So often in sports we hear about “mental” mistakes when players fail (Advanced Human Performance Systems). In fact, the great New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra once said about baseball that “half the game is 90% mental!” While those numbers might not add up to anyone other than Yogi, the gist of his comment was that an awful lot of sport success happens as a result of mental toughness, focus, confidence, and resiliency.
Today, athletes, coaches, and sports fans regularly point to “mental breakdowns” when plays are blown and games are lost, and sport psychologists continue to study the mental aspects of sports as a result. And while we no longer dispute the importance of mental preparation when it comes to sport success, the degree and extent mental toughness is needed for athletic success seems to still be debatable.
Often while watching sports on television we will hear announcers – or even players and coaches – refer to “mental breakdowns” or “mental mistakes.” When they make these comments (you may even make them yourself), it’s interesting to dissect just exactly what they are talking about — in other words, what are “mental breakdowns,” and how often do they impede athletes from reaching their full potential?
The truth is nearly every mistake an athlete makes while competing is a mental mistake!
Since the mental aspects of sport include both cognitive and emotional aspects, it can be argued that nearly every mistake, error, anger outburst, frustration, gaffe, missed opportunity, and blown opportunity are examples of mental breakdowns!
When we break down athletic mistakes into two categories (physical and mental), we must remind ourselves that these categories are not mutually exclusive. Put more simply, when an athlete swings and misses a pitch, or throws a ball over another player’s head, there are both physical and mental aspects to the mistakes. In fact, it can be argued that the mental aspects (i.e. thinking about when to swing or how hard to throw a ball) are far more important than the actual physical swinging of a bat or throwing of a ball.
Making things even more confusing is the fact that emotions also play into these scenarios. For example, if an athlete is overly-nervous and unfocused, it will inevitably interfere with swinging a bat or throwing a ball. If you are overly-nervous, it’s almost impossible to be accurate with muscle motor skills (like swinging a bat or throwing a ball).
The funny thing is after the early years of athletics, when kids are just learning the bio-mechanics of how to throw and catch, nearly every sport mistake they make will have a mental tag connected to the problem. Unfortunately, most people still want to pin all the problems on the physical and technical aspects of sports — in the examples above, the batting stance or how an athlete throws a ball. Of course, these are important aspects to address, but without any “mental toughness” teachings the athlete will likely continue to make the same mistakes as a result of poor focus and anxiety.
Mental training helps with the overall development of athletic success in a number of inter-related ways, including the following:
- Help with confidence, which is directly correlated with sport success
- Help with focus, which helps athletes eliminate outside distractions and think about only relevant sport cues
- Help with skill acquisition by using cognitive skills to master sport movements
- Help with motivation so that sport skills can be mastered
- Help with resiliency so that when the athlete makes mistakes (which he will) he bounces back quickly
- Help with interpersonal communication so that the athlete can work in a positive, facilitative way with his coaches
- Plus many more ways
The truth is every mistake made in sports has a “mental” aspect to it, and the sooner athletes devote specific time to training mental skills only then will the athlete reach his or her full athletic potential. Physical breakdowns and mistakes do not happen without a mental component, so it behooves athletes to regularly spend time learning about specific mental training skills that will help them ultimately play to their highest potential.
Check out our expanding line of performance enhancing products, including Mind of Steel, at www.drstankovich.com
