When Sports Becomes a Head Game (article)
Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:48 am
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/weeki ... ref=slogin
When Sports Becomes a Head Game
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: February 26, 2006
THE snowboarder Shaun White shot like a champagne cork to victory in the halfpipe, but these Olympic Games, which end today, brought far more bitters than bubbly for the American team, from the skier Bode Miller's mishaps and the hockey captain Mike Modano's moaning to the skater Sasha Cohen's stumble.
The slips, slides and misses, in part, may reflect conditions: the state of the snow, the weather, equipment problems. Yet when athletes blow a performance, they know it. And the more important the event, the more deeply troubling the experience. For many athletes, researchers say, any hope of a comeback will depend at least as much on psychological tinkering as training technique.
Athletes and coaches have always had pet theories about why people falter under pressure, and some of these notions have proved to be more than superstition. By the time they get to the Olympics, after all, athletes have practiced so much that their reflexes are almost automatic, so factors like anxiety, focus and confidence become more important.
"To motivate athletes we have encouraged visualization, or shown them highlight films of their past successes, maybe set to music," said Hap Davis, a psychologist at the Canadian Sports Center in Calgary.
That makes some sense, research suggests, because such techniques can both banish lingering doubts and provide valuable distraction.
In studies of golfers and soccer players, Sian Beilock, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, has shown that elite athletes perform superbly when distracted but begin to make mistakes as soon as they are told to pay more attention to their movements. "I think what happens in high pressure situations is that the athletes start paying attention to things they're not used to thinking about at all," she said. The result, she said, is that in these stressful situations "they can feel as if they are performing a different skill."
But a flat-line mental state may be harder to induce than once assumed, psychologists are learning.
Big losses in particular â€â€
When Sports Becomes a Head Game
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: February 26, 2006
THE snowboarder Shaun White shot like a champagne cork to victory in the halfpipe, but these Olympic Games, which end today, brought far more bitters than bubbly for the American team, from the skier Bode Miller's mishaps and the hockey captain Mike Modano's moaning to the skater Sasha Cohen's stumble.
The slips, slides and misses, in part, may reflect conditions: the state of the snow, the weather, equipment problems. Yet when athletes blow a performance, they know it. And the more important the event, the more deeply troubling the experience. For many athletes, researchers say, any hope of a comeback will depend at least as much on psychological tinkering as training technique.
Athletes and coaches have always had pet theories about why people falter under pressure, and some of these notions have proved to be more than superstition. By the time they get to the Olympics, after all, athletes have practiced so much that their reflexes are almost automatic, so factors like anxiety, focus and confidence become more important.
"To motivate athletes we have encouraged visualization, or shown them highlight films of their past successes, maybe set to music," said Hap Davis, a psychologist at the Canadian Sports Center in Calgary.
That makes some sense, research suggests, because such techniques can both banish lingering doubts and provide valuable distraction.
In studies of golfers and soccer players, Sian Beilock, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, has shown that elite athletes perform superbly when distracted but begin to make mistakes as soon as they are told to pay more attention to their movements. "I think what happens in high pressure situations is that the athletes start paying attention to things they're not used to thinking about at all," she said. The result, she said, is that in these stressful situations "they can feel as if they are performing a different skill."
But a flat-line mental state may be harder to induce than once assumed, psychologists are learning.
Big losses in particular â€â€
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