Training your Control level
An athlete’s ability to maintain control of their emotions in the face of adversity and remain positive is essential to winning. Two emotions which are often associated with poor performance are anxiety and anger. Emotions can claim the athlete’s level of concentration and attentional focus. Identifying when you as a athlete feel a particular emotion and understanding the reason for the feelings is an important stage in helping you gain emotional control.
Concentration
Concentration is the ability to sustain attention on selected stimuli. It can be disrupted by our own thoughts and feelings that distract us.
Intense concentration requires emotional energy. The harder athletes try to concentrate, the more it can slip away. Effective concentration is an effortless process.
Concentration comes naturally when the mind is completely consumed with the immediate situation. The athlete becomes absorbed in the competition, paying attention to just the right cues (interval session/intensities zones) to perform well.
Concentration is dynamic, so it constantly shifts from one point to another. A loss of concentration occurs when attention is divided or shifts to something irrelevant.
Confidence
Elite athletes often say that confidence is fragile, especially when they compete under pressure. Confidence allows the athlete to focus on essential tasks. Fluctuations can mean the difference between best and worst performances.
Sport research focuses on self-confidence–the belief that one has the internal resources, abilities and expectations to achieve success.
Researchers break down self-confidence into many sub-categories to study and assess it and its influence on sport performance. Two basic categories of self-confidence are state and trait.
Trait self-confidence (global) is the degree to which individuals believe in their ability to succeed, in general.
State self-confidence is the belief that they can succeed in a particular moment. In sport, it may be task or skill specific. A well structured Physiological Training Plan will include skill specific training drills at racing intensities to develop State Self-confidence.
So if we are to be Winning as an athlete at any level we first must just be looking to preform at our own personal best at regular stages in our “Personal Training Plan”. With Control over our Emotions by using training programs that strengthen our Concentration and build our Confidence to perform consistently in training to gain maximum improvements physically and psychologically.
So how do we do this ?
By using Race Specific training sessions/ programs.
So what exactly does that mean?
By breaking down the race into shortened intervals and completing repetitions of these intervals at various training intensities to create maximum adaption physically and psychologically.
The more times you have been in that situation the more you can physically and psychologically cope with that situation.
So will simply create these Race Specific situations into Interval training sessions and progressively conduct repeats to build volume and intensities that will place ourselves under racing stresses in a training environment.
Want to improve your personal best performances on and off the water and manage your time better ?