Do you have the mental strength to be a real champion?
Excerpt from David Joyce of the Blackburn Rovers in the English Premier League…
In all my years in elite sport I’ve had a lot of time to think about the role of mental strength in sport. To my mind, there’s no question about what separates the world’s best from the rest and it’s the ability to endure, even enjoy, self-inflicted pain.
I’m not talking about hitting yourself over the head with a mallet here, I’m talking about really exploring the absolute limit of what your body is capable of achieving. Pushing yourself to the extent it hurts. The absolute best that I’ve worked with, across many sports, actively seek out that pain and possess incredible levels of psychological strength.
A useful analogy is seeing how far you can drive on a tank of petrol. Most of us refuel before the car completely runs dry. Champions test their limit every day. The reason for this is because they know that the more they test themselves the bigger their capacity becomes. Doing this, however, takes not just the ability to endure this pain, but the courage to want to go there in the first place. I’m sure many of you will have seen The Crawl before (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTn1v5TGK_w). It’s a great example of what it’s really like to run the fuel tank dry.
| “In order to motivate your athlete, it’s vital that you have a goal in mind. This goal needs to be achievable, have a fixed time period assigned to it and be of sufficient value to the athlete such that the reward is worth the sacrifice.” |
I believe every human has the capacity to access this side of themselves but it’s almost impossible to do this on your own. That is why having a training partner almost always increases the quality and intensity of a training session. It’s all about motivation.
The true art of the coach, therefore, is in motivating the athlete. A thorough and complete understanding of the psychological make-up of their athlete is essential. I use the term coach as an umbrella term here; it could be a sports coach, strength coach, even physiotherapist; anyone whose job it is to extract the most out of an athlete.
In order to have a motivated athlete, it’s vital that you have a goal in mind. This goal needs to be achievable, have a fixed time period assigned to it and be of sufficient value to the athlete such that the reward is worth the sacrifice. The goal should be written down and the pathway to achieving this goal should be agreed upon.
An example could be:
Objective: In 3 month’s time I will be able to squat 1.5 times my body weight.
Purpose: I am doing this because it will help improve my vertical jump height.
Importance: So that I can win the state high jump title in 4 months.
You can also use the S.M.A.R.T principle for goal getting. It’s a simple, yet often-misused motivational technique which can provide structure to your training and competition programme.
- Be Specific: Specific goals work better than general ‘do-your-best’ goals. For example, if you’re a runner, rather than professing a desire to reduce your 5K time, you should state: ‘I intend to knock 20 seconds off my 5K time over the next six months’.
- Be Measurable Simply saying that you want to trim your 5K time is insufficient; you need some accurate means of charting your progress. This means that continuous monitoring is needed, but this can become a bore so build a regular ‘measurement day’ into your training schedule on which you test yourself in various disciplines. The idea is to reduce your preoccupation with times and improvement.
- Be Adjustable: Goal-setting is a dynamic process. If, for instance, you become injured during a competitive season, you should be able to lower your goals accordingly. On the other hand, you may make such rapid progress that you can raise them.
- Be Realistic: It’s all very well saying “I want to break the 5K record” but that isn’t a realistic goal. This is an extreme example, but you must recognise that your room for improvement shrinks as you get near your full potential. Conversely goals should be difficult enough so that you’re not struck down by acute boredom because you’ve achieved them too easily.
- Be Time-based: If you don’t give yourself a specific time frame in which the goal must be achieved, then the urgency for attainment is reduced. The previous example of trimming the 5K time by 20 seconds within six months satisfies this criterion. Try to resist the temptation to move these time constraints back to accommodate life events, such as minor injuries; the result is that the value of the time limit is negated.
There will be times when you or your athlete is struggling with motivation, fatigue, stress, anxiety or whatever so a sound knowledge of the psychological forces at play is vital. The coach needs to know what makes their athlete tick as well as the best strategies to motivate them. Sometimes they may need shouting at and sometimes they may need an arm around the shoulder. The best coaches I’ve worked with understand this and, more importantly, understand that every individual is just that; an individual. If you know what is going on in the space between the ears of your athlete, you’re already over the biggest barrier to success.
Stay robust (above the neck!),
Joycey
| David Joyce
Currently works at Blackburn Rovers in the English Premier League as well as lecturing at the University of Bath on the Masters of Sports Physiotherapy course. |
