Psychologicl Fctors nd Sport Performnce Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Psychologicl Fctors nd Sport Performnce - Essay Example This paper includes discussion of two articles on the effect of psychological factors on the performance of sportsmen. Additionally, it includes author's recommendations as to how to deal with these paychological factors. Psychologicl fctors ssocited with sport performnce can influence the sportsmen in a positive and negative way. Some positive factors that significantly enhance the performance of athlets are for examplesegmenting, task-relevant thought content, positive self-talk, and mood words (Rushall, Some Psychological Factors for Promoting Exceptional Athletic Performance). The most common negative factor that influences sports performance is anxiety. Anxiety is a body's automatic response that prepares it to 'fight' or 'flee' from perceived harm or attack that ensures survival of the human species. Sporting competition is an event that creates the feeling of anxiety. Basically, when the demands of training or competition exceed one's perceived ability, anxiety is the inevitable outcome. I will review all of those factors and propose my resonce as a coach to the psychological factors that influence the sport peroformance. norml fcet of dily life, stress is defined s n synchrony between chnge within n individul nd chnge within the environment. This synchrony is concretely pprent in sport s performnce is the externl reflection of blnce between the individul nd the environment. Excessive stress my be detrimentl to performnce culminting in greter psychologicl strin on the thlete. In overtrining reserch, stress is primrily viewed s summtion of severl fctors including life stress, mount of socil support, decrese of coping skills, locus of control, nd emotionl expression. The stress-injury link to negtive life stress hs been investigted nd helps provide coches with new direction to explin why some thletes, my be more vulnerble to injury t different times of the seson (Smith, Smoll, & Ptcek, 1990). Negtive life stress hs ccounted for s much s 30% of the observed injury vrince when ssessing injury vulnerbility (Smith, Smoll, & Ptcek, 1990). The subsequent stress following n injury or performnce decline does not fcilitte regenertion, further contributing to the overtrining syndrome. Excessive life stress is ssocited with n incresed vulnerbility to injury for two possible resons. First, ttentionl disruption my occur cusing less vigilnce to environmentl cues. Secondly, incresed muscle tension my effect fluidity of movement resulting in predisposition to injury (Smith, Smoll & Ptcek, 1990). Socil support nd coping skills my lso effect how thletic stress is reconciled nd hs been investigted through the stress-injury model (Smith, Smoll & Ptcek, 1990). Lck of pproprite socil support nd coping skills hs led to stleness nd eventul burnout (Smith, Smoll & Ptcek, 1990). Exmples include the underdeveloped coping skills of some children who prticipte in sports, nd the potentil for liention to occur t elite levels of competition due to trvel nd prctice time wy from friends. Severity of injury hs not been determined using indices of socil support/coping skill lthough sttisticlly significnt correltion ws drwn when subjects who were low in both socil support nd coping skills were ssessed for injuries. Results suggested tht s high s 47 to 55 percent of