Practical Sport Psychology

Peter Scott 1 (16:25)

0:00 Experiences working with sport psychologists (in his playing career)

2:50 Psychologist ‘didn’t relate’

3:00 Coming up to retirement (as a player/captain) the sport psych used Peter to approach younger players (o help build bridges)

4:18 Importance of sport psychology to sports

6:05 Unlocking potential

6:50 Recommendation to speak to a sport psych early in their career so they get the most out of themselves, to give themselves the best chance of succeeding in their sporting career

8:10 Preparing to perform - use of routines well before the competition starts

10:30 How Peter got started playing football (10-11 years of age wanted a career as a professional football player)

12:15 Peter’s great love for football

12:40 Pressure from parents or others in pushing son

13:45 The pressure on Peter’s son to follow in his father’s footsteps

14:25 Influence of good and bad coaches

Peter Scott 2 (14:34)

0:00 Recognising who you want to give thanks to along the way

0:34 Using ‘active thinking’ to work out how to play better (modeling self on a player of a better standard but in the same position)

2:20 Need to be excited about different aspects of the game

3:40 Need to be self aware

4:25 How is ‘money’ viewed in the game today? Can it be a motivator or a e-motivator?

7:15 High level of ‘depressed’ players in a team

8:40 No hiding place from social media criticism (’it’s a 24 hours a day profession’)

9:50 Education process of creating a support networks

11:00 The effect of changing managers on the performance of players (shelf life of managers is about 3 years, unless you change the people you work with ie bringing in fresh players)

12:40 Motivational messages

Peter Scott 3 (19:10)

0:00 The use of the motivational speeches

1:15 You need to know how to motivate your players individually

3:15 How does Peter control his emotions when coaching?

6:00 The ‘effectiveness’ of tearing strips of another player

8:35 Use of imagery and mental rehearsal

10:30 Internal or External visualization

11:16 Value of ‘scouting’ so you know the strengths and weaknesses of your opposition

11:30 Mastery focused rather than outcome focused

13:40 Principles or values Peter tries to convey to his players

15:15 How did Peter know how to psych himself up, or down?

16:50 What does Peter tell his players about how to keep themselves under control during a match?

18:30 Best to try to teach these skills to younger players as early as possible

Peter Scott 4 (19:09)

0:00 Using questionnaires to get information about your players (risk is that players won’t take it seriously)

0:50 Dealing with pressure throughout your career

2:25 Use of questionnaires to draft players (not really done in the UK yet, more on looking at the player’s values and home life)

5:20 Learning from other sports

6:15 Spotting talent [Three 7s: deal with a football (technical skill); ‘spirit’ (psychological); how does the player move (physical ability) plus character, with a score of 7+ representing ‘Academy standard’]

7:18 ‘Character’ in the player to represent the coach’s values

8:45 The difficulty of retiring from elite sport

12:24 Did Peter always expect to be a coach?

13:36 How do you manage young players who are going to be cut from the team?

16:00 Predicting which players might advance and which ones might’ve peaked already

Martin Dean 1 (16:14)

0:16 Martin’s experiences in coaching

2:09 Fostering the right culture at a club

3:27 As a ‘spotter’, what qualities did you look for in players (ie spotting talent)?

5:25 How refined is the psychology involved in Talent ID? ‘I DREAM’

7:46 Use of sport psychs at Reading in the Academy setup

9:00 How do admired sport psychs work (in national clubs) - group workshops, 1-1, creating ‘I DREAM’ methodology, observe, give feedback, communication tips

10:25 Are coaches willing to get sport psych input?

10:45 Motivating young players, ‘they come with an entourage now’)

11:50 Young players given contracts earlier these days

12:15 What do parents think when their child is given a contract?

12:48 ‘Only 2% of players who come in at 16 make it to a senior team (ie given the chance to have a professional career)’; ‘How do they retain the hunger when they’ve been given so much too soon’

13:20 The role of agents

15:00 How does the Academy coach wrest control back from the agent?

Martin Dean 2 (18:47)

0:00 How do players choose the right agent?

1:36 Intrinsic motivation is being reduced by the money on offer

3:00 Players need to practice for the love of the game

4:19 Releasing players from U16s caused agents to ring to find out what they could do to change their mind

5:00 Parents often don’t know enough about what is happening to their child at this level

6:13 What motivational messages does Martin give the Academy players?, Use of Analysts to show the players what they are doing wrong or doing right

10:00 Psychological techniques taught to players in workshops or 1-1 meetings, and Martin might get feedback (but maybe sport psychs only meet up with players 4 times per season, compared to sport scientists who are there at every session)

12:20 Martin is aware of players being taught visualisation, imagery, preparation for major competitions, use of key words to aid clarity of role and intention to deliver the ball, attentional cues, but more could be done in the area of arousal/anxiety

15:45 What do you say or do to a player who is feeling anxious?

17:00 Amount of ‘threat’ a player might be under at 15 or 16 years of age compared to 10 and 11 year olds

Martin Dean 3 (19:18)

0:00 What do you do with the players who’ve been identified as ‘late bloomers’?

1:50 Has Martin been surprised by the development of a player who’d been cut from his squad?

2:30 Three 7s: Skill acquisition; ‘Spirit’ / psychology; Physical ability, plus 6 corners of physical, mental, technical, tactical, social and emotional

3:40 Deconstructing what ‘spirit’ means - energy, vigour, resilience,

5:09 Is there a preferred personality of an elite athlete?

6:00 The concept of the talented young player; sometimes ‘too much effort’ (on the wrong things) and an ‘ego’ mindset are detrimental - instead they should just work hard

9:27 How do you measure if the coaches are any good?

10:20 Strengths of Martin as a coach

11:08 Mentoring other coaches (informally) within the Academy

12:40 Role of the half time team speech

13:54 Physical and psychological support for injured players

15:30 Social media amongst players of that age group

Sammie Phillips 1 (19:20)

0:00 Sammie Phillips has been newly appointed into a new role as Performance Advisor for Women’s English Touch Rugby, and Sammie tells us what that involves

1:01 Sammie talks about her experience as a player/coach at the World Cup (Gold Coast, Australia, 2015)

3:00 What sport psychology aspects did you use as part of the World Cup preparations?

4:30 The ‘behind the scenes’ discussions that went on with sport psychology

6:20 Staying in the moment (when there are so many other things going on in ‘real life’)

9:45 Key skill - scanning after mentally ‘stepping back’ so you can make good decisions on the pitch ands using ‘scan’ as a key word to remind them to look for options

12:12 How do you cope with games not going to plan?

13:13 Amateur sport = needing to rotate players to give everyone a chance to play

14:00 Experienced players overawed (tv cameras being present?), ‘not pumped up enough’, ‘distracted’, ‘complacent’

16:00 Make a physiological change (deep breathing) to get clear thinking

18:00 The role of ‘gamesmanship’ in a tight match

Sammie Phillips 2 (13:30)

0:00 Amateur players pay to compete

4:00 Did the weather mar players’ experiences of the World Cup?

6:00 Accommodation logistics

7:20 Team cohesion - Did cracks appear? How to control ‘down time’

8:10 Differences in control between professional and amateur sport

9:10 Plan B for managing ‘off time’

10:15 Team structure (management) to support Playing/Coach

11:24 Managing players in difficult circumstances

Sammie Phillips 3 (17:13)

0:00 European Championships due to be held in 2016 - What preparations are being made for sport psychology tools and techniques in the lead up for this competition?

1:00 Sport psychology isn’t viewed (by others) as being as important to preparation as other things

2:18 Plan is for the sport psych to be working with coaches (to manage the messages) in the first instance; how to manage this when players are coming in from all over the country

4:00 Start to get sport psychology used in a formal way within the sport

4:30 Other support staff used by Touch Rugby

5:20 Importance of video analysis to identify behavior to be maintained or rejected

8:00 Players like to watch themselves play, so that ‘homework’ is not difficult for players to do

9:05 ‘Drugs in sport’ Education

10:55 Where does ‘young talent’ come from to match the current World Champions (Australia, New Zealand)

15:05 A new generation of Touch Rugby players

Sammie Phillips 4 (12:17)

0:00 Touch Rugby is like a chess game, with decision making happening three or four moves ahead of the opposition - “it’s a thinking person’s game”

1:10 Team dynamics, team culture, expectations, role of the sport psych - “it’s becoming more accepted that these things affect performance”

2:40 Where does sport psychology fit within an organisation? Is it with medical staff, or with the sport science staff?

3:40 How do you reproduce the culture for a team? Each team might set their own core values (perhaps with guidance from their coach).

5:25 Whose role is it to come up with ‘worst case scenarios’ to develop ‘Plan B’ solutions? Aim is to get all the squad (in small groups) identifying possible solutions so they can start thinking for themselves

7:18 Develop an ‘If…Then Plan’ and the group had a saying ‘Move on, next play’ so that the squad weren’t caught up thinking about something that just went wrong, and they cleared their mind for the next play

8:20 Extracurricular team bonding sessions (eg army training using high ropes, diving off the high board) to test nerve (and support from team mates)

10:10 Working with a squad of ‘probables’ and ‘maybes’ to educate the group widely

10:45 Risk of burnout? No, Sammie thought a 2 year campaign would build momentum

Arousal and Performance 1 (21:35)

0:10 Beginnings of sport psychology

1:24 Working out who might be good under pressure during WW2 (Drive Theory)

3:36 Inverted U hypothesis

7:04 Zone of Optimal Functioning

7:45 Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning

8:29 Different sports have different arousal requirements

13:05 Differentiating anxiety into cognitive and somatic elements

16:10 Multidimensional Anxiety Theory

Arousal and Performance 2 (14:34)

0:00 Catastrophe Theory

4:15 Dealing with performance slumps

5:35 Reversal Theory

12:32 How coaches might use information in Reversal Theory to coach individuals differently

14:30 Completing the questionnaire to find out where you sit on the Telic-Paratelic continuum (Note, since filming this segment the questionnaire has removed ‘reverse scoring’, so if completing the questionnaire in this course you would just add up your score of items circled.)

Arousal and Performance 3 (14:05)

0:00 Identifying whether you are telic or paratelic by scoring the questionnaire

3:30 Lifting heart rate for Paratelics (who feel under-aroused)

4:50 Lowering heart rate for Telics (who feel over-aroused)

6:50 ‘Reversing’ from telic to paratelic, or paratelic to telic, for a short time by changing cognition

13:40 Flexible people can operate reasonably well if their preferred arousal levels aren’t being met, but they would be even better if they knew how to get themselves in their ‘best state’ themselves

Some further descriptions of content described in this Section can be found on the internet
1. Wonderlic Test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test
2. The Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS): http://www.taistest.com/category/articles/
3. What colour is your parachute? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Color_is_Your_Parachute
4. Phillip Hughes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Hughes
5. Ayrton Senna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayrton_Senna
6. Phil Walsh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Walsh_(Australian_footballer)

Hierarchy in the Psychological Skills Training (PST) program part 1

(19 minutes 46 seconds)

1:03 Confidence / Preparation for competition

2:59 Trust, building rapport

7:15 Goal setting skills: time management: behaviour modification - leading to a player / athlete / coach developing resilience

11:30 Arousal control (psyching up and psyching down); deliberate practice (attending to the right cues, control the controllables)

Other resources:

Larsen, C.S. (2014) Preparing for the European Championships: A six-step Mental Skills Training Program in disability sports. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 5 (3), 186-197.

Hierarchy in the Psychological Skills Training (PST) program part 2

(18 minutes 14 seconds)

0:00 Continuing arousal and performance issues
…leading to performance under pressure, leading to simulating competition conditions and practicing good decision making under pressure

8:20 Communication (verbal and non verbal), act ‘as if’ you had the desired skills/behaviour

9:09 Self talk

12.35 Imagery, visualisation and mental rehearsal

13:15 Building support networks

15:49 Use of social media

Hierarchy in the Psychological Skills Training (PST) program part 3

(20 minutes 41 seconds)

0:00 Role on the team

2:08 Team cohesion

3:30 Talent ID

7:15 Retirement from sport

14:15 Death or severe injury in sport