Be Confident and Don’t Think Too Much

Sprinters can be found in sports such as swimming, kayak or running and the psychological demands are much different than that of distance athletes. An article recently published in Splash discusses mental tips for sprinters. They may be basic but they cover the essentials.

• Controlling Your Arousal
  o You need to find the right balance of adrenaline at the beginning of a race. Too much energy expended is not good but neither is not having enough to get going.
• Try Easier
  o The harder you try you may compromise your form, easing up may increase speed.
• Being Confident
  o Low confidence can increase anxiety and negative focus
• Determination
  o Find our competitiveness and make it a goal to finish the race in the best time you can and out-compete your heat.
• Focus
  o Don’t over think. Try to get rid of excess worry and have only 1-2 thoughts. Sprinters should have to think as little as possible during the race.

There are lots of resources in the SIRC Collection for mental training from past newsletters to book and articles. For more mental training tips check out email askalibrarian@sirc.ca .

Source:
Kimball, Amiee C. (2010) Easy Speed: The psychology of Sprinters. Splash. July/Aug, p.18