychology? The answer is simple with so much focus on sport from the fans and the media particularly; athlete’s performances are put under a microscope which results in more pressure on athletes to try their hardest to always give winning and professional
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Boosting their self-esteem and confidence will determine them in achieving better. Is it essential that the candidate has the self confidence in producing the best of their ability to perform the necessary physical and mental tasks The coach would list what the athlete’s best performance and what they need to improve on. By understanding what they are actually good at will motivate them to produce more to achieve their main targets. The most significant obstacle to developing or maintaining this foundation is self-criticism and self-condemnation. To be committed to what you’re doing depends on how your perspective sees the overall image. If the athlete despites the fact of training every day, it’ll slowly decrease their commitment and interest. This will lead to lack of motivation, continuously doing this will lead to psychological problem such as
Athletes in times of difficulty can be important role models.” This shows that sports are in fact helpful because they can grow children into being important role models for the rest of society. Studies have shown time and time again that playing sports can be beneficial to children and we also believe this to be true. Many people still think that sports cause “too many injuries”, or coaches “are not fair enough”, but adolescents will experience these things all throughout their lives because injury can happen anywhere and they will not always be the best at what they are doing. Sports are beneficial to the youth because they can teach children and teens important life skills, help them maintain a fit and healthy lifestyle, all while improving their mental health.
Sports performance is carrying out of specific physical routines or procedures by one who is trained or skilled in physical activity. Performance is usually influenced by a combination of physiological and also psychological. Performance of an athlete usually measured by the goals they set and how hard they are willing to train for the sport they take part in. When thinking of performing a duty to a team most people don’t think about the mental obstacles one might have to overcome to accomplish a goal. When dealing with any athlete there is more to it than just throwing them in a game and expecting them to play well.
Interview with Mr. Scott William in the Field of Sport Science My interviewee was Mr. Scott William, a well-known professor in the field of sport psychology. My discipline is sport science, and although William does not teach at the university, he has a sport psychology degree. He is a close friend of my father’s and my mentor. He has been working in sport and recreation industry for the last ten years before I even knew him; so it seemed like he had a good understanding of sport science and the use of drugs in sports.
For many years the wining averages were used to dictate the achievements on how the two interacted. It was believed that if a team has more wins than loses that the coach and athlete combination was superb. The win – loss record has been established as a longstanding instrument measuring the success of athletic players and coaches. However, this is not really a direct correlation to the coach’s effectiveness in a particular sport, being that there are many other factors in coaching a team other than game records. The coach’s job is to enhance to the athlete physically, socially, and psychologically, winning is only considered a by-product of that job (Gillham, Burton, & Gillham, 2013). Gillham, Burton, and Gillham (2013) focused on developing a Coaching Success Questionnaire-2 to allow a means of evaluating other aspects of a coach’s interaction with their athletes as both a research and coach devel...
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.
...o limit to their training and conditioning. This of course, is not the case. Overtraining is not only harmful, it is self-defeating as well. There is a good chance of experiencing internal fatigue, this in turn can lead to sports injuries, especially stress-related injuries. Overtraining may leave the athlete constantly tired, negatively affecting their performance. Being constantly tired and not being able to match the past performance achieved, or not being able to experience performance improvement can lead to depression.
Due to the nature of sport, athletes will always be faced with the possibility of becoming injured. Empirical research has demonstrated that injury has a psychological impact on athletes (Quinn & Fallon, 1999). Indeed, sports practitioners often witness negative psychological impacts such as depression and in extreme cases suicidal tendencies in the injured athlete (Jevon & Johnston, 2003). Injuries have a dramatic impact upon an athlete’s life (Deutsch, 1985), Crossman (1997) interviewed athletic trainers and established that 47% of respondents believed that every injured athlete suffered psychological trauma. Walker, Thatcher and Lavallee (2007), explain there is a need to advance current knowledge of the way injured athletes psychologically respond, with deeper understanding it would be possible to aid rehabilitation professionals and help the athlete cope better psychologically. Psychological issues have an important role in the athletes ability to recover from injury (Arvinen-Barrow, Penny, Hemmings, & Corr, 2010), understanding how an athlete responds will have multiple practical implications. Ford and Gordon (1997) suggest that if an athlete experiences negative emotions then it will lead to non-complinace of the rehabilitation process. In order to understand athletes psychological responses to injury several frameworks have been suggested. These include the: integrated model of response to sports injury and rehabilitation (Wiese-Bjornstal, Smith, Shaffer, & Morrey, 1998), the Bio-Psychosocial model of sport injury rehabilitation (Brewer, Andersen, & Van Raalte, 2002), the staged-based grief response models (Kubler-Ross, 1969) and the stage model of the return to sport (Taylor & Taylor, 1997).
Athletes train for weeks, months, or even years for one single event in their sport. They are relentless in their workouts and strength training. They go out and show what they can do for everyone to see. But is there more to it than what the eye can see? Mindfulness is a word used to describe one’s mental strength and concentration. Mindfulness is defined as “state of active, open attention on the present. When you're mindful, you carefully observe your thoughts and feelings without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to your current experience, rather than dwelling on the past or anticipating the future.” (Mindfulness). This is becoming a highly discussed practice used by many successful athletes. Lebron James has sworn by meditation before games or high pressure situations, along with Derek Jeter, and Olympic beach volleyball partners Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings. They are only a few of
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.
Playing a sport whether its basketball, soccer, football or any other of your interest can be thrilling, and accelerating. Not only can it be fun yet physical exercise is good for the mind, body, and spirit. Therefore, as an athlete one must keep in mind that playing any sport, injury is part of life and inevitable. Research has proven from time to time that severe injuries in sports can trigger psychological mental health issues, affecting them in their athletic performance.
It is amazing to watch how most athletes perform at their peak and continue to produce and set record-breaking performances. What drives them to these high levels of motivation and productivity? They may come from various influences and source of motivation and these similar sources can also energize certain individuals affect behavior and arouse their drive.
Sports are an important aspect of society. They help people to strive to reach certain goals and join people together, but they also can divide people and turn a fun game into the main purpose of someone’s life. Taking sports games too seriously can be harmful to both the athlete and the spectator. The attitude of always winning at any cost in sports has managed to distract us from other important parts of our lives, such as health and education. This importance of the value of sports can heavily influence the way that we see ourselves as both the spectator and the athlete by creating a positive self image and distilling confidence and discipline within the player, or by embedding self doubt and inversion.
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.
Athletes are complex individuals. They are people who have devoted a significant amount of their life to playing a sport at a high level which causes them to suffer many different emotions while in or out of competition. One commonality between many athletes are superstitions. Superstitions “grant players a psychologically important illusion of control over events that often come down to random bounces here and there” (DeLessio, 2015). It is important to be able to understand superstitious behavior and why it is s relevant in sports; from coaches to athletes, superstitious behavior is predominant in the athletic community and it is significant to understand its effects and roles on the athlete’s psychological being.
Sport and exercise psychology is a mandatory aspect of the sport science discipline. This discipline contributes to the various professional practices associated with physical activities such as - teaching of physical education, recreation and health promotion, and kinesiology related professions - because it plays a mental role for the participants. Sport and exercise psychologists view physical activity in several different ways: physical activity as a tool for health, physical activity as a tool for human potential, and physical activity as a tool for social change. This aspect of psychology may be the most important aspect of physical activity, because of the contributions of exercise and sport psychology to health, human potential, and social change.