Posted: February 8, 2006

Sports Psychology: Lets Work as a Team!

By Michelle Cleere, Sports Psychology Consultant

Here is my belief: in order for Sports Psychology (or anything) to be effective it needs to be embraced by the athlete but most importantly by the other people who work with the athlete. It’s now become really imperative (to me) that all support people of endurance athletes: coaches, assistant coaches, mentors, physical therapists, personal trainers, etc. have some knowledge of how important the mental aspect of sports is so they can decide what to do with it for their athletes; particularly since it is your job to guide athletes in determining what’s right and wrong for them in their training.

Lets me put it this way: if a coach was misinformed or didn’t recognize the importance of doing aerobic and anaerobic training during the season an athlete would not be coached to train that way. This does not mean it’s not important. Assistant coaches, mentors, physical therapists, personal trainers, etc. aren’t coaching an athlete on aerobic and anaerobic training but many if not all understand the importance it plays in an athletes physical training. They can support what the coach is coaching. Mental performance is similar and unless the athlete decides to step outside the coaching staff and support team to pursue an understanding of mental performance chances are they will never be exposed to it. In my mind mental training is as important (if not more) as aerobic and anaerobic training and should be part of any coaches, assistant coaches, mentors, physical therapists, personal trainers, etc. training even if just at a basic entry level. Knowledge leads to awareness and awareness leads to change.

As I always say, why put in so much time physically training if you are not mentally training. Your cognitions (what you think) affects your behaviors (how you act) so if you are not changing your cognitions your behaviors aren’t likely to change. If you think you are a terrible athlete you are going to be a terrible athlete but if you think you are a great athlete then you are going to be a great athlete. Actions follow thoughts. And although it might sound easy it’s harder than you think.

The team approach: athletes look to (us) professionals for support and guidance so lets work together to have as many of the facts as possible to provide the best service to our athletes. It seems time to bring everyone on board to at least have knowledge if not an understanding of how important the mental aspect of sport is. Not only do I believe that an athletes support team need to adopt ideas for them to be put into action but everyone needs to work together towards those ideas or they falter. The team: athlete, sports psychologist, coaches, assistant coaches, mentors, physical therapists and personal trainers should have some idea about how all their roles fit together to make the athlete a complete athlete.

Michelle is owner of Sports Minded, a Sports Psychology Consulting practice. She works with individuals and groups on performance enhancement. Michelle is an NASM-certified personal trainer and a USAT-certified triathlon coach. E-mail questions and comments to her at SportsMindedMC@aol.com or check out her web site at MentalStrength.com.