Both professional and amateur athletes train constantly, but most of this revolves around physical conditioning. Less attention is likely spent on mental acuity. That’s why some athletes eventually develop a psychological block that makes it hard for them to perform at their level. As these three examples illustrate, there’s always the risk that athletes might not perform to their full potential if they don’t take care of their mental state.
1. Makes Them Freeze Up
There’s a famous quip that claims 90% of baseball is mental. While it’s probably difficult to pin down an exact amount for any given sport, it’s likely true that this maxim applies to almost every competitive field. Athletes who suffer a mental block might eventually freeze up the next time they’re asked to make a big play. Over time, they can start to second-guess themselves every single time they have to do almost anything. That’s an especially big problem for those who compete in team sports because it increases the risk that a particular player is going to get benched.
2. Lack of Confidence
Anybody who does get benched after suffering some kind of mental malady is, in turn, going to lose a ton of self-confidence. That’s the reason that mental sports training programs exist in the first place. After a player loses confidence, they often start to doubt everything about themselves and can’t perform, regardless of how in shape they are. The same goes for those who previously showed a great deal of physical skill but now suddenly appear to have lost much of what made them star players. One player’s lack of confidence could also cause other players to lose their confidence, so it’s important to be proactive about getting your confidence back. Regaining your confidence is very difficult once it’s lost, so it’s vital that you put time into this kind of training before you sign with a team.
3. The Infamous Throwing Yips
Catchers in baseball will sometimes find it difficult to throw a ball back to their pitchers, which is where the term throwing yips originally came from. Some top professionals continued to struggle with this problem, and today, the term is applied to all sports equally. Some athletes who have a certain kind of mental block can handle certain kinds of plays just fine, but they’ll then struggle when they’re given a relatively simple task. That kind of problem can get worse over time since fans will sometimes pick on a player who can’t do something that seems very basic. Once they start to hear a crowd jeer, their problems tend to intensify.
Coaches and physical trainers are increasingly aware of all three of these problems, along with many others. As a result, they’ve decided to dedicate a greater amount of time to training mental fitness. Those who are involved in an organized sport might very well want to heed any special instructions they get in this area since it could go a long way toward improving their performance. Best of all, they might even be able to deal with life’s various challenges a bit better if they do.
