Concentration – Psychological Skills Training

This is part of a five part series on Psychological Skills Training, covering the education, acquisition and practice of psychological skills.

Other posts in this series include:

• Arousal Regulation – Psychological Skills Training
• Imagery – Psychological Skills Training
• Self Confidence – Psychological Skills Training
• Goal Setting – Psychological Skills Training

Education:

1.  Concentration is made up of:

• Selective attention: Focusing on relevant cues in the environment, selecting what cues to attend to and which to disregard.
• Maintaining attentional focus: Maintaining that focus over time.
• Situational awareness: Having awareness of the situation.

2. There are four types of attentional focus (diagram on page 331). Shifts between these types of focus is important as the situation demands.

• Broad: Aware of many factors.
• Narrow: Aware of few factors.
• External: Directed outwardly (to an opponent, situation etc).
• Internal: Directed to thoughts and feelings.

1. Attentional problems are usually caused by an inappropriate attentional focus (ie, incorrectly broad/narrow, or external/internal). Attentional problems are classified as internal or external:
   1. Internal distracters: Distractions from within ourselves.
      • Focusing on past events (especially past mistakes/failures).
      • Focusing on future events: Thinking about consequences of actions, rather than the action itself.
      • Choking: Shifting focus from relevant external cues to narrow/internal cues related to fears of poor performance.
      • Overanalysing body mechanics: Excessive focus on the skill when the skill has already been learnt (the ‘yipps’).
      • Mental fatigue.
      • Self talk.
   2. External distracters: Distracters from the environment.
      • Visual distracters.
      • Auditory distracters.
      • Gamesmanship: Behaviour of opponents.
2. Self Talk:
   • Positive self-talk: Enhances self esteem, motivation, attentional focus and performance. Creates positive emotions.
   • Negative self-talk: Critical and demeaning. Creates negative emotions.
   • How does self-talk work?
     • An event occurs.
     • As a result of the event we undertake self-talk/internal dialogue.
     • Our self-talk leads to a certain emotional/physiological/behavioural response.
   • Uses of self-talk:
     • Skill acquisition: To focus attention on an important element of the task. eg: ‘finish the pull’.
     • Breaking bad habits: A reminder to avoid the unwanted action/behaviour. eg: ‘hips down’.
     • Initiating action: As a motivational tool. eg. ‘explode’.
     • Sustaining effort. eg. ‘keep moving’.

Acquisition and Practice:

1. Techniques for improving self-talk:
   1. Thought stopping: Concentrating on an undesired thought and using a trigger or cue to clear your mind, eg. ‘stop’. Then shifting your focus to a task related cue.
   2. Changing negative self-talk to positive self-talk: Becoming aware of negative self talk and replacing it with positive self talk.
2. Tips for improving concentration:
   • Simulation training: Emulating competition situations in training.
   • Cue words: Using instructional or motivational words as part of your self-talk.
   • Employ nonjudgemental training: Don’t classify performance into good and bad, rather, focus on strategies for improvement.
   • Establish routines: Routines for before or during an event to focus attention, reduce anxiety, eliminate distractions and enhance confidence.
   • Develop competition plans: Process goals will focus the mind on the task at hand.
   • Practice eye control: Focus on a one point to reduce unwanted visual distractions.
   • Focus on the present.
   • Overlearn skills: Overlearning skills makes a skill automatic, allowing the athlete to focus on other areas of the performance environment.