Athlete or Performer? Basics of Performance Psychology

What’s the difference between an athlete and a performer? Well, not much really but at the same time, there’s a lot different. An “athlete” a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise whereas a “performer” is a person who executes a skill or a talent in front of an audience.

Now it’s safe to say that not all “performers” are athletes, they’re not just artists either. Performers are airplane pilots, drivers, surgeons, doctors, first responders, and many others because the execution of their skills is a key component to ensuring that their “audience” is ultimately satisfied. On the other end, not all athletic performance isn’t so strictly defined either. In sports, a typical “audience” may everything from competition judges, a literal audience of people, but also the score board, the time clock, your teammates, coaches, officials, and even yourself. The elements of performance within athletics manifest itself in many and often unexpected ways, such as the nerves of attending a new fitness class, or learning a new exercise/skill, even just showing up at the gym.

Many people struggle just to walk into a gym for the first time, feeling like they’ll have an audience of skilled gym rats judging them. While generally speaking this isn’t the case as people at the gym don’t really care so long as you put your weights away, the perception of an audience is simply enough to make one nervous enough to back out. Something even as simple as walking in the front door can constitute a performance.

In sport, athletes are often trained to develop their physical, technical, and tactical conditioning as it relates to their sport, but not mentally conditioned for the performance itself.

Diving into the psychology of it all, when you perform, you feel those nerves, butterflies in the stomach, elevated HR, sweating, sudden awareness of details and such, known as “arousal” in which the sympathetic nervous system is suddenly more active. You feel like you’re in the spotlight and your “fight or flight” mechanism is telling you to run away. Athletes who are unconditioned for that are unable to regulate their arousal and they end choking under pressure. Making those other conditioned skills completely useless and thus, it is important to train our athletes as performers through mental conditioning as a necessary part of any training program alongside those other skills. The key component to mental conditioning is Arousal Regulation in which you can take that fight or flight mechanism and channel it into your performance so that it works to your advantage and enhances your performance.

Arousal Regulation is the level of activation and alertness experienced by a performer. If arousal is too low or too high, it can inhibit your performance. Athletes with low levels of arousal are easily distracted, have a broad focus, are more aware of task irrelevant stimuli, whereas athletes with high levels of arrousal often have to narrow of a focus, unable to percieve task relevant stimuli, experience sensory overload. Both levels often come with a high cognitive load which leads to harmful behaviors such as negative self talk, inability to make decisions, or process task relevant cues.

Mental conditioning uses mental skills and strategies to regulate arousanl in order for an athlete to find their Ideal Performance State which is the prime spot in which arousal meets peak performance. For every athlete this is different and unique to their own experiences in sport and athletic development.

Arousal is a good thing when an athlete is trained to channel it into their performance as it can greatly enhance one’s own capabilities. Thankfully there are quite a few different strategies and exercises one can do to build their own mental conditioning.

• Positive Self Talk
• Cognitive Restructuring
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation

And also…

Action Cycle – Goal Setting (1x/week)

• Every training/competition week should begin here. Sit down with a piece of paper and consider the following questions/aspects of the action cycle.
• Reflect:
  • How did the previous week go?
    • What went well?
    • What can be improved upon?
  • Did you accomplish your goals last week?
• Reevaluate:
  • How can you adapt your plan and current state based on the outcome of the previous week?
• Repeat:
  • What is your current goal?
    • SMART Goals
    • Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely
  • What is the current state of your environment?
  • What is the best action available to take.
• From here, then set out your plan and focus for the week and make it happen.
• You can also utilize the action cycle on various levels from the micro-level (seconds/minutes/hours), meso-level (days/weeks), macro-level (months/seasons/years).

Slow Paced Breathing (2-3x/ week)

• Activates parasympathetic nervous system, releases stress, reduces anxiety, reduces overall arousal.
• 10-15 minutes per session
• Find a quiet space with minimal to no possibility for interruption. Silence phones and other possible stimuli.
• Lay on the floor, flat on your back or sit upright in a comfortable position.
• Start a metronome set between 40-60bpm, set a timer for 10 minutes.
• Laying on your back, find rhythm set to the metronome to inhale and exhale. 4×4, 5×5, 6×6, etc. Your choice.
  • Inhale fully on the rhythm, counting the beats in your mind, letting your lungs inflate and your belly pushed out.
  • Exhale fully on the rhythm, counting the beats in your mind, pushing from your belly to release all the air.
  • Repeat on rhythm until timer ends.

Visualization (Everyday)

• Practice these mental rehearsals to anticipate any number of scenarios and situations, and how you respond to them. This reenforces the physical training and helps build upon the mental resiliency of it.
• Best to do as your falling asleep or have a few moments rest.
• Visualize your performance by playing a sort of movie in your head.
• Set the scene, lay out the details as much as possible (sight, smell, taste, touch, hear).
• Play out you’re training and performance in real time, visualize it in two scenarios…
  • Everything going right, how do you want it to play out?
  • Things going wrong. What could go wrong and how will you respond?

Training the mind is like training the body, you must be consistent and disciplined with it, pushing the limits and seeking out challenge to ensure you are in the best condition, be it mentally, physically, tactically, and technically, to perform at your best.