Mental skills for athletes Essay

Submitted By patricb98
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Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt is one of the most successful athletes in the world. He has broken many world records and achieved great performances at high competitive level. Usian Bolt was born on the 21 of August 196, in Jamaica, from an early age Bolt was heavily involved in cricket and sprinting. Bolt then directed his focus towards sprinting and at the age of 15 he won 200 meter at the 2002 World Junior Athletes Championship in Kingston Jamaica, making him the youngest junior gold medalist. Bolt went on to win the 100 meter, 200 meter and 100 meter four-man relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and repeat this effort at the 2012 London Olympics. Usain Bolt was the first person ever to win back-to-back titles.

There are many psychological strategies that Bolt employs to become the very best at his sport.

One mental skill that Usain Bolt utilises is stress and anxitity management. Stress occurs when there is an imbalance between the task requirements and the ability level of the performer to respond in a situation where failure has consequences. Stress can either be emotional or physical; this is triggered when a person finds the demands put on them are too big or difficult to manage. Athletes with emotional stress many experience, poor decision making, missing out on cues, fear and loss of confidence these aspects can negatively affect a person’s performance. The other type of stress is physical, this is the body’s reaction to different actions, physical stress can have a positive and negative effect on an athlete’s performance. Some symptoms of an athlete experiencing negative physical stress many include nausea, vomiting, sleeplessness and the need to urinate. Symptoms of an athlete experiencing positive stress many include; increased adrenalin levels, increased respiratory rate and increased heart rate. Anxiety is a negative emotion, of an individual’s interpretation of a situation. Most thoughts of individuals with anxiety often think, “what might happen” as a result of an action, it is the fear of having no control over outcomes, and this lowers the athlete’s arousal levels. However anxiety can improve an athlete’s performance even though it is a negative emotion. Many successful athletes play with the fear of failure and this actually motivates them to perform well. This can be displayed in a graph as shown below, at the highest point on the graph is the optimal amount of anxiety to perform well.

(2)

Usain Bolt was very triumphant from an early age; he has the expectation of the world to perform well, this places a huge amount of stress and anxiety upon Bolt. So Usain positively manages this stress and anxiety build up, to prove that he is still the best. Because of Usain Bolts body composition with his long legs, it takes him a longer time to get out of the blocks and pick up speed. So it is key for Bolt to have a perfect start when the gun is fired, this obviously increases Usain Bolts stress levels. Also because of the false start disqualification rule put in place in 2003 there is even more importance for Bolt to manage his stress levels at the start of a race.

Another mental skill that uses to effect is motivation. Motivation is the direction and intensity of effort, which relates to the; Initiation of behavior, continuation of behavior and intensity. Initiation of behavior is why a person started their involvement in that sport. Continuation of behavior is why an athlete continues to play a sport. Intensity is how intensely an athlete approaches his or her sport. Usain Bolt started his involvement in track sprinting because he enjoyed running and his father urging him on because he could see a huge potential in Usain. Bolt continues to sprint for the love of it and the fact that he wants “to run fast and show the world again what I can do"(1). Usain Bolt has a high intensity towards his sprinting, this is because he is the best, it is his living
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