Submitted by: Hanson Bo

Mental visualization is a key sport psychology skill that coaches can help their athletes develop. This may entail specific training sessions that practice mental visualization of the perfect execution of technique or practicing the race or game plan. It can also be as simple as a few minutes of visualization before practice commences where the athletes see themselves successfully performing their sporting behaviours and techniques. Before a training session, coaches can ask their athletes to think about what it is they are about to do and then see themselves performing the training effectively.

Visualization often requires an athlete to firstly relax, mentally focus on the present and then run through what is to be rehearsed in their mind. If a coach isnt yet confident in being able to run visualization sessions with their athletes, then engage a sport psychologist to teach and mentor the coach on how to do this well. There is also a great deal of information available on this topic in books and on the internet. This is a great skill coaches can get great at and teach their athletes.

Another sport psychology area that is relatively simple but vitally important is goal setting. Coaches can enhance their effectiveness by ensuring their athletes have set SMART goals. These are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time framed. Every successful athlete needs to set goals and then know to break these goals into smaller chunks. Coaches can keep their athletes on track by constantly having smaller goals to focus on each session that contribute to the more significant strategic goals for the whole season or overall athletes development. Having these smaller goals also teaches narrow concentration skills and how to focus on the process rather than the outcome of a performance.

Again, there are numerous resources available on this topic.

A coach can also use an effective feedback model combined with appropriate positive language. For example, when a coach tells their athlete what they are doing incorrectly, they must also explain how to fix the technical error. When the athlete attempts to fix the technique, the coach should positively encourage the athlete for their effort and to support them to train outside of their personal comfort zone. This helps boost the athletes self-belief in their ability to make changes and they begin to feel more comfortable while operating outside of their comfort zone. We recommend the feedback sandwich which is detailed in the article Delivering Feedback to Your Athletes.

The final sport psychology concept to cover which coaches can teach their athletes is how to monitor their own self-talk. Everyone talks to themselves. (It is that voice now that is asking whether you talk to yourself!) What an athlete says to themselves impacts their performance. By asking your athletes to begin to notice their internal conversations and if they are positive or not, can help an athlete begin to change negative self-talk. An athletes internal conversation is often a representation of their own self-beliefs sometimes strengthening beliefs and sometimes limiting. Once again, becoming aware of these internal conversations is the first step towards changing them to be more positive and hence being able to create better performances. You might like to also refer to the article What to do when your rowers dont compete as well as they train for more on this topic.

Sports coaches who have developed their own skills in the above areas, are the best qualified to teach their athletes these critical sport psychology skills to improve their performances. This way they are continuously reinforced during training and more effective on competition day. Remember, the most critical contributor to athletic performance is the coach-athlete relationship. Dedicate time to develop these relationships to improve your sporting results. This starts with understanding yourself and your athletes.

About the Author: Bo Hanson is 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments. To learn about Sport Psychology Tests, please visit

athleteassessments.com/

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