Psychology & Mindfulness for Sport Performance

Take a read at the inspirations behind the development of PhysioFrog and the team’s underlying goals with the software.

06/11/2023
Noah Soliman

“At first I thought, okay, now I have done it. Before the match ball, I was very nervous because of joy that everything went so well. Fifteen minutes later, you leave the court and you did not win the match. To lose in such a way is very disappointing because I had the feeling he [Novak Djokovic] was already beaten in the head and no longer believed in his victory.”

This is a snippet of Roger Federer’s post-match interview after squandering his US Open Semi-Final lead to ATP’s world number 1 (as of 30/10/23) Novak Djokovic. In any athletic setting, whether it’s the usual training session or the World Cup Final, your mindset plays a significant role in your approach to performance and the subsequent result. In this episode, we will delve into the psychological factors that influence athletic performance, and the mental techniques you can implement to maximise your on-field performances.

Factors Affecting Performance

Studies have suggested that your mindfulness towards life is a huge contributor to how you approach setbacks and advancements during your athletic career. Amongst academics, this term is referred to as dispositional mindfulness. Below are some factors contributing to mindfulness and their sporting applications:

Bare Attention: the ability to dissociate from a scenario’s distracting thoughts and emotions, only focusing on the task at hand – remaining ‘present’.

Athletes with high levels of ‘bare attention’ are less distracted, both in trainings and events, towards topics that don’t orientate around their athletic goals. This ensures they’re maximising their development and making optimal decisions during games.

After dropping the first two sets, a tennis player must dismiss the fear of loss and reset himself. This is to maximise his concentration and performance for the third set.

Value Clarification: the process of constantly defining one’s values and creating goals based on them.

Athletes who have achieved ‘value clarification’ will subsequently have a clear direction on their athletic goals, and have made changes to their life to assist in pursuing them.

A triathlete has recognised that she highly values athletic achievement, and has set a goal of Olympic qualification. She now only fills his fridge with foods to optimise her health and trains every day.

Exposure: the overcoming of an event’s fears and anxieties by experiencing that event (or reminders of) multiple times.

Athletes whose sport can be mentally and physically taxing are numb to its psychological discomforts as they have trained in conditions similar or worse many times before.

A young, aspiring footballer is fearless towards team trials as he/she has experienced that pressure on countless occasions, and isn’t negatively influenced by rejection.

Maximising Your Performance

There’s no point understanding these factors without the knowledge of their application. Below are the corresponding solutions to improving the factors mentioned, followed by an athletic analogy:

Bare Attention

Throughout your day, be consciously attentive and observant of things around you. However, do not allow your mind to associate thoughts and emotions with that event. Instead, just observe them like a tourist. In the beginning, it will be inevitable that you associate emotion, instead just try not to give those thoughts unnecessary airtime. By practicing consistently, you will naturally become better.

As an athlete, having this skill in your arsenal is hugely beneficial. For example: after failing to convert an opportunity to put your soccer team 1-0 up, you will easily be able to dismiss the negative self-talk associated with that miss, enabling you to continue competing with confidence and concentration. This will prevent your performance from declining as you won’t be distressed, and will prevent unnecessary injury due to distracted motor control.

Value Clarification

Take some time to learn about the different core values and select the ones that are attractive to the person you want to become. Once you have obtained your most significant values, reflect on your previous life choices to identify if they mirror with those values. It’s likely that some of your choices are not representative, giving you the opportunity to adjust. Future decisions, whether minor or major, should be made under the lens of your core values. To cement these values, we recommend writing them down.

Let’s take a baseballer (you) who has established their values as achievement and relationships: alongside your day job, you have recognised your desire for your baseball team’s promotion to the higher division. As you value your relationships, you have explained to your partner that you will be absent multiple evenings a week for team practice as this is required to succeed. By applying your newly-discovered values, you have set direction for your athletic endeavours while maintaining the health of your relationship. This prevents any disputes that could distract you from your core values (e.g. poor pitching performance due to relationship issues).

Exposure

By giving yourself a framework that provides predominant thoughts of self-efficacy and positivity (such as “I am capable”), you will increase your tolerance towards a sport’s discomfort. Furthermore, in sports that involve repetitive movement (e.g. marathon running), focusing on bodily sensations such as breathing has reported faster performances. Distracting yourself from a run’s difficulty, through music or landscape, has reported lower perceived exertion and greater endurance outcomes. This self-dialogue and action must be genuine, otherwise it will not manifest.

This outlook is incredibly useful for endurance sports. For example: you are cycling for a PB, and the higher-than-usual exertion is causing your quadriceps to ache. By drowning the discomfort in talk such as “I am breaking my PB”, or focusing on maintaining a regular breathing pattern, you have extended your tolerance duration and bringing yourself closer to that PB.

Mindsets can define fixtures before they’ve even begun. A resilient mind can motivate squads to victory, and resist the individual from quitting during strenuous endurance events. Never underestimate the power of your mind – it does, after all, control your body. Be sure to apply these psychology learnings to your upcoming fixtures, as that added optimisation may be the key to peak performance.

Thanks for reading, this was a long one!

Noah Soliman, Principal @ PhysioFrog

Get to grips with the physiology and mechanisms behind our warm-ups, and learn how their applications can maximise your on-field performances. Along with the physical benefits of muscle preparation, get an insight into its psychological benefits to truly understand your mind and body!