Psychological preparation in sports
Basic concepts of psychological training
The term psychological training is most often used to denote a wide range of actions of coaches, athletes and managers, which are aimed at the formation and development of mental processes and personal qualities of athletes and are necessary for successful training activities and performances at competitions. It is understood that psychological training contributes to the effective implementation of other types of training (general physical, special physical, theoretical, tactical, technical), and is also a condition for successful performance at competitions. Less often, this term is used to characterize the pedagogical activities of coaches who solve the problems of increasing the mental readiness of athletes.
The mental readiness of an athlete is understood as the state of an athlete acquired as a result of training (including psychological), and which allows achieving certain results in competitive activities.
Psychological training is one of the aspects of using scientific achievements of psychology, implementing its means and methods to increase the effectiveness of sports activities. In this regard, psychological training is closely related to the improvement of the psychological culture of sports, with the interdisciplinary interaction of sports sciences.
Finally, a rather significant conceptual component of psychological training in sports is the interaction of types of training (psychological, physical special, technical, tactical, theoretical). Most often, psychological training is considered as one of the types of training. In this case, along with other types, it is assigned a certain role in planning training and competition processes, appropriate goals, forms and methods are assigned. This approach simplifies the solution of organizational tasks and structuring training, but is problematic for solving problems of systemic interaction of its various types.
For example, an athlete performed a large amount of strength training, but did not engage in psychotraining. In psychological training, as one of the types of training, he increased his physical training, but did not advance in psychological training. Although the performance of the power load required him to make significant willpower efforts, focus, vestibular stability and display other mental qualities. As a result, changes also occurred in his psychological readiness, but they were not taken into account. The same power load could well be used to develop willpower or focus. Then (in the same logic of the distribution of types of training) changes in physical condition would not be taken into account, which is also wrong.
It seems that; firstly, it is necessary to take into account the total impact of the load, and secondly, to determine the ratio of the goals of physical and mental training, while, without a doubt, this ratio ultimately determines the dynamics of the athlete's motives. It is one thing when the athlete is aimed only at improving power training, and he is not aware of mental changes (or when he regards this training as only psychological), and it is quite another thing when he takes into account the interaction of these types of training, puts the appropriate emphasis.
In this regard, psychological training can be considered not only as a special type of training along with physical, special, tactical, theoretical, technical, but also as a special function of each of these types of training - the function of forming a subjective attitude, assessing the significance of all types of work performed (including outside of training) for success in sports activities. Only in this case is a higher systemic level of training achieved, when all the athlete's actions are organized in accordance with the logic of high sports achievements, have a clear motivational structure. And it is this subjectivization that contributes to the inclusion of the athlete's purposeful actions in the composition of the activity.
Subjectification is a condition and process of emergence and development of human activity, in which his psyche is enriched with knowledge and means of transforming reality, which are contained in the activity being assimilated. The subsequent use of this enriched mental image by the subject himself when solving practical problems creates the prerequisites for assessing the correspondence of this image to real reality. Practical verification of the real meaning of the mental image for a given subject makes him a supporter, adherent or, conversely, a rival of the assimilated activity.
So, psychological training is the formation, development and improvement of the properties of the psyche, which are necessary for the successful activity of athletes and teams.
The main directions of psychological training in sports
Socialization of the individual in sports. Sports activities are combined with the inclusion of a person in various social relations. The athlete occupies a certain social position, for example, embarks on the path of professional sports or prepares for a professional career. He needs to combine sports with studies, mastering a profession, taking care of his family, and maintaining specific contacts in the field of sports. Not every athlete manages to get used to frequent moving, a sports regime, etc. The social status of different sports is sometimes quite different in the world, in a given country or among representatives of a given culture due to geographical and climatic location, the level of development of culture and civilization, social structure, the nature of the main occupations of the population, etc.
Status is the position of a subject in the system of interpersonal relations, which determines his rights, obligations, and privileges. The same subject can have different statuses in different groups. An example of status can be authority as recognition by those around him of the experience, knowledge, and merits of an individual.
His sports career and sports results largely depend on how much an athlete can realize himself and his abilities in certain specific social conditions. The coach and athlete, managers and sponsors are required to be highly trained in addressing issues of social support for sports, creating the image of the athlete and the team, ensuring audience sympathy, etc. It is necessary to create such social conditions that would ensure the athlete's favorable involvement in sports, his socialization (i.e., assimilation and active reproduction of social experience), the formation of a high personal content of sports, their attractiveness for the athlete himself.
To solve the problems of socialization in different countries, numerous cultural and material prerequisites have been created and are used. However, a lot of care in this area of psychological preparation falls directly on the coaches and athletes themselves.
Ensuring the dynamics of team activity in sports. Success in many types of sports, the so-called "team", directly depend on the achieved level of interaction of athletes, mutual understanding, teamwork, mutual assistance, and mutual responsibility. The subject of special concern for coaches, managers, and athletes is optimal interpersonal relationships, in which mutual demands, mutual respect, the ability to overcome conflict obstacles, and the ability to stand up to rivals as a united team at the right moment play a special role.
Interpersonal relationships are relationships between people that are experienced subjectively, manifested in the nature and methods of their mutual influence in the process of joint activity and in communication, which arise as a result of the perception of other people and assessments of their behavior, hopes, unconscious motives, etc. Interpersonal relationships act as the basis for the formation of a psychological climate in the team.
Compatibility is a prerequisite for conflict-free communication, a favorable assessment and acceptance of the positions of partners, which ensure the consistency of joint activity and satisfaction with its results. The best test of compatibility is various limitations of means, time, space, number of participants, which are necessary for joint solution of the task.
In the psychological preparation of athletes and teams, issues of compatibility and leadership are addressed. A special subject of concern for the coach is ensuring mutual adaptation of athletes or links in the team both in terms and in the style of interaction. The eternal problem is to provide conditions for the realization of individual qualities for athletes, desirable for various game actions, but which sometimes act as an obstacle to the creation of a collective style.
Individuality is uniqueness, which has social significance, the uniqueness of the individual, which is manifested in the features of his temperament, character, abilities, including cognitive processes. The prerequisites for the formation of individuality are predispositions (innate anatomical and physiological features of the individual) and upbringing, as the formation of personality, which ensures the realization of predispositions in the social environment.
The psychological preparedness of the team largely depends on the degree of its cohesion, when confident interaction is achieved and at the same time the optimal way to realize the individuality of athletes is found.
Let us recall that the key point of psychological training in team sports is the timely provision of the necessary interaction, management of the dynamics of team activity. One of the frequently used means to ensure the given dynamics of team activity is selection, including by mental parameters.
It is also obvious that the construction of psychological training, which is aimed at the dynamics of team activity, is needed not only in team sports, since the vast majority of sports competitions in individual sports also have a team score. Although athletes do not meet each other directly, however, thanks to the calculation of occupied places, points scored, etc., the team championship is determined. There are many athletes who significantly improve their results in the individual score when performing for a team, they are called "team fighters".
Development of the athlete's personality and mental processes. This direction of psychological training of an athlete is intended to develop motives, will, feelings, abilities, character, to realize the qualities of temperament and other psychological characteristics, as well as to form a specialized perception and dynamics of pre-starting states, mental stability, and reliability of the athlete.
Specialized perception is a specific type of perception of conditions that are essential for the result of the activity (for example, "feeling the ball" in sports games, "feeling the snow" in skiers, "feeling the distance" in boxers) specific for each sport. Specialized perception is formed as the sports form develops on the basis of the complex interaction of various analyzers: visual, auditory, motor, vestibular. Often one of these analyzers plays a major role in specialized perception.
Sensation, perception, attention, memory, speech, thinking, imagination undergo serious changes in the process of sports activity. Sports activity places high demands on their development and has great opportunities for improving the above-mentioned mental processes and personality qualities. However, it would be wrong to imagine that this development and improvement occur by themselves and always have the necessary positive orientation. Typical mistakes in the development of personal qualities and mental processes are unjustifiably high demands on an athlete to achieve high results in competitions, inept willpower control, insufficient consideration and use of individual mental characteristics of athletes, which leads, in particular, to a lag in the level of mental reliability from physical qualities.
Types of psychological training of athletes and teams
In planning training, in assessing the readiness of athletes and teams, in determining the specifics of the load for coaches and athletes, it is a constant need to determine the structure of training, that is, knowledge of the types of training and the relationships between these types.
In accordance with the above goals, it is customary to distinguish between general and special psychological training. General psychological training is characterized by a focus on the formation and development of universal (versatile, suitable for many purposes) personal properties and mental qualities, which are the main ones in sports, and are also valued in many other types of human activity. These include: preparation for a long training process, socio-psychological training, strong-willed training, competitive experience, the ability to self-education.
Special psychological training is characterized by a focus on the formation and development of mental qualities and personal properties of athletes that contribute to success in special, specific conditions of sports activity. It includes preparation for a specific competition, for a specific opponent, for a training stage, situational management of the condition.
Both types of psychological training (general and special) in the process of activity experience mutual influence: successes (or failures) of special training lead to correction of general psychological training and vice versa.
Preparation for a long-term training process involves solving many problems associated with the athlete's adaptation to constant, systematic long-term training loads. Training work is associated not only with the transfer of loads, but also with a number of restrictions that are due to the diet, sleep, rest, leisure activities, overcoming certain habits. With proper preparation, the athlete experiences a desire to train, is characterized by readiness for physical and mental stress, he shows interest in planning training and, despite the severity of the loads, does not try to make the task easier in various ways. A significant role in preparing for a long training process is played by the initial, starting attitude. First of all, novice athletes expect a rapid increase in sports results or the acquisition of necessary skills and qualities. As a rule, the coach always has the opportunity to demonstrate to such a pupil the successes of others, and to say how many years of training such successes are worth.
Increasing the endurance of constant physical and mental stress in a long training process is largely facilitated by group training, working together with a team.
Volitional training is closely related to the general physical and special training of the athlete and the team. The main factor in the formation of will is the conscious choice of a more complex and difficult, but effective path for solving the tasks of training and participating in competitions. To subordinate all your affairs, every step to the goals of the best preparation, the ability to rationally use every minute, planning and adherence to the daily routine, special tasks for the development of will, such as an attempt "for character", demonstrating to rivals the readiness to endure difficulties, various bets with partners, a coach - all this allows you to form the athlete's strong-willed readiness, creates an aura of "easy victory", sometimes allows you to win the competition even before the competition.
Socio-psychological preparation largely determines the well-being of the athlete in advance, significantly affects the social status of the athlete and the team, contributes to the creation of the best conditions for the self-realization of the individual, allows you to reduce the amount of worries that could not be there if there was effective social support, ensures successful adaptation for a new player in the team, etc.
Self-realization of the individual is a path to the development of the abilities of the individual, which is associated with the awareness of the social value of one's own inclinations and talents, as well as the means of developing abilities on their basis. It is characterized by a stable system of motives, a desire for self-improvement.
Many talented athletes, unfortunately, leave sports without reaching the appropriate socio-psychological maturity, often without even realizing that this is the reason for an unsuccessful sports career. It is worth paying attention to the fact that the simple fact of uncertainty about the future life path after the end of sports activities significantly affects the dynamics of performance even during the period of active sports. In this sense, an athlete-officer or an athlete-student are more psychologically prepared than an athlete who does not have another profession and real prospects for obtaining it.
The development of coordination of movements is one of the essential aspects of an athlete's training. The technique of any sport is characterized by filigree complexity. In many so-called complex coordination sports, the predominant part of the training is associated with work on improving the technique, on mastering complex movements. In those sports where technique is not specifically evaluated, success also depends quite significantly on the constant improvement of coordination of movements, on the emergence and mastery of new styles in technique, on the search for individual means of technical improvement.
At different age periods, at different stages of sports improvement, the athlete and the coach use a large arsenal of simulators, means of insurance, audio and video equipment, showing and demonstrating the technique by more prepared athletes. All this leaves a noticeable imprint on the relationship between the athlete and the coach, on the ergonomic side of their pedagogical interaction.
Ergonomics is the general name for a group of sciences that study the peculiarities of the interaction of factors "man - equipment - environment", increasing its efficiency through the selection, selection and training of personnel, special design of machines and control panels, provision of necessary and sufficient information, improvement of psycho-hygienic conditions, etc.
It is known that the ability to compete is an important and sometimes decisive aspect of sports abilities. After all, the number of contenders for victory is much greater than the number of real winners. Therefore, many athletes often find themselves among the losers, get used to the role of outsiders or "eternal prize winners", lose sight of the differences between ordinary training and a sports match. Therefore, preparation for competitions in general is of such importance.
The skill of a coach is to suggest starting where the athlete will be among the favorites, based on the preparedness of the athlete (or team) and the rank of the competition. At the same time, the competitions themselves must be prestigious for this athlete (or team). If the competitions are not prestigious, then you need to find time to prepare for the starts of a higher rank. In game sports, this task is complicated by the influence of seasonality of training and tournament discipline, as well as possible differences in the preparedness of players.
The formation of the personality of young and adult athletes is closely related to self-education. Analyzing their actions, setting significant goals for themselves, the athlete consciously cultivates the desired qualities of the personality. First of all, strong-willed qualities and character traits: determination, courage, perseverance, discipline, etc. At the same time, the upbringing of positive personality qualities is accompanied by testing their qualities, often imitating a sports idol. Over time, an athlete forms an individual system of setting general and partial tasks, selecting the most suitable means and ways of their application in typical and specific conditions of sports activity. As a rule, high results, especially in professional sports, are achieved by those who work independently and a lot on themselves.
Each competition has a certain specificity, which is expressed in the time and place of holding, in climatic conditions, in the composition of participants, in the conditions of scoring and admission, in the dignity of the award for the winners, in the traditions of interpersonal relations of the participants, etc. In addition, the same competition can be differently prestigious for its individual participants, be decisive or stage-specific. Therefore, preparation for this competition is important.
The task of the coach and athlete in any case is to obtain objective information about the features of the competition, evaluate these specific factors from the standpoint of their benefit for the athlete's preparation at a specific stage, as well as plan a performance at this competition.
An important component of special psychological training is preparation for a specific opponent. The strategy and tactics of an athlete's competitive training largely depend on the match of teams or opponents. The phenomena of a traditionally difficult or uncomfortable opponent, an opponent with a signature technique or style of play, a cunning opponent, a competent opponent who does not forgive mistakes, etc. are well-known.
Often, sports fate is such that victory over certain opponents is key in the entire competition or even more important than winning a given competition. In this psychological training, as a rule, the most decisive are the latest, fresh information about the opponent, the latest home preparations, "combat reconnaissance", as well as taking into account typical advantages and mistakes (both the opponent's and their own).
Preparation for the training stage is also very important. Every athlete and coach knows that there are the most difficult or most favorite loads. In the preparatory period, it is often necessary to perform large-scale physical exertion, and therefore high demands on willpower, to form endurance of monotony.
Monotony is a characteristic of activity in which the main place belongs to monotonous, often repeated actions and operations in a monotonous environment. In most people, monotony causes the development of inhibitory processes, absent-mindedness, indifference, an increase in the number of errors. Monotony is overcome by regulating the pace, environment, using functional music, alternating different tasks.
The stage of studying new elements and combinations requires high concentration, attentiveness, optimal interpersonal contact of the coach and athletes.
Trainings that are conducted at the competition stage take place against the background of increased requirements for the athlete's mobilization readiness, emotional stability, and mental reliability. These factors leave a noticeable imprint on the nature of the mutual requirements of athletes and coaches, relationships between athletes, the level of mental activity and anxiety.
The main task of psychological preparation for the training stage is the timely restructuring of the style of relationships, demands, and the system of analysis of the achieved results.
Quite often, the effect of special psychological training is associated with situational management of the athlete's mental state in various competitive and training situations. This is not because this type of psychological training is decisive, but because the results of the athlete's actions here are the most obvious. In fact, those athletes and their mentors who constantly use a fairly wide arsenal of techniques for regulating mental states, and who are also able to quickly assess the situation and make the only correct decision, possess truly broad opportunities for situational management.
Each of the listed types of general and special psychological training in the practice of coaches and athletes is gradually filled with quite specific content, means and techniques. The distinction between general and special psychological training is appropriate only if they are mutually enriched and supplemented, and mutually corrected. Thus, a successful technique for managing the starting position, which is found during one of the competitions, can be adopted during other starts, thus becoming an asset of general psychological training. And the successes of general volitional training can be a key moment in a duel with a specific opponent and will later be used as a special tool against him.
Psychological training tools
As tools for psychological training of an athlete, the following are most often used: the formation of a worldview, suggestion and autosuggestion, training through participation in activities, control and self-control, as well as the possibilities of physiotherapy, psychopharmacology and electrostimulation.
Formation of worldview. The most important and at the same time difficult problem is the formation of motives for sports activity, including worldview, as the most stable motive. This is achieved through the formation and development of modern views on the cultural and historical roots of sports in general and the chosen type in particular, the development of defining principles of sports training in the chosen type of sport and their relationship with the conditions and principles of activity outside of sports, as well as the formation of the athlete's, team's and coach's own principles and views on all issues of joint activity.
Indicative in this sense are classes in martial arts, where in the process of training, detailed, meaningful parallels of a philosophical, educational nature are constantly held, rules of respect, honor, encouragement and punishment are established, which are strictly observed. At the same time, a considerable share is made up of exercises that are built on images borrowed from the life of nature.
A coach in any sport will always find an opportunity for trusting communication, for conversations, convincing examples and analogies, for fairly justified orders, compatible with athletes' reflections, for encouraging and listening to reflections, for thoughtful and repeated regulation of goals, for reasoned probabilistic prediction of success in future competitions, for revealing the athlete's motives, which can be involved, actualized in a particular situation.
Suggestion and autosuggestion. Qualified athletes, as a rule, have a capacious arsenal of means that are associated with the use of hypnotic capabilities of the psyche.
Hypnosis is a sleep-like state of consciousness (partial sleep), which is characterized by focusing, concentrating on the content of suggestion (motivation, attention, expectations, interpersonal relationships, etc.). It is used for therapeutic, preventive, pedagogical purposes to ensure optimal mental states, effective training, restoration of mental performance, overcoming bad habits.
With the help of a hypnotist (suggestion) or self-commands in a special state (autosuggestion), the athlete achieves the necessary changes in the state of the psyche. Most often, suggestion and autosuggestion are used to achieve the necessary states: sleep before a responsible start, rest in between attempts, emphasizing one's own advantages and disadvantages of rivals, bringing oneself to an optimal pre-start, pre-training or post-competition state. Suggestion and autosuggestion are usually carried out in the form of heterotraining (with the help of a hypnotist), autotraining (psychoregulatory training, psychomuscular training, ideomotor training), in the form of plot ideas (a specific opponent, the venue of future competitions, the actions of the judge), "reporting" in a half-sleep (where the coach conducts a conditional report on the competition), repeating oaths before the match, as well as using "naive" methods (mascots, various signs, "lucky" clothes and shoes).
It should be noted that not all athletes are equally hypnotically gifted (suitable for suggestion), therefore the use of suggestion and autosuggestion tools should be individualized. There is a well-known example when an Australian swimmer, who achieved results close to the world record, used the help of a hypnotist in one of his swims. After starting, he swam the first section of the distance quite quickly, but then jumped out of the water onto the opposite side. It turned out that the hypnotist used the image of a shark chasing the athlete as a stimulus.
Preparation in activity. This is the most diverse, but not always sufficiently taken into account and evaluated, means of psychological preparation of athletes and teams. The complexity of its use lies in the fact that any action of an athlete, one way or another, is connected with the dynamics of sports form, and the acquisition (or loss) of physical qualities, skills, as mentioned above, is always combined with mental processes, with the development of personality, with the formation of an attitude towards training and competitive loads, with the implementation of the achieved level of development, including mental. The coach and athlete monitor the wave-like nature of the loads, their cyclicity, work on the technique of movements, while constantly correlating their actions with the conditions of participation in future competitions, sometimes develop in detail the athlete's arsenal of actions in competitive situations, prepare possible options for action. Very often, training is carried out according to the scheme of maximum approximation to the competition situation.
The following forms of training through participation in activities are mainly used: developing a ritual of pre-competition and pre-start behavior, seconding (specially organized management of the athlete's behavior immediately before the start or match), ideomotor training (using the idea of movements immediately before their execution), developing skills for switching from one type of activity to another or disconnecting from obsessive forms of activity, modeling competitive situations in full or in part, adaptation to the conditions and regime of competitions (by time, climatic and weather conditions, location of participants, etc.).
Modeling is the study of mental processes and states using their real (physical) or ideal (including mathematical) models. In the context presented, it is a simplified method of adaptation (habituation, adaptation) of an athlete to the features of future activities. It is based on the use of the training effect, which is achieved due to some similarity of competitive and training actions. Most often, this is training that is as close as possible in one or more parameters to the conditions of future competitions, or the use of special simulators. Modeling is also possible, which surpasses real competitive conditions in terms of the degree of impact on the psyche.
Control and self-control. In sports practice, much attention is paid to obtaining information about the parameters and results of actions, including during their execution. This specially organized observation or self-observation is a special case of the research activity of the coach and the athlete, the subject of their pedagogical communication. Mental development, which is achieved as a result of control and self-control, is expressed in a higher awareness of actions, in the athlete's motor culture, in his behavior.
Control and self-control are carried out in the form of diaries, reports from memory about training and competitive situations, giving assessments to coaches and athletes for intermediate and final parameters of training, video recordings and control with devices, observations of emotional manifestations (laughter, anger), as well as mood, well-being - desire to work, anxiety, insomnia.
Physiotherapeutic, instrumental and psychopharmacological means. These means are most often used to correct mental states and are allocated to a special group only due to the need for their use of special equipment, devices and drugs. These means are quite widely used in sports of higher achievements and to a lesser extent - in work with young athletes. They quite effectively relieve mental tension, reduce the feeling of pain in the musculoskeletal system, improve mood, increase the body's adaptive capabilities in relation to loads and solve some more specific problems of psychological training. The appointment and dosage of these drugs usually depend on the individual characteristics of athletes and must be agreed with sports medicine specialists and psychologists.
These drugs include: sauna, massage, hydromassage and electromassage, swimming pool, functional music, electroanalgesia and electronarcosis devices, psychotropic pharmacological drugs (tranquilizers, antidepressants, psychostimulants, nootropics and adaptogens).