Sport psychology and mental toughness
By Gillian Thomas, Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist at GT Sport Psychology
As with any sport, us rugby players are always looking to get the edge over our opponents. Whether that’s working on our passing, kicking, and rucking, or spending valuable hours building our strength power and speed in the gym, we strive to be the best we can be. However, one area that’s often left out, other than at the professional level, is our mental strength and mental skills. Sport psychology can help us with that.
What is sport psychology?
As forward thinking as rugby is, there is still a large amount of stigma attached to working with a psychologist. It’s often still believed that you would only go to see a psychologist because you have something wrong with you, but this is not the case.
A sport psychologist’s job is to help improve the mental skills of athletes, just as an S&C coach helps to improve your physical condition and a coach helps to improve technical and tactical elements.
Put simply, sport psychology is the study of how psychological factors affect performance in a sport and exercise setting. The focus of sport psychology is often on performance elements and some commonly addressed issues focus on developing confidence, improving concentration, motivation strategies, setback management, performing under pressure and pre-game routines.
Sport psychology can also look at cultural elements, such as developing leadership, improving communication skills, addressing roles and responsibilities, building team cohesion, and helping to develop meaningful relationships.
As sport psychology is grounded in psychology, well-being elements can also be worked on including aiding with injury rehabilitation, transitioning (from junior to senior sport), working with time management, and enhancing the enjoyment of training and competition.
Mental Toughness
One of the most important psychological constructs for success is mental toughness. Working on mental toughness can help improve determination, focus and perceived control when faced with pressure. Mentally tough athletes are often motivated, competitive and have high levels of confidence.
Mental toughness can be broken down into four C’s, which can be worked on individually to improve mental toughness as a whole:
Control
Commitment
Confidence
Challenge
Control refers to staying in control of our emotions, commitment refers to being committed to completing your goals, confidence refers to having confidence in your abilities and interpersonal skills and challenges refer to seeing setbacks as opportunities.
Here are two techniques to help you to work on your mental toughness.
1. Goal Setting
Most of us have heard of goal setting and probably set some form of goals during training and matches, whether it be scoring a try, dominating a scrum, or making a certain number of tackles again. A lot of the time though, these goals are set with very little thought or plan behind them.
When done correctly, goal setting is an effective way of focusing on the right activities, which can lead to an increase in commitment and motivation. Additionally, goal setting can improve wellbeing alongside an enhanced purpose in our chosen activities.
Furthermore, goal setting can elicit specific performance improvements which could be anything from improving your place-kicking accuracy by 10%, hitting 80kg on your squat or adding distance to your left-hand pass.
A simple yet effective process of goal setting uses the SMART principle. By using the SMART acronym, you can ensure you are setting clear, practical, and attainable goals that will help you develop and deliver as a rugby player.
Specific. What is your goal focused on?
Measurable. How will you track your progress?
Achievable. Is your goal possible?
Relevant. Does your goal align with your long-term objectives?
Time-based. When will you achieve your goal by?
e.g.
By January, I want to increase the number of dominant tackles I make in a match by lowering my tackle height and improving the power of my leg drive.
2. Self-Confidence
Confidence is a key component of any successful athlete. Confidence is defined as the amount of self-belief we have to overcome setbacks. Those with higher levels of self-confidence will recognise that obstacles are a part of life and without them one can’t learn and grow. Those who are less confident might see these setbacks as failures and ultimately could give up training or competing all together.
A great way to improve your confidence is through creating a mantra. A mantra is a word or phrase that is personal to you and is there to remind you that you can overcome any setbacks that you might face on or off the pitch. You can start by writing your mantra down and carrying it with you in your kit bag, reading it regularly during training to remind yourself of your own positive reinforcement. As you get competent at it, you should be able to recall it to mind when faced with a potential setback.
e.g.
‘I am strong, and I have worked hard on my tackling technique.’‘Smile. Enjoy the game.’
Final Message
Working on your mental skills is another valuable tool in developing yourself as an athlete and as a person.
So, in the words of the All Blacks:
‘Make mental strength your biggest strength’
Need extra help on your mental skills? Get in touch with Gilly at gtsportpsych@gmail.com