Athletic Performance: The Role of Psychological & Mental Factors

Athletic Performance: The Role of Psychological & Mental Factors

Every person, in whatever area they are active in, develops elements that help them to adapt and evolve. For each field of activity the “necessary” elements-characteristics vary, depending on the requirements of the conditions.
In the sports environment, the adaptation and success of athletes depends on factors that mainly concern physical and technical elements, as those that are “projected” more. Athletes train to develop their sport-specific components with greater emphasis on how to improve both their physical condition and technical knowledge.
Why, however, are they not in the same mood every day? What are the factors that determine their tolerance to exercise fatigue? Why do some understand better the instructions given and develop correspondingly better perception and speed of thought? Why do some athletes become “better” than others, while following the same training? And if someone is talented in technical or physical elements, will they necessarily reach the top? Because for many athletes, training is a high-performance environment, while in competition they find it difficult to “bring out” their best selves.
Research data and daily experience show that the athlete’s success “depends” on many Psychological and Mental factors as well as elements of his Personality.
Psychological includes motivation, self-confidence, stress management, emotion management, self-control, and other factors that “regulate” the athlete’s emotional state.
Corresponding to the Mental factors, skills such as concentration, the ability to analyze information, speed of thought, decision-making, information selection, understanding of the environment and all the elements that make up the intellectual dimension of the person are included.
In any case, both the Psychological and Mental elements of the athlete can be measured as there are now the corresponding tools to evaluate the corresponding dimensions.
The Personality elements that help the athlete in his success include receptivity to cooperation, hard work and discipline, persistence and patience and everything else that he develops over the years and is a “piece” of his personality.
Both Psychological and Mental elements are acquired, each athlete has the possibility to “work” on them and based on his effort to acquire them. Psychological elements are difficult to work with and require a combination of things. You try to work within a period of time the self-confidence, which one needs years to acquire. Accordingly, for Mental elements many factors play a role and it is also difficult to work as a factor.
The important thing for the athlete is to understand which elements he needs to work on more, as essential for his sport or his development path. Athletes choose to focus on technical elements and physical condition, as these are what “show” the most. For optimal physical condition, however, it will be necessary to have the corresponding psycho-spiritual condition.
It seems that Darwin’s opinion prevails in sports as well: “It is not the strongest or the best that prevails, but the one that adapts to the conditions”, highlighting the psycho-spiritual factor…

Yannis Zarotis MSc-PhD
Psychologist-Sports Psychologist
www.psychology.org.gr