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Mental Preparation before a game!!

Logan Kaliff

York College: EDU 313 01

21 November 2019
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Mental Preparation before a game!!

Mental Preparation Before A Game

Today in our lives we are preparing for something. Preparing for work, preparing for

school, or simply just preparing for a brand new day. We all have something to do to get

prepared for. My paper will explain what mentally preparing for a game is. Examples of mental

prep will be explained, and how athletes prepare mentally will also be explained. Can mentally

preparing impose stressful events during a game in a positive way? Negative way? Overall, I will

determine based on research if mental preparation is proven effective.

There are many ways that athletes mentally prepare before their events. They each have

their own strategy, and they focus on what they need to do to get prepared, and focus on how to

mentally prepare correctly, and it seems to work for them.

Mental preparation is something that helps athletes achieve a focused, confident, and

trusting mindset to help them compete at their highest and best possible level, and many athletes

have a different way of mentally preparing before their event. In my experience as an athlete, I

have seen many different types of mental preparation strategies that my teammates have used.

For example, Sheyi Ajiboye is a sprinter on the track team here at YC, and he listens to music

before his race to get him mentally prepared. In addition, we have a mid distance girl on the track

team named Madaleine Martinez, and before her race she makes herself puke because she feels

like that calms her nerves down. Lastly, Beau Schankenberg does stretches and form drills each

day before practice to get his body warmed up and going. I get myself mentally prepared by

listening to music, stretching, and other exercises.

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Mental Preparation before a game!!

First off, athletes get themselves mentally prepared to deal with the environment that

their event may be in. In today’s world, an increasing number of athletes are turning to sport

psychologists services to learn to improve performance and cope with competitive pressure(

Bortolli, Robazza 1998). Most of the mental pressure research has been applied to the setting

that these archers compete in (Bortolli, Robazza 1998). In addition, an article I found was titled

Mental Preparation Strategies of Olympic Archers During Competition: An Exploratory

Investigation. By Claudio Robazza, and Laura Bortoli. This article was dealing with studies and

interviews that were conducted on eight members of the 1996 Olympic Archery team. The

experiment dealt with interviewing eight members of the 1996 Olympic archery team along with

several psychological factors that contributed to their excellence and mental preparation. Some

of the key psychological factors include: self- talk, thought control, correct execution,and

reaction to mistake ( Bortolli, Robazza 1998.) “ sometimes, the environment that the archers

compete in has an effect on their mentalness” (Bortolli, Robazza 1998). Later on they asked the

athletes questions during the interview, they wanted to identify their mental behavior skills and

problems, and how they respond during their mental behavior problems, and the distractions to

cause their mental breakdowns and behavior issues (Bortolli, Robazza 1998). During the tests,

there were several pre competitive conditions that the archers experienced( Bortolli, Robazza

1998). Those conditions included concentration, body awareness, staying focused and facial

expressions (Bortolli, Robazza 1998). “ The most important thing is confidence” (Bortolli,

Robazza 1998). “ The difference between a good athlete and the winning athlete is their

competitiveness” ( Bortolli, Robazza 1998).

In addition, there was another article I found, it was an ebook and it was dealing with

environment just like the olympic archers. The ebook was titled 10 Minute Toughness: The
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Mental Training program for winning before the game begins by Jason Selk and it was talking

about Jeff Willkins, a former NFL kicker who played for the 49ers, Eagles, and Rams, and how

he would mentally prepare for having to go out and kick in pressure situations. The crowd

would be loud when he would line up for his kicks, and the crowd can really make a difference.

Instead of focusing on how important the kick was for the team, crowd, and city, he would rather

focus on the mindset of kicking it with the best of his ability and to just give it his best shot

(Selk, 2009), and Wilkins was able to kick really well and was able to quiet the crowd with that

mindset. In addition, Wilkins also worked out with Jason Selk, who has a mental training

program, and Wilkins said that “Selk’s training program was able to get him more focused so

that he could block out crowd noise, and prepare better before having to deliver a big kick if his

team needed him too” (Selk, 2009). He focused on just trying his best and giving his best effort

at kicking the field goal, rather than trying to impress the fans, coaches, and city.

In addition, some athletes get themselves mentally prepared from all the negative talk that

they hear from the critics. This happens mainly at the pro sports level. For example, Tom Brady

is an NFL quarterback who plays for the New England Patriots, and each game they lose, the

media talks about how he needs to retire,he’s too old, and how the team’s dynasty is over. After

the media says all these things, they end up winning every game on their schedule. Tom Brady

and the Patriots get mentally prepared from all this negative talk that the critics and media direct

toward he and his team. Last year, one of the ways the team would get mentally prepared for

their games was they would cut out the paper headlines that the critics and media were saying

about them and they would tape it up in their locker room. They use the outside noise as

preparation, but they still prepare as if they don’t hear the noise. They don’t focus on proving

the media wrong, they focus on playing their game, and playing the game their way.
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Something that ties along with mental preparation is something called mental toughness.

Mental toughness is a measure of individual resilience and confidence that may predict success

in sport, education, and the workplace. I think mental toughness and mental preparation is

something that you need to develop at a young age, something you need to teach at a young age,

and the discontinuous vs continuous theory plays a major role in mental toughness.The

Discontinuous vs continuous theory says how you gradually change over time. You aren’t born

with mental toughness like nature vs nurture says. You gotta practice it and develop it over time

like the continuous vs discontinuous theory says. An article I read was an ebook titled Bring

Your A Game: A young Athlete’s guide to Mental Toughness by Jennifer Etnier. “This Ebook

was written specifically for young athletes interested in improving their performance and

reaching their potential in their sport” (Etnier, 2009). Mental toughness is something that can be

taught and learned, yet so many athletes have not learned the psychological skills needed to

develop their best game( Etnier, 2009). The article discussed strategies mental training such as

goal setting, pre- performance routines, confidence building, and imagery( Etnier, 2009). The

book bring your A game really helped young performers develop a plan for success and learn

with the challenges of pursuing excellence in sport( Etnier, 2009).

As much as the athletes get mentally prepared on their own, the coaches can also play a

major role in getting their athletes mentally prepared before their big event. The coaches can give

a big pregame speech to get his athletes pumped for their game. If an athlete or team is

struggling with mental toughness, the coaches can give his players tips, encouragement, and

other ideas to fix their mental toughness. They can have practices that fix the mental toughness.

For example, some coaches will blare loud music in the gym and have his players shoot free

throws during that time, to work on the crowd noise and crowd factors. In the book Bring Your
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A Game Jennifer Etnier also discussed how coaches can use mental preparation as a part of team

development (Etnier, 2009). The mental toughness can draw a team closer together, if they’re all

struggling, they all need to come together as a team and fix it together. As a runner on the York

College track and cross country team, there’s been times where I've given my teammates

encouragement before and after their race.

School teachers can also play a major role with mental preparation and toughness. First

off, they have to mentally prepare themselves for a new day of teaching. Each day is a different

day, and they don’t know if things will go smooth or rough. Secondly, they gotta get their

students prepared for the new day, they have to start off the day right and do something to get the

students moods going correctly. Thirdly, they gotta get their students prepared for an upcoming

test. There will be times in teaching where there will be students who struggle mentally, and as

teachers we are gonna have to help them fix their mental toughness, and help them prepare in the

best way possible. You may have a student who has a hard time figuring out the correct way to

study for a test, or the correct way to look over their notes.

Athletes do all this mental preparation and mental training, but is it effective? Does it

work, or is it just a waste of time? Many will say “ if it’s effective, then it works”. Others will

say “ if you do it correctly then it works”. In my opinion, I think if you do it correctly then it

works. If you stretch correctly, then it’ll work and help you. If you focus on what you need to do,

then it’ll be effective. As stated earlier, it seemed to work for Jeff Wilkins who did mental

preparation training with Jason Selk. The training worked because they focused on what exactly

they needed to focus on. After working on his mental training, he was then able to focus on what

he needs to do in pressure situations. The training that they did on the Olympic archery team

worked out too, because when they got tested, they knew exactly what they needed to work on.
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After the training tests that they did, they were able to perform way better, because they received

lots of strategies along with that test too. The mental training and preparation that the kids on

my team do seem to work really well for them, and they do it correctly and that helps them

perform well.

In conclusion, and after reading this paper, you should be able to tell the different types

of mental preparation strategies and how athletes mentally prepare before their athletic events.

Today in our lives we are preparing for something new each day, we’re preparing for work,

school, or simply just another day. Each person has their own way of getting mentally prepared

to help them achieve their highest and best goal. They each have their own strategy, and they

focus on what they need to do to get prepared, and focus on how to mentally prepare correctly,

and it seems to work for them. Mental preparation can impose stressful events in both a positive

and negative way. A positive way would be that it helps you perform better, and helps you think

better. A negative way would be that sometimes it may be hard to do, and may put lots of more

stress on your body and your brain. Each person has their own way of getting mentally

prepared, and all we gotta do is respect their way of getting mentally prepared.

Works Cited

Etnier, J. L. (2009). Bring Your “A” Game : A Young Athlete’s Guide to Mental Toughness. Chapel Hill:

The University of North Carolina Press. Retrieved from

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=nlebk&AN=358041&site=eds-live

Robazza, C., & Bortoli, L. (1998). Mental preparation strategies of olympic archers

during competition: An exploratory investigation. High Ability Studies, 9(2), 219.

https://doi.org/10.1080/1359813980090207
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Selk, J. (2009). 10-minute Toughness : The Mental-training Program for Winning Before
the Game Begins. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=nlebk&AN=244190&sit
e=eds-live