For some high-level athletes, mental preparation is added to physical preparation, with the idea of aiming for maximum performance.
For others, it doesn't even come into play. Sometimes due to ignorance of its benefits, sometimes due to lack of time, or even because it may seem useless in the eyes of certain athletes.
Learning to manage your emotions, dealing with burnout, finding solutions to insomnia, managing stress as you approach big goals... there can be many reasons to resort to mental preparation.
For those who are hesitant, here are some good reasons to use it:
- LEARN TO KNOW YOURSELF BETTER
Mental preparation helps us to know ourselves better (body and mind), to know how to listen to ourselves, and thus to reduce the risk of injuries because the more we know ourselves, the more we know our limits.
We can thus grow from these successes and also learn from these failures.
- SURROUND YOURSELF WITH A POSITIVE DYNAMICS
We learn to direct our thoughts, to concentrate, to stay focused.
We can work on having a more positive internal discourse, promoting the success of our objectives.
We can also learn to better manage our emotions, our stress, so as not to sometimes feel overwhelmed, for example when approaching a competition... but also to better manage pain, our fears, and to increase our self-confidence.
- SUCCEED IN SETTING GOALS
Setting one or more precise, clear and achievable objectives, anticipating where we want to go and at the right level of our abilities... and thus remaining fixed on this objective, maintaining the motivation to practice in the long term.
Example :
With confinement and race cancellations it is difficult for some to stay motivated and train as desired...
In mental preparation we will look for the intrinsic (internal) motivations which push us to continue despite the temporary absence of competition to maintain physical fitness and enjoy practicing our sport!
(Re)Find meaning in your practice.
- LEARN TO MANAGE OTHER PERFORMANCE LEVERS
We can also work on the “alongside” of physical preparation but which are important (sleep, recovery, diet, etc.):
- better manage your sleep in the event of insomnia,
- learn to recover more quickly between two training sessions or competitions,
- better manage your diet if you need to follow a balanced diet or in the event of eating disorders,
- know how to combine professional/personal/sporting life.
So many reasons which allow us to understand that to optimize one's preparation and strive towards excellence, mental preparation is not necessarily an option!!
SSCS Training invites you to register for our mental preparation diploma to broaden your sporting skills :)
https://sscstraining.org/products/dipome-de-preparateur-mental-formation-a-distance-en-e-learning