Dominating all aspects of performance is very important for any athlete who wants to reach his career potential and perform more consistently in competitions.
For this goal to become a reality, the athlete needs to work on several aspects consistently
Let's talk about the three pillars of sports performance; 1) mental preparation, 2) physical preparation, and 3) technical and tactical preparation.
mental preparation
Let's start by talking about the pillar that is least worked on by most athletes, but it is the most important because the mental part controls all aspects of high performance in sports (and life!)
High-level athletes like Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lebron James, to name a few, all work a lot in the mental part, and they understand that their differential or "the edge" comes precisely from their mental performance.
I like to divide mental performance into two aspects. It is easier for the athletes to understand and for the coach to teach. And this is the way I work with my clients. First is the cognitive part, and secondly is the thought pattern part, better known as Mindset.
The cognitive part, the first pillar of mental performance, refers to the processing of information through the senses such as hearing, perception, language, reasoning, attention, to name a few. This information is received by our mind, interpreted and analyzed, converted into knowledge where we will base our actions. It seems like a long process, but it happens very quickly in our minds. Therefore, a well-prepared mind can make decisions faster and more accurately.
There are many moments in the game where the athlete must decide quickly, without time to analyze and think about the best option. Thinking fast and finding the best answer is a crucial factor determining the outcome of a match if the athlete does not have this skill well developed.
The cognitive part also involves learning, mainly motor skills. So you can already imagine the importance of this aspect and how it relates to the technical part that we'll talk about in a moment.
The second point of mental performance is Mindset, a very popular term, but it can be not very clear. The Mindset is just how you think about a given situation, your mental framework. Your attitudes are the result of the emotions that your Mindset gives you. This is where we can talk about emotional intelligence. I will be doing an article just about that in the future so stay tuned!
The Mindset comes from your perspective, for example, how you react to defeat or victory, your behavior when circumstances are easy or difficult. Finally, how do you think about everything around you, related to what you can and cannot control.
Your Mindset is fundamental because no matter what your skill level, your Mindset can either help or frustrate you. Therefore, your mental coach must work with you on this aspect to help you optimize your way of thinking to be positive and realistic, creating a considerable difference against your opponent.
Well-developed mental training will also optimize your physical, tactical, and technical performance, thus improving your overall performance in training and competition. Remember that the higher your level, the greater the influence of the mental part in your game, as technical and physical skills are well leveled. In this aspect, you can find your "edge".
Physical Preparation
The physical part is usually the most common to be worked on. Today many qualified professionals work exclusively with professional athletes or athletes who intend to become professional one day.
Strength and conditioning are extremely important. In addition, aspects such as endurance, speed, agility can be crucial when competing. That aspect of performance can determine the winner or a loser, and one important note is as you are moving up the levels, the gap in physical performance decreases. Therefore you must keep your strength and conditioning at a high level at all times. Your fitness is also important to prevent injuries and improve recovery.
Contact sports such as Basketball, Football, martial arts, and others require the athlete to have a much greater physical strength due to direct contact between players where one is vying for who is the strongest among them. In sports such as Tennis and Golf, this competition still exists but in a different dynamic.
For this reason, you must understand the needs that your sport requires from you and adapt your training to optimize this aspect in the best possible way.
As always, understand and focus your efforts on your qualities. Of course, you can't forget to work on your flaws, but working on your strengths will help you achieve better performance.
Some specific examples of the physical part of sport are; agility training, strength, endurance, and flexibility.
Technical preparation and technical
This segment is critical and sometimes one of the most frustrating for the coach because some athletes have difficulties understanding the what and how regarding tactics. This aspect goes along with the last point we will discuss later, the mental part. If the athlete has a well-prepared mental part, he will meet the coach's technical and tactical requirements more efficiently.
Technical preparation is one where the athlete learns the specific fundamentals of his sport; for example, a basketball player must know how to throw the ball and do the dribble in the best way possible. In this case, we call teaching technical motor learning. In soccer, we can mention the ball, passing, and kicking domain. These aspects are easily noticed even by people with very little sporting knowledge. We can call these aspects fundamentals. And one of the keys to high performance is never forgetting the fundamentals and practicing them often. It is much easier to accumulate more difficult skills if the athlete has the fundamentals well mastered. Understand the fundamentals of your sport and work with your coach or alone to improve it; even more, you will quickly see how something simple will make a difference in your performance.
When we talk about the tactical part of the sport, we can also talk about the strategic part. In this case, the studies by Garranta (2000), the author talks about the tactical aspect of the sport. He mentions the need to analyze the structure and dynamics of each match with the objective of configuring its specificity, thus shaping its shape training according to the competition and adversary. The tactical part depends on many factors, such as the type of competition, opponent, players' characteristics, and mainly the coaches' principles, as they are responsible for determining the strategies used in the matches.
It is up to the athletes to understand the best way possible their teammates' role so that the strategy is applied correctly. Then, a mentally well-trained athlete can understand and use it more effectively and quickly.
If you want to achieve high performance, it is essential that your training is balanced with the three pillars mentioned above. As they are interconnected, one depends on the other to function optimally and bring the expected results. Therefore, see what's missing in your training and find a trainer to help you as soon as possible.
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