A series of practical five minute mental skills training drills that you can implement to improve physical performance.
The following mental skills training drills work to improve the most common mental deficiencies in athletes. They are designed to be implemented with your physical training, especially before a training session.
Arousal Regulation:
Drill: ‘Psyching up’.
Problem solved: Under aroused for exercise.
Goal: Increasing arousal levels.
Benefit: Achieving optimal arousal for the task.
How to do it:
- Increase your breathing rate.
- Act energised.
- Use mood words and positive statements.
- Listen to music that ‘fires you up’.
Drill: Progressive Relaxation
Problem solved: Over aroused for exercise / anxious.
Goal: Decreasing arousal levels / anxiety. Muscle relaxation.
Benefit: Reduce muscle tension.
How to do it:
- Progressively contact then relax all muscles of the body, from the toes up.
Drill: Diaphragmatic Breathing
Problem solved: Over aroused for exercise / anxious.
Goal: Decreasing arousal levels / anxiety.
Benefit: Achieving optimal arousal for the task.
How to do it:
- Counting to 20, Complete ten deep breaths, counting on the in breath and the out breath.
Drill: Meditation
Problem solved: Over aroused for exercise / anxious.
Goal: Decreasing arousal levels / anxiety.
Benefit: Achieving optimal arousal for the task.
How to do it:
- Guided meditation.
- Imagery:
Drill: Develop vividness.
Problem solved: Inability to consistently replicate positive performance.
Goal: Replicate positive performance.
Benefit: Performance improvement.
How to do it:
- Visually recall a movie of what you looked like performing a skill well.
Recall the sounds, both external and internal (inner voice) and your emotions when you performed the skill well.
Recreate the kinesthetic sensations of when you performed the skills well. Are you tight or relaxed? How do different areas of your body feel? Do you feel fast or slow?
Drill: Physical controllability.
Problem solved: Skill faults.
Goal: Increase controllability of task.
Benefit: Fault eradication.
How to do it:
- Visually recall a skill you’ve struggled with in the past. Picture what you’ve traditionally done wrong. Now make the correction.
Drill: Emotional controllability.
Problem solved: Unwanted emotions for a task.
Goal: Increase controllability of emotions.
Benefit: Optimise emotions for a task.
How to do it:
- Recall a situation in which you’ve experienced a negative emotion, become angry, tensed up, lost concentration, lost confidence.
- Recreate the emotions, then work through strategies to focus on successful skill completion with correct focus and positive emotions.
Confidence:
Drill: Positive self talk.
Problem solved: Negative thinking.
Goal: Become more positive.
Benefit: Increasing self confidence.
How to do it:
- Make a list of common forms of negative self talk.
- Write positive versions of each form of negative self talk.
- Identify when you’re using negative self talk.
- Use ‘thought stopping’ to stop the negative self talk.
- Replace the negative self talk with the positive version.
Drill: Strategy
Problem solved: Uncertainty about performance.
Goal: Increase self confidence.
Benefit: Increased performance.
How to do it:
- Develop a strategy for the task at hand.
- Develop plan B.
- Develop plan C.
Concentration:
Drill: Pre- Performance Routine
Problem solved: Distraction.
Goal: Eliminate distractions to performance.
Benefit: Focuses the mind on relevant cues.
How to do it:
- Establish a routine to perform before a particular skill.
- Practice replicating this routine before each performance of that skill.
