Integrated Mental Training
Posted
by
Lorenzo Baldassarri
on
03/05/2021
What is mental training
To define Mental Training we can use the definition of Weinberg and Gould in 2007: a constant and systematic training of psychological or mental skills in order to increase performance, pleasure or the degree of satisfaction in sport and physical activity. But what is meant by psychological or mental activities? These are all the skills that affect the preparation and execution of the performance. For example: concentration (on the cognitive level), the management of anger or fear (on the emotional level), muscle tension (on the body level) and the optimization of heart variability (on the physiological level).
In what situations can Mental Training be useful?
A necessary premise is that in the preparation of the sportsman, prevailing importance is given to physical, tactical and technical training. But when the game is stopped (a time interval that Sports Psychology defines as "not played") what is the use of being well prepared in these three areas? To get an idea: let's think that in a Serie A football match, the average time not played is more than 30 minutes (more than 30%), while in a top level tennis match, the not played can reach more than 80% of the match! What can happen to an unprepared sportsman during these repeated periods? Some typical consequences may be: a decrease in concentration, the activation of mental brooding, being overwhelmed by negative emotions, a decrease in grit and competitive determination. The pre-match is also considered unplayed! It should be understood both as the days before the performance, and as the hours and minutes immediately preceding the start of the sporting performance. If there is a bad management of these moments, the risk is to get to the race having wasted a lot of their psycho-physical energies. Some examples? Not sleeping or resting badly, experiencing performance anxiety, not digesting well or having constipation and diarrhea, feeling excessive tension and nervousness. Instead, what can mental training be used for during performance?
There are many mental components that should be strengthened to reach levels of performance excellence, the most important are: managing resources and psychophysical energies in the race; maintain calm, determination and self-efficacy; learn to have effective situational control; maintain an optimal level of concentration throughout the performance. The skills just mentioned are valid for all sportsmen and for all types of sports, whether they are carried out at a professional or amateur level. Let's assume a car race of "Formula" cars and think about how many contextual and situational variables are present, variables that can strongly affect: accidents, safety cars, mechanical breakdowns, climate changes, pit-stop problems, driving errors and so on . The Formula car driver is forced to react promptly, constantly changing his mental state to effectively cope with the external situation. For example, if a driver is almost in "solitary", perhaps because he is in first place with a great gap from his pursuers, he will not have to maintain a "maximum concentration", just modulate the "attention (or vigilance)" function to a which is called "soft attention". If the sportsman were not able to quickly draw on this mental capacity, the consequence would be to burn too much psycho-physical energy, risking making a mistake and jeopardizing the victory (and the news is full of these episodes!).
What we mean by integrated mental training
The goal of our particular mental training is to increase personal resources and is aimed at anyone who wishes to increase or acquire new skills to raise the level of individual or group performance. The innovation of this approach lies in the fact of offering an integrated growth path. Integration intended as simultaneous and indissoluble strengthening of all levels of functioning of the person: Cognitive, Emotional, Physiological, Muscular-Postural. This integrated vision is the result of the application in sports of the Psychology of Strengthening®, and the resulting method, scientific and objectivable through data collection, is not comparable or comparable to any other existing mental training model. Our working protocol for the sportsman aims to implement a process of personal strengthening that leads to full autonomy and has been tested and practiced on high-level athletes.
What an integrated mental training IS NOT
It is not using techniques and technological instruments, albeit sophisticated and avant-garde, without having an overview of the athlete's personality and without a specific theory of the techniques used.
It is not exclusively teaching behavioral strategies to manage specific moments of competition.
It is not just working on motivation or on a positive and winning attitude.
Our training protocol
Working on the field, in close contact with professional athletes, we have come to the conclusion that in order to have profound and lasting results in the performance of the sportsman, an overall change in the ways in which the psychology of sport deals with the mental preparation of athletes is necessary. The most popular approaches today too often lack an overall and organic vision of the human being and this prevents them from acting in an effective, targeted and profound way on the individual, understood as a psycho-physical unit.
From this experience and this basic philosophy comes our Integrated Mental Training based on the Psychology of Empowerment. Our protocol is a well-defined circular process, aimed at achieving objectives valid for all sportspeople, specific to each discipline and customized for each individual athlete.
Let's see some examples (actually there are many more) of valid goals for all sportspeople that should be brought to a good level within every athlete, regardless of the discipline they belong to, to achieve high performance.
- Promote proper management of performance anxiety.
- Refine the management of negative emotions.
- Optimize cognitive and psycho-body resources (eg concentration, reaction times, management of tensions, control of one's body).
There are also sport-specific objectives, that is, more important for one sport than another (for example in running, endurance or motorsport sports we should train characteristics suitable for a performance without pauses, while in sports such as tennis, shooting or golf it will be essential to train the management of the unplayed) or for a specific role within a team (for example in football a goalkeeper will need to enhance characteristics and skills different from an attacker).
Finally, there are specific needs for each individual athlete, because they too have their own sporting history, their own personality and a defined character. Therefore, we intervene on characteristics brought by the sportsman or emerged in the evaluation field: for example, one may have difficulty sleeping before the race, while another may have a problem of maintaining concentration during activity and so on.
At this link the thesis "Sport and Functional Psychology: creation of a functional protocol for sportspeople" which represents the first study applied to the basis of our methodology
At the download link below the original thesis in Italian.
(Note: we would like to underline that to proceed with integrated mental training no "psychological investigation" of the past is necessary, nothing will be analyzed in the personal and private world of the athlete. For example, if the sportsman reports a problem related to management, he will not function of anger during the performance, we intervene precisely on that through our methodology).
To define Mental Training we can use the definition of Weinberg and Gould in 2007: a constant and systematic training of psychological or mental skills in order to increase performance, pleasure or the degree of satisfaction in sport and physical activity. But what is meant by psychological or mental activities? These are all the skills that affect the preparation and execution of the performance. For example: concentration (on the cognitive level), the management of anger or fear (on the emotional level), muscle tension (on the body level) and the optimization of heart variability (on the physiological level).
In what situations can Mental Training be useful?
A necessary premise is that in the preparation of the sportsman, prevailing importance is given to physical, tactical and technical training. But when the game is stopped (a time interval that Sports Psychology defines as "not played") what is the use of being well prepared in these three areas? To get an idea: let's think that in a Serie A football match, the average time not played is more than 30 minutes (more than 30%), while in a top level tennis match, the not played can reach more than 80% of the match! What can happen to an unprepared sportsman during these repeated periods? Some typical consequences may be: a decrease in concentration, the activation of mental brooding, being overwhelmed by negative emotions, a decrease in grit and competitive determination. The pre-match is also considered unplayed! It should be understood both as the days before the performance, and as the hours and minutes immediately preceding the start of the sporting performance. If there is a bad management of these moments, the risk is to get to the race having wasted a lot of their psycho-physical energies. Some examples? Not sleeping or resting badly, experiencing performance anxiety, not digesting well or having constipation and diarrhea, feeling excessive tension and nervousness. Instead, what can mental training be used for during performance?
There are many mental components that should be strengthened to reach levels of performance excellence, the most important are: managing resources and psychophysical energies in the race; maintain calm, determination and self-efficacy; learn to have effective situational control; maintain an optimal level of concentration throughout the performance. The skills just mentioned are valid for all sportsmen and for all types of sports, whether they are carried out at a professional or amateur level. Let's assume a car race of "Formula" cars and think about how many contextual and situational variables are present, variables that can strongly affect: accidents, safety cars, mechanical breakdowns, climate changes, pit-stop problems, driving errors and so on . The Formula car driver is forced to react promptly, constantly changing his mental state to effectively cope with the external situation. For example, if a driver is almost in "solitary", perhaps because he is in first place with a great gap from his pursuers, he will not have to maintain a "maximum concentration", just modulate the "attention (or vigilance)" function to a which is called "soft attention". If the sportsman were not able to quickly draw on this mental capacity, the consequence would be to burn too much psycho-physical energy, risking making a mistake and jeopardizing the victory (and the news is full of these episodes!).
What we mean by integrated mental training
The goal of our particular mental training is to increase personal resources and is aimed at anyone who wishes to increase or acquire new skills to raise the level of individual or group performance. The innovation of this approach lies in the fact of offering an integrated growth path. Integration intended as simultaneous and indissoluble strengthening of all levels of functioning of the person: Cognitive, Emotional, Physiological, Muscular-Postural. This integrated vision is the result of the application in sports of the Psychology of Strengthening®, and the resulting method, scientific and objectivable through data collection, is not comparable or comparable to any other existing mental training model. Our working protocol for the sportsman aims to implement a process of personal strengthening that leads to full autonomy and has been tested and practiced on high-level athletes.
What an integrated mental training IS NOT
It is not using techniques and technological instruments, albeit sophisticated and avant-garde, without having an overview of the athlete's personality and without a specific theory of the techniques used.
It is not exclusively teaching behavioral strategies to manage specific moments of competition.
It is not just working on motivation or on a positive and winning attitude.
Our training protocol
Working on the field, in close contact with professional athletes, we have come to the conclusion that in order to have profound and lasting results in the performance of the sportsman, an overall change in the ways in which the psychology of sport deals with the mental preparation of athletes is necessary. The most popular approaches today too often lack an overall and organic vision of the human being and this prevents them from acting in an effective, targeted and profound way on the individual, understood as a psycho-physical unit.
From this experience and this basic philosophy comes our Integrated Mental Training based on the Psychology of Empowerment. Our protocol is a well-defined circular process, aimed at achieving objectives valid for all sportspeople, specific to each discipline and customized for each individual athlete.
Let's see some examples (actually there are many more) of valid goals for all sportspeople that should be brought to a good level within every athlete, regardless of the discipline they belong to, to achieve high performance.
- Promote proper management of performance anxiety.
- Refine the management of negative emotions.
- Optimize cognitive and psycho-body resources (eg concentration, reaction times, management of tensions, control of one's body).
There are also sport-specific objectives, that is, more important for one sport than another (for example in running, endurance or motorsport sports we should train characteristics suitable for a performance without pauses, while in sports such as tennis, shooting or golf it will be essential to train the management of the unplayed) or for a specific role within a team (for example in football a goalkeeper will need to enhance characteristics and skills different from an attacker).
Finally, there are specific needs for each individual athlete, because they too have their own sporting history, their own personality and a defined character. Therefore, we intervene on characteristics brought by the sportsman or emerged in the evaluation field: for example, one may have difficulty sleeping before the race, while another may have a problem of maintaining concentration during activity and so on.
At this link the thesis "Sport and Functional Psychology: creation of a functional protocol for sportspeople" which represents the first study applied to the basis of our methodology
At the download link below the original thesis in Italian.
(Note: we would like to underline that to proceed with integrated mental training no "psychological investigation" of the past is necessary, nothing will be analyzed in the personal and private world of the athlete. For example, if the sportsman reports a problem related to management, he will not function of anger during the performance, we intervene precisely on that through our methodology).
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