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Mental Training for Athletes: What is It and How to Start

May 22, 2023/in Mental Fitness, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

If you’re an athlete looking to take your performance to the next level, chances are, you’ve heard of mental training.

All the greats do it, including Michael Phelps, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, and many other successful athletes.

This often overlooked aspect of training involves training the mind to improve physical performance. How, you ask? Mental training can help athletes overcome anxiety, improve focus, and build confidence.

And better yet, it’s easy to implement into your training and can be done virtually anywhere, whether in a hotel room, on the court, or even on a plane when you’ve got a few hours to sit and stare out the window.

The remainder of this blog post will explain how you can begin to use mental training (and mental training tools). We’ll explain what it is, and how to get started.

Key takeaways:

Mental training can help improve performance & increase confidence
Anyone can start mental training — it’s not just for Elite level athletes
Find the best mental skills and apply these to the weaker areas of your game

What is mental training?

Mental skills training consists of a mix of techniques and practices to help you develop mental toughness, improve skill learning, and even performance on (and off) the field, including in everyday life [1].

Examples of popular mental training exercises include:

Visualization exercises
Mindfulness
Goal setting
Deep breathing
Positive self-talk

Other mental training tools and skills exist, but these are the main ones (and easiest to start with no prior mental training experience).

But for those interested, more advanced skills include [2]:

Emotional control
Activation & Relaxation
Negative thinking
Attentional control

If you do choose to adopt the more advanced skills, we’d recommend focusing on the easier-to-learn and implement skills first. For example, positive self-talk is typically easier to learn than negative thinking (if you do negative thinking wrong, it could affect your confidence). Likewise, taking deep breaths and focusing on mindfulness is relatively easy to begin vs. activation and relaxation of the muscles.

By practicing a mix of mental skills, athletes can reduce anxiety, improve confidence, develop resilience, and ultimately improve performance.

Why is mental training important?

Let’s think of a scenario where you have two athletes — both are equally matched in physical skills, but one athlete practices mental skills such as visualization, goal setting, and positive self belief and self talk. The other athlete focuses exclusively on physical practice and performance.

Which athlete do you think will perform best?

Chances are, it’s the athlete who has a more holistic skill set — they’re essentially getting more training in without the added fatigue. Performing visualization, for example, reinforces neural pathways in the brain. It’s like training, but without lacing up your boots and heading out to practice.

Mental training can be especially useful for overcoming anxiety and weaknesses in your sport. Let’s say, for example, that you’re a cyclist, but you find descending challenging — perhaps it scares you.

You can use mental training to increase self confidence, reduce anxiety, and run through successful skill performance (in your mind) to get better at descending confidently. That also includes mental preparation before a big game or competition — you’re better prepared, and more likely to achieve athletic success.

With the correct physical and mental training, you’ll quickly improve your skill-specific performance.

Mental skills in practice – what does it look like?

Creating a mental training plan will look different for every athlete. For example, some athletes may prefer certain mental skills, applying these to weaknesses in their performance. Other athletes may find other skills difficult to utilize but use 1 or 2 skills really well.

A great way to put mental training into practice is to list all the required skills of your sport, and rate these (based on how good you think you are at each skill) on a scale of 1-10 (1 being poor, 10 being excellent).

The skills which you rate the lowest are what you should seek to improve using mental skills. For example, if you’re a cyclist and you feel scared of cornering at high speeds, you could use a combination of positive self-talk and visualization to improve self confidence and reduce anxiety.

Choosing what mental skills is a little more complicated than that, but we have an entire article on how to create a mental training program for athletes — check it out if you want a more in-depth guide.

How can mental training improve athletic performance?

Mental training can improve performance by enhancing an athlete’s ability to regulate their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and by strengthening their mental toughness. It’s also a useful tool to increase motivation!

To provide a contextual example: athletes can use visualization techniques to rehearse competition. They can use positive self-talk to increase confidence and reduce anxiety, e.g. using cues and prompts to keep them focused with minimal distractions.

Furthermore, goal setting can help athletes move with a sense of purpose and direction. This makes it a lot easier for athletes to develop healthy routines and habits that move the needle towards greater performance, both as an individual and a team.

These are just a few examples of how mental training can positively impact athletes. But these are only a few case uses — the best athletes apply these principles and skills as part of a daily practice to improve all aspects of their sport/game further.

Who can benefit from mental training?

Mental training is not just for elite athletes! And while Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods may use these powerful techniques, there’s no reason why you can’t implement them into your training, too.

Training the mind is for everyone, whether you’re in a weekend soccer league, or you play basketball in high school.

And while it’s mainly used by the professional athlete population, we can learn a lot from those who use it. Besides, there’s a reason why they do it: it’s because it’s so powerful.

But mental training is also useful for non-athletes. Coaches may also choose to engage in mental strategies to improve their performance, goal-setting ability, and communication during an important game (i.e. not letting emotions get the best of them).

There are endless avenues and possibilities for mental training. And with the field of sports psychology only getting bigger, it’s a better time than any to start mental training.

Use Rewire to increase readiness and focus to perform

Athletes looking to boost their mental toughness, manage stress, and improve their mindset can benefit from using Rewire’s athlete platform.

Based on neuro-science, athletes can employ brain training protocols and activities to build mental strength, resilience, and essential mental skills. You can also use guided sessions to improve focus, provide stress & anxiety relief, and prepare the mind for training or competition.

Coaches can also use Rewire to improve athlete performance — you can view the athlete readiness dashboard, which provides valuable insights and allows you to adjust training load accordingly to help achieve optimal performance (while avoiding injury and burnout).

“Rewire comes as a Gamechanger in the field of ‘tracking and monitoring readiness’ and provides a one-stop shop for both physical and cognitive recovery, as well as having functionality for building mental resilience.” – Pete McKnight (Human Performance Expert)

Find out how Rewire can help you

References:

Holmes, P.S. and Collins, D.J., 2001. The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of applied sport psychology, 13(1), pp.60-83.
Röthlin, P., Horvath, S., Trösch, S., Holtforth, M.G. and Birrer, D., 2020. Differential and shared effects of psychological skills training and mindfulness training on performance-relevant psychological factors in sport: a randomized controlled trial. BMC psychology, 8, pp.1-13.

How to Build Mental Toughness in High School Athletes

May 15, 2023/in For Coaches, Mental Fitness, Science, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

Improve mental toughness in high school athletes to boost performance on and off the field. It’s a skill that transfers to adulthood and beyond — and one that can be taught. So it’s best to teach it early and set adolescents up for success.

High school coaches can add basic practices and tweak their current training style further to improve mental toughness, discipline, and performance. Continue reading for actionable tips and strategies you can implement to help your athletes become mentally tough.

Create a positive training environment

As a coach, you lead by example, especially when mentoring high school athletes. One of the best ways to teach mental toughness is to create a positive training environment that facilitates growth.

The environment says a lot about how you want your athletes to behave and learn.

Training should be fun — that doesn’t mean it can’t be challenging, but your athletes should look forward to their sessions. So how do you do this — how do you create a positive training environment?

Introduce team-building exercises, bonding activities, and fun minigames — these recommendations are also great for building team chemistry.

Also, practice what you preach. You should practice mental toughness (and be mentally tough) if that’s what you want to teach. Lead by example.

It’s all about communication

Many coaches adopt the “bully” mentality — they give drill after drill, instruction after instruction, and then wonder why their athletes aren’t improving. The issue here is that communication is a two-way street.

And yes, while these exercises may build discipline and mental toughness — to some extent, creating an open line of communication and working together may prove better. Athletes are more likely to talk to you when struggling, mentorship will become more collaborative, and performance typically improves.

In a high school environment, you can go a step further by hanging around after practice or letting them know they can talk to you about anything — not just sports.

Introduce competition and pressure to build mental toughness

A lot of high school teams and athletes deal with pressure almost exclusively in competition. This is usually a handful of times a season. But instead, why not create training scenarios that mimic competition during practice?

Doing so has many benefits. For example, you can identify (a) what’s going well and (b) what can be improved. This is an excellent way to build mental toughness. Let’s say an athlete loses motivation and then makes mistakes after a call that was not in their favor by the referee — you can practice these exact scenarios to help prevent the dip in motivation and performance.

Introducing competition is easy to do as well. For example, you can split your team into two, or if you coach multiple teams, you can have them play each other.

After the friendly competition, you can ask high school athletes (a) what they think went well and (b) what they think can be improved. Getting feedback directly from your athletes increases accountability. You can also cross-reference this feedback with your notes to implement new skills or even mental training to improve mental toughness and performance.

Teach basic mental training skills

Mental skills provide athletes with the tools to increase confidence and build mental toughness. It’s also a useful tool to improve skill, e.g., visualizing freekick technique.

Despite this, however, high school students are less likely to perform more advanced mental skills because they may seem “anecdotal.” So instead, try and teach the fundamentals so they can see how effective they are, and then build on their skills over months and years.

Basic mental skills include [3]:

Positive self-talk
Goal setting
Visualization
Mindfulness

We’ll explain each of these in more detail with examples of how to execute them with your high school athletes below.

Want more guidance on mental training? Read our blog post on how to create a mental training program for athletes.

Positive self-talk

Self-talk is one of the easier mental skills to implement. It can help increase confidence, reduce anxiety, and improve task performance. But when people think of self-talk, they often think of shouting affirmations in the mirror.

And while this is partly true, it’s not the only way to do it. For starters, most people don’t do that — if they do use self-talk, it’s usually done in their minds. It’s words, phrases, and cues that trigger an emotional response. For example, a cross-country runner might use self-talk cues such as “relax shoulders” and “high knees.”

The same runner might use self-talk during an event to break up the race into smaller bite-size chunks. Let’s say the race is 5 laps long — they might say to themselves, “1 lap left,” when there’s actually 2 or 3. You can trick your brain into perseverance, and this is a powerful way to build mental toughness.

Why not introduce your athletes to a basic self-talk script?

Goal setting

Goal setting is a tried and tested method of improving performance and mental toughness.

One study in adolescents analyzed the impacts of a 12-week core strength training program. Results found that those who combined goal setting with core strength training were more effective in improving fitness [1].

This demonstrates the impact of goals — they are a must-have.

But how do you set effective goals? We suggest using the SMART goal-setting principles [2]:

Specific: state exactly what you want to achieve or improve.
Measurable: how can you accurately measure progress?
Achievable: Is it possible? You need to be realistic.
Realistic: your goals should be challenging, but not impossible.
Time-bound: set a realistic timeframe to achieve your goals.

When working with a team, consider setting shared goals and actually setting these together. Don’t just make them your goals — sit down together and collectively come up with goals to work towards. This will also help accountability and improve mental toughness.

Visualization

Visualization is one of the more difficult mental skills to implement with high school athletes.

Instead of diving into the deep end, we recommend trying a simple exercise before practice: ask your athletes to visualize a skill they want to improve, imagining successful skill performance. For example, this could be taking a free kick, diving to save a shot in the top left corner, or successfully dribbling around a player.

This should improve focus within the training session, and add more intention and goal-directed behavior to get better at the skill they have identified.

Use worksheets or other written feedback methods, such as surveys or questionnaires, to track progress, i.e., if your athletes find these mental exercises valuable.

Mindfulness

When people hear mindfulness, they often think of meditation. And while this is one of the components, mindfulness also comprises other exercises such as deep breathing, relaxation, and even journaling to provide clarity.

While you can use visualization at the start of practice, you can use mindfulness at the end of practice. For instance, you can ask your athletes to jot down what they think went well and want them to improve in the next session. This is a simple way to increase accountability and allows your athletes to become intentional.

Improve mental toughness with Rewire

“Our coaches can see every night to stay on top of fatigue and readiness. So incredibly useful.” – Jez Cox, Head Cycling Coach, Oaklands Wolves

Coaches can use Rewire to help prime their athletes for performance, increasing mental toughness, focus, and readiness to perform at their best. You also receive insights into athlete readiness to help you make smarter training and recovery decisions.

Your athletes get access to the athlete platform — a science-backed toolkit that contains neuro-training exercises to improve mental resilience and mindset, and promotes mind and body recovery.

Find out more about Rewire for teams

References:

Lu, Y., Yu, K. and Gan, X., 2022. Effects of a SMART Goal Setting and 12-Week Core Strength Training Intervention on Physical Fitness and Exercise Attitudes in Adolescents: A Randomized Controlled Trial. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(13), p.7715.
McCarthy, P.J. and Gupta, S., 2022. Set goals to get goals: Sowing seeds for success in sports. Frontiers for Young Minds, 10(10.3389).
Röthlin, P., Horvath, S., Trösch, S., Holtforth, M.G. and Birrer, D., 2020. Differential and shared effects of psychological skills training and mindfulness training on performance-relevant psychological factors in sport: a randomized controlled trial. BMC psychology, 8, pp.1-13.

What is Arousal in Sport?

April 26, 2023/in Mental Fitness, Science, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

Picture this: it’s 1-1 in extra time, and the away team is on the attack. Our players can’t get to the opposition in time, they shoot, and the keeper catches it. Or at least that’s what it looks like — he actually drops the ball because of the pressure, and it counts as an own goal.

This is an example of over arousal in sports.

The goalkeeper was in a high pressure situation, was likely feeling some anxiety, and the pressure was too much. It caused him to choke, drop the ball, and the other team won.

But that’s only one side of the coin — there’s also what’s known as under arousal or low arousal levels. This is the opposite — the keeper feels less motivated, potentially bored, tired, and doesn’t want to be there. As a result, he’s likely to give a poor performance.

A lot of people would describe this as their “head not being in the game.”

Ideally, an athlete would not be under or over aroused. Instead, they’d be somewhere in the middle — the sweet spot for peak performance.

What is arousal in sport?

This blog post will explain arousal in sport in more detail, highlighting the inverted U theory and actionable tips to help increase or decrease arousal as needed to achieve optimal performance.

Arousal in sport is the level of activation, alertness, and anxiety experienced by an athlete. If arousal is too low, they might not feel up to the task, but if it’s too high, they may choke or make crucial mistakes. A balance is needed for optimal performance.

Think of an under aroused athlete as the player who doesn’t want to be on the pitch and doesn’t care whether they win or lose, while an over aroused athlete is uncoordinated, jerky with their movements, and more likely to drop the ball or make a mistake.

Mastering arousal equals better sports performance. But it’s a hard thing to perfect — let’s explain it in more detail using the inverted U model.

The inverted U theory

The inverted U theory perfectly describes the necessary level of arousal to achieve successful task performance.

Image Credit: Inverted- U of the Yerkes-Dodson’s law.

For example, if someone is under aroused (e.g., feels unmotivated and fatigued), they will likely underperform. The same applies to over-arousal — feeling intense pressure, stress, and anxiety will also result in poor performance.

Think of the inverted U theory in the application of an exam.

You want to be well rested, motivated, and feel some pressure so you can focus, but you don’t want to feel too stressed and anxious that you can’t concentrate.

Now let’s apply it to sports.

Athletes should aim to find a sweet spot between the two extremes. Just like in the exam example above, the athlete should feel some stress to perform, but not crippling anxiety and a lack of recovery that may cause vital mistakes.

This is the sweet spot athletes should aim to achieve.

Arousal and performance are directly linked — find your ideal arousal to help lessen anxiety and improve sporting performance.

How to control arousal levels in sport

Learning how to control arousal levels directly impacts sports performance.

The very best athletes know how to find the perfect balance — it’s what defines those game-changing moments.

Want to see an example of perfect arousal? Watch David Beckham’s free-kick against Greece during the 2002 semi-finals — three minutes into injury time, Beckham scores the goal that takes England to the world cup finals.

If Beckham were over aroused, the pressure and anxiety would likely get to him, and he would miss the shot. And if he was under-aroused, he wouldn’t have the concentration to put it in the top left corner.

How to increase arousal levels in sport

If athletes feel under-aroused, they can try:

Prioritizing rest and deep sleep
Listen to music or binaural beats
Have a pre-competition routine that “gets you in the zone”
Perform reaction tests
Light exercise (such as jogging)
Team talks before a game or during half time

No two athletes are the same. For example, one athlete may struggle with under arousal, while another experiences too high an arousal, causing them to choke or underperform due to the intense pressures.

Athletes should find what works for them and adjust their arousal levels accordingly. You need to come up with your own pre-game rituals and routines to facilitate the correct level of arousal.

How to decrease arousal levels in sport

If athletes feel too aroused, they can:

Use imagery
Use positive self-talk to decrease stress and calm nerves
Progressive muscle relaxation
Perform deep breathing exercises to reduce stress

Coaches and arousal

Sports coaches are heavily invested in their athletes and competition.

This can also cause an increase in arousal. If a coach experiences too high arousal, for example, during the final of a football game, they make poor decisions that can impact the outcome of the game.

Many people forget just how involved coaches are in sports. If you’re a coach, ensure to prioritize sleep and rest and practice some of the advice in this blog post so you can perform your best for your athletes.

Prime your athletes for optimal performance with Rewire

Reaching the optimal arousal state for sports performance is difficult, but Rewire for teams can help.

Rewire athletes gain an average of 30% increase in focus and readiness to perform with just 5-10 minutes of daily use.

Athletes can use the Readiness Assessment to better understand their cognitive, emotional, and physical readiness. They also gain access to a mix of mindset recovery sessions to reduce stress and prepare athletes for training to reach the right level of arousal for peak performance.

“The combination of an integrated Training, Recovery and Readiness system means that I can take a holistic approach to improving my athletic performance.” – Laura Kline (Elite Ultra Runner & Endurance Athlete).

Find out more about Rewire for Teams

FAQs

What is the definition of arousal in sport?

Arousal is often defined as the cumulation of both physiological and psychological factors that can affect performance, including sleep, excitement, anxiousness, and others.

What is under arousal in sport?

Under arousal in sport is when an athlete does not feel the drive or need to compete at a high level. For example, the athlete could be in too low a pressure environment, or they could feel boredom.

References

Kerr, J.H., 2021. Anxiety, arousal, and sport performance: An application of reversal theory. In Anxiety in sports (pp. 137-151). Taylor & Francis.

How Can Sports Psychology Help Athletes?

April 24, 2023/in For Coaches, Guides, Science, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

It’s no secret that the best athletes are physically talented — they have impressive aerobic and anaerobic capacities, can shoot perfect free throws, and they can perform at the highest of intensities for hours on end.

But the very best athletes also know how to best perform mentally. They can silence the noise and play as if they are the only person in the stadium, on the pitch, or on the golf course.

Research shows that mental training in sports psychology can improve results more than physical training alone [1]. In fact, it’s changed the lives of many athletes, whether breaking through mental barriers, coming back from injury, or improving their performance.

With this in mind, in this blog post we discuss how sports psychology can help athletes.

Sports psychologists can:

Reduce performance anxiety and increase athlete confidence
Provide athletes with mental skills to deal with stressful situations
Help athletes return after injury

What is sports psychology?

Sports psychology is all about the mind — it’s about developing mental fitness and resilience, and learning skills such as visualisation and effective goal setting to maximise an athlete’s performance.

In the last few years, there’s been a boom in sports psychology — every professional sports team has at least one, and some, have a whole team of psychologists on hand to provide mental skills training, support, and education to their athletes.

Athletes who train in both the physical and mental aspects of their sport are likely to achieve better results than an athlete who only trains on the field.

What do sports psychologists do?

Okay, now that you know what sports psychology is, what do sports psychologists actually do, aside from helping athletes get the most out of themselves?

Sports psychologists:

Help athletes mentally prepare for competition
Teach effective goal setting techniques
Develop attention and focus
Break through mental barriers
Improve self-confidence and reduce anxiety
Help athletes return after injury

Help athletes mentally prepare for competition

Competition is tough, both mentally and physically. That shouldn’t be a surprise to athletes or coaches.

If an athlete’s mind is not in the right place, their physical performance may suffer.

Sports psychologists work with their athletes to prepare them mentally for competition.

But this isn’t something that happens overnight.

Let’s say you have an athlete who gets tense, anxious, and feels overwhelmed when taking a set piece such as a free throw in basketball. A psychologist could work with the athlete to develop a ritual to calm their nerves and silence the noise — this might include deep breathing exercises, cues such as relaxing their shoulders, or imagery to visualise the shot before taking it.

Want to see this in action? Watch Jonny Wilkinson perform his pre-kick ritual below:

Working with a sports psychologist is often very personalised — there is no one size fits all approach. Instead, it’s about working on an individual athlete’s strengths and weaknesses.

Teach effective goal setting techniques

All athletes have goals, whether you’re competing for an Olympic gold medal, want to break a 5k personal best, or win your basketball league tournament.

And we can all use effective goal setting techniques to improve self-confidence, performance, and the overall likelihood of success.

Sports psychologists and coaches should work with athletes to set goals using the following principles [2]:

Set specific goals that lead to better performance (vs. easy goals)
Short-term goals should move the needle towards long-term goals
An understanding that goals affect performance (effort, direction and attention, motivation, and strategy development)
Feedback regarding process is crucial when working towards goals
Goals must be accepted by the athlete

Develop attention and focus

It’s natural for athletes to feel increased anxiety under pressure — it’s those moments before a freekick, a set piece, the closing moments of a game, or the final 100 metres of a 5,000-metre race.

A sports psychologist can help athletes regain focus and lessen their anxiety, allowing them to maximise performance.

Furthermore, some athletes might perform well, but struggle with attention and focus during training, perhaps preventing them from reaching that “next level.”

Athletes can work alongside a sports psychologist to improve their motivation, attention and focus during those oh-so-crucial moments.

Break through mental barriers

Athletes use mental coaching to break through barriers that may inhibit peak performance.

For example, an athlete may choke under high pressure regularly, fear task or performance failure after a specific event, or experience severe anxiety to the point where their performance is severely hindered.

Sports psychologists employ mental skills training techniques to break through these mental barriers [1], alleviating anxiety and providing athletes with the tools to face their unique challenges head-on.

And the best part is, you don’t need to be an elite athlete to benefit from sports psychology and mental training.

Improve self-confidence and reduce anxiety

Working with a psychologist can help athletes improve confidence and optimise focus for performance.

Using certain mental exercises, athletes can recall how they felt during past performances, and can even practise certain skills and techniques to work on their mental game. Often, this includes the visualisation of particular scenarios and sports outcomes.

Psychologists administer a mix of mental skills, including [3]:

Self-talk
Attentional control
Goal setting
Imagery/visualisation
Activation and relaxation

If you’re a coach and you want to start using mental skill training with your athletes, you can read our how to create a mental training program for athletes guide.

Help athletes return after injury

Returning from a sports injury is no easy feat. — many athletes push too hard too early and only make it worse.

And then there are other athletes who seemingly come back from the impossible. Take Chris Froome’s horrendous crash at the dauphiné back in 2019, for example. He fractured his right femur, elbow, and several ribs after hitting a wall at over 33 mph during a training ride — he was later airlifted to hospital.

Team Ineos did not renew his professional contract, and for many cyclists (and athletes), that would be the end of their careers. But not Froome.

   
  
 
 
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 A post shared by Chris Froome (@chrisfroome)

And that’s only one example. There are others too, including Peyton Manning, who had multiple neck surgeries; Tiger Woods suffered from a double stress fracture in his left tibia; and Tom Brady who tore both the ACL and MCL in his knee.

   
  
 
 
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 A post shared by Tiger Woods (@tigerwoods)

All of these athletes returned back to their sport after going through rehabilitation with physiologists, doctors, and psychologists.

Why is sports psychology so important?

Sports psychology can help athletes reduce performance anxiety, come back from injury, break through mental barriers, and ultimately make them a more well-rounded and better athlete.

Prime your athletes for performance with Rewire

If you’re a coach, you can use Rewire for teams to prime your athletes for performance.

With as little as 5 minutes of daily use, on average, athletes experience 70% less stress, 30% more focus, and a 30% increase in readiness to perform.

Athletes gain access to mindset recovery protocols based on science to improve their mindset and recovery, and to prepare them for training and competition.

And as a coach, you gain a comprehensive understanding of their “readiness scores” to determine their training load.

“As a professional athlete, I’ve known firsthand the importance of training the mind and body to push the limits of performance. Rewire’s latest platform makes mental strength training more accessible to athletes everywhere with easy-to-use tools to help them reach their goals.”
— Kyle Korver, NBA All-Star & Assistant GM for the Atlanta Hawks.

Book a consultation

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References:

Kumar, P. and Shirotriya, A.K., 2010. ‘Sports psychology’a crucial ingredient for athletes success: conceptual view. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 44(Suppl 1), pp.i55-i56.
Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P., 1985. The application of goal setting to sports. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7(3), pp.205-222.
Röthlin, P., Horvath, S., Trösch, S., Holtforth, M.G. and Birrer, D., 2020. Differential and shared effects of psychological skills training and mindfulness training on performance-relevant psychological factors in sport: a randomized controlled trial. BMC psychology, 8, pp.1-13.

How to Create a Mental Training Program for Athletes

April 17, 2023/in For Coaches, Guides, Mental Fitness, Science, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

Improve your athletes’ mental game and develop a competitive edge by implementing a mental training plan.

Michael Phelps once said, “I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything.”

This quote from the Olympic swimmer — and most celebrated Olympian of all time — is a fantastic introduction to mental training and how it can improve confidence and mental strength.

Mental training tools, such as effective goal setting, visualisation, self-talk, and progressive muscle relaxation, can be used to maximise physical and psychological performance.

Some of the very best athletes — Phelps included — used psychological skills training to improve performance. And in this blog post, we’ll explain how you can create a mental skills training program for your athletes to help them stay focused when it matters most.

Please note: I am not a sports psychologist. I am simply relaying the literature in an easy-to-understand way to help you create a mental training program for your athletes.

How do athletes train mentally?

Athletes who follow a mental training program usually focus on one skill or psychological strategy a day.

For example, during the week, they might practise a mix of skills to improve their mental game, including self-talk, visualisation, goal setting, and activation.

If an athlete struggles to deal with the intense pressure of competition during a particularly stressful situation (such as a freekick in football), they can visualise this and practise other mental exercises to improve confidence and performance.

While this obviously looks different for every athlete and sport, coaches should create mental training programs to address athlete weaknesses while also honing in on their strengths.

So how do you start?

To begin, coaches should perform a needs assessment with their athletes — this helps identify any potential psychological strengths (and weaknesses), and areas that may be detrimental to performance.

Ask your athletes to note down both physical and psychological skills they think are needed to perform well in their sport.

An example mental training program for a cyclist

Let’s use the example of a cyclist. They might mention skills such as:

Climbing ability
Descending ability (and confidence when doing so)
Core strength
Power output
Cornering
Teamwork
Getting into an aero position
Good communication with the team

Once you’ve got these noted down, athletes rate (on a scale of 1 to 10) how good they think they are at each skill.

Also, ask your athletes if they have any strengths or weaknesses in their sport. For example, they may say they are good at climbing, but worse at descending.

If they rate their descending ability a 4, for example, then mental skills can be used to improve their confidence and technique on those descents.

Visualisation can be used to practise choosing the right line, putting the weight over the bike correctly, and braking in advance of the corner. This can help build up confidence without actually being on the bike.

During this needs assessment, it’s important that it’s a collaborative effort between coach and athlete — this makes it more likely that they’ll stick to the program.

For more data, coaches can ask athletes to complete the test of performance questionnaire (TOPS). This will also reveal other psychological strengths and weaknesses in training and competition.

Now with a list of strengths and weaknesses, alongside physical and psychological skills, you can begin collaborating with your athletes to create an effective mental training program.

Decide what mental skills to include in the program

The results from the TOPS questionnaire also show what mental skills the athlete is good at and others which can be improved.

This provides a great foundation for you to combine skills that they have not yet utilised (or are not very good at), and skills that they want to improve in their sport, e.g. descending ability.

Mental skills include [2]:

Self-talk
Emotional control
Goal setting
Imagery (also called visualisation)
Activation
Relaxation
Negative thinking
Attentional control

If the imagery and self-talk scores were low (i.e. not used before), then we can add these to a mental training program to focus on those weaker areas such as descending, cornering and getting into an aero position.

The athlete will now be improving mental strength and physical training, applying a new skill to their performance.

You can also use mental skills they have previous practice with (and feel confident using) to complement their training and skill learning.

Be sure to ask the athlete what they want to improve and what mental skills they think would benefit their overall performance. Remember: the process should remain collaborative.

Self-talk

For self-talk, ask athletes to note down any negative self-talk they experience during training, competition, or when practising a skill.

Let’s say, for example, when approaching a descent, they feel scared, out of control, and as if they’re going to run off the road.

You can implement a script to replace negative thoughts with positive self-talk.

Below are some examples of how this cyclist would begin using positive self-talk during training, and, eventually, competition.

Negative self-talk	Positive self-talk
I feel scared when descending	I’m confident at descending
I feel like I’m going to run off the road	I’ll choose my line and stick to it
I’m worried I’ll grab the brakes in the corner	I’ll break in a straight line before the corner

Imagery

Imagery, or visualisation is similar to self-talk. And in our example, you could ask your athlete to imagine themselves descending.

What technique are they adopting? Where do they position themselves on the road? How does it feel leading up to the corner? Do they hit the apex? What about exiting the corner — do they accelerate quickly by putting more power on the pedals?

And while you should visualise the successful performance of the skill, it may also be beneficial to imagine what could go wrong, and other ways it could go. However, to begin with, we recommend mastering successful skill performance before exploring other visualisation outcomes.

Relaxation

And finally, let’s say our cyclist feels intense pressure during competition. If this was the case, it might be useful to practise relaxation techniques. This could include focused deep breathing, positive self-talk, progressive muscle relaxation, and other techniques which are good mental training tools to have in your toolkit.

No mental training program will be the same

When designing a mental training program for your athletes, it’s important to know that no two plans should or will be the same.

Athletes have unique strengths and weaknesses, some may have experience with mental skills training, and others might be starting from scratch.

But no matter what level an athlete is playing or competing in, mental training can help them improve physical (and mental) performance [1].

Coaches can use Rewire to build mental fitness

As well as creating a mental training plan for your athletes, coaches can use Rewire for teams to further improve mental fitness and mindset recovery.

Athletes get access to evidence-based protocols from neuroscience and sports psychology, and actively practise self-talk, visualisation, guided breathing exercises, and more.

Coaches can also track athletes’ readiness scores to tailor their physical and mental training for each athlete to maximise performance.

“If you’re just relying on trying to sharpen your mental game while you’re out training, you might not always have the opportunity or you may wear your body down too much. With Rewire, you have a controlled environment and structure so that you can choose when you want to add mental training to your workouts and you can do it as often as you’d like.” – Laura Kline (Elite Ultra Runner & Endurance Athlete)

Find out how Rewire can improve mental fitness for your athletes.

FAQs

What is a mental skills training program?

A mental skills training program contains psychological exercises such as self-talk and visualisation to improve physical skills, whether that’s a free throw or a cycling descent.

How do you train mental training?

To start, begin practising easy-to-implement skills such as positive self-talk and visualisation. Note down areas of your sport you want to improve and use mental skills to optimise physical and mental performance.

How do athletes become better mentally?

The best athletes are highly resilient. Often, this is a result of mental training exercises such as visualisation, self-talk, and effective goal setting. You can do the same to improve your performance.

References:

Holmes, P.S. and Collins, D.J., 2001. The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of applied sport psychology, 13(1), pp.60-83.
Röthlin, P., Horvath, S., Trösch, S., Holtforth, M.G. and Birrer, D., 2020. Differential and shared effects of psychological skills training and mindfulness training on performance-relevant psychological factors in sport: a randomized controlled trial. BMC psychology, 8, pp.1-13.