Sports psychology crucial for victory

by Amal Hewavissenti

It appears fair to say that engagement in sports has become a panacea for life’s challenges. In the roughest definition, sport is what co-ordinates a person’s physical well-being with mental health and upgrades them both in the course of energetic and competitive activity.

The symbiotic relationship between man and sports dates far back to the early history when people were involved in many sports simply to raise their physical and mental health to a higher rank.

History unfolds how man valued the vital concept of healthy mind within healthy body after they developed a penetrative insight into the healing effect of the sports on man.

What precisely is SP?

Sports Psychology involves scientific study of Psychological trends and behaviour of Sportsmen within the field of sports. Even though it emerged as a newborn science connected to psychology, it generally deals with the mental process linked to behaviour of people in sporting activity.

This fascinating science deeply studies the mental changes that occur in a sportsman when he is being competitively dynamic in sport, losing or winning a game, exercising or developing his physical strength. Several studies make it clear that sports psychology has grown in leaps and bounds since recently and its popularity is ever mounting up.

Concept of player’s motivation

Sports Psychology is increasingly gaining popularity simply because it gives valuable suggestions to develop sporting talents in players after analysing their behaviour. Player’s motivation is the most inportant aspect playing the key role in Sports Psychology. Motivation, in most instances, brings out the ideal sportsmanship latent in those who are engaged in sports.

The most powerful and effective type of motivation comes to a person naturally. This, in the form of courage and commitment, directly guides a player to victory by giving a powerful sense of competitiveness. Here the player is not at all governed by outside stimulation.

The natural competitiveness and the drive for the victory comes to him internally and it is almost inborn. Sports Psychology gives the label of ‘intrinsic motivation’ to this type of motivation because it acts independent of outside stimulation.

Naturally the courage and unfailing effort in the sporting activity are the real forms of internal motivation. On the other hand, a player may be spurred on to play a game out of the expectation that he would gain special privileges such as money, popularity, trophies and other forms of privileges. This is ‘extrinsic motivation’ in sports psychology.

These external benefits stimulate a player to perform his best and to turn the trend of victory towards him. Thus, sports psychologists draw a distinct line between these two types of motivation that can be present in a single sportsman.

For instance, a swimmer may show an unfailing dedication, a sound mental strength, courage and concentration to lead himself to victory in a match. This inner drive in the player, as psychologists interpret, is intrinsic motivation.

The expectation that he would gain popularity, money, certificates or medals, may entice the same swimmer to play well and strive for victory. This situation is interpretable as extrinsic motivation. Here sports psychologist is confronted with a big responsibility to correctly set goals for the player after weighing internal and external motivational factors.

Interestingly enough, a psychologist focusses more on developing a player’s intrinsic motivation because he values the role of a player’s potent mental strength in his struggle to go for victory. Here they value player’s discipline, commitment, enthusiasm, passion and positive attitude when he takes part in whatever sport.

These basic mental factors, as psychologists say, are far more crucial for victory than other motivational factors such as money and popularity. That is precisely why sports psychology is more concerned about developing these inner traits of a sportsman. A coach with a sound knowledge of sports psychology is able to improve the inner capacity of a player and map out solutions to some problematic conditions that arise in his engagement in sports.

Several hundreds of sports psychologists are currently at work in universities and other education institutions or sports departments throughout the world offering their expertise to the field of sports. Their professional role has been to bring out the sporting potential in players by identifying their physical and mental activity, nature and fitness.

Stress and anxiety - rewarding

As psychologists point out, certain level of anxiety and stress is important for a sportsman to be more committed a player highly charged with stress may play desperately to get rid of the strain and gain victory. Latest research have concluded that players, in most instances, experience a type of competitive anxiety and stress when they are getting ready for a match.

However, the competitive anxiety extent in the player, helps to develop his self-confidence, courage, sporting orientation and concentration.

It must be remembered that a player with a sound sporting personality is naturally enabled to crush down any negative feeling arising from stress and anxiety. The underlying truth is that players develop feelings of anxiety just when he thinks very hard on the ability of his rival, the competitiveness of the match, the image that others have built on him or the importance of the match to his life.

Stress to be managed

Not always are the stress and anxiety positive to the player when he competes against another with physical effort and skill, the sport psychologists claim. Recurrent anxiety have its disastrous effect on the morale of a player who might have negative emotional response to the play and others when it becomes almost unbearable to him. Psychologists explain this as the player’s unfavourable response to sports and to people concerned because the unendurable competitive environment puts an additional pressure on him to play well.

Harmful anxiety coupled with strain in a player can bring about negative thoughts, obsession of defeat in the match, or lack of concentration that may detrimentally affect the player’s sporting abilities, psychologists say. Generally, physical unrest too can occur as an outcome of stress, both physical and mental.

However, experts say a player with a strong motivation can better foil the effects of stressful anxiety and makes it a point to strengthen his drive for victory. Here sport psychologists and coaches are better equipped to give effective counselling to overcome the challenges faced by players and to successfully deal with any problematic condition that may arise.

Relaxation - a must

Sports psychologists emphasise the value of physical and mental relaxation as the way to effectively cancel out stress and anxiety in play. For mental relaxation, psychologists suggest a course of simple meditation practices that can easily be followed by any player.

The simple activities involving meditation will doubtless create mental relaxation that will in turn guard the player against energy draining anxiety.

Sports psychology suggests simple techniques of physical relaxation which are commonly called ‘deep muscular relaxation.’ Psychologists say mental relaxation through meditation can conduce to the physical relaxation and bring the player to the maximum level of his capacity.

A boon to Sri Lankan sports

Sri Lanka, no doubt, has produced the best players with the natural capacity to compete against any player of any nationality in the world. Therefore, our coaches with a sound knowledge of sports psychology will be able to pay special attention to the physical and mental health of the players and make better arrangements to upgrade player’s motivation far more successfully.

Coaches have a national responsibility to carry the players to resounding success by giving psychological awareness to them because it is the coaches who are the pilots of sports. Psychologists and coaches unanimously agree that stress and anxiety must be managed well.

They are well aware that mismanagement of stress and anxiety can bring defeat to the most successful player. At the same time, a coach can make use of systematic stress management skills to bring a player with average talent to the maximum level. Currently, sports psychologists are studying deeply the benefits of sports for a healthy generation and are looking for motivational techniques still untested.

The secret behind the world’s best players is the proper application of SP in every aspect of sports. Sri Lanka too can make a dramatic breakthrough in the field of international sports and she is not late!