Mental Training for Sports

Mental training for sports prepares the minds of athletes for the demands of practice and competition. An athlete who is mentally ready is highly motivated, focused, and self confident will rise to peak performance when it counts.



The effectiveness of any sports training program is compromised if athletes have difficulty learning sport skills correctly, focusing on strategies, or developing toughness. Athletes' psychological skills go hand-in-hand with their physical sports training programs. Sharpening attentional focus, speeding up response time, and using imagery are examples of how athletes can harness the benefits of mental skills that drive physical performance.

Sport psychology is the broad field that studies how athletes' minds and emotions function in sports. Within sport psychology, motor learning and skill acquisition are areas that examine how athletes can learn sport skills more quickly.

Motor learning provides the backdrop for learning and performing skills; it takes much of the guess work out of finding the best instructional sequences and progressions. This area offers key linkages between sports training principles and coaching in the real world of athletics.

Key principles from sport psychology can be used to accelerate skill learning as well as mental preparation for peak sport performance. Psychological tips and techniques are linked to other sports training tips throughout this site.

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World Champion Olympic Lifter David Rigert (Bruce Klemens Photo)

Related Pages:

Coaching Feedback

Individual Differences

Mental Practice

Sport Skills

Reaction Time and Decision Making

Setting Goals

Sport Memory

Stages of Learning

Training Variation

Transfer of Training

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