Sports Medicine Essays - Psychology, Applied Psychology, Imagination

Sports Medicine Today in sports athletes endure many mental and physical obstacles from there competitive environment. Many of today's best athletes work with sports psychologists to help them handle the pressures found in this competitive atmosphere. One question that athletes ask is, why cant they play in big games as well as they anticipate themselves doing? Sports psychologists feel that spending all their time on body conditioning and athletic skills will not ensure that athletes reach their peak performance. Through various studies, psychologists conclude that the psyche aspect must also be in shape to maximize the performance potential in sports as well as education or running a business corporation. Psychologists conclude that by fine-tuning athletic skills, and making real-life movements more automatic, it will install a sense of calmness as athletes prepare for the pressure of competition. They call this technique guided imagery. They use this technique for the mental aspect of fundamental skills. Psychologists recommend that athletes mentally practice their events on the eve of competition. When it comes to sports, the winning edge throughout the world of sports may have less to do with strength and talent, and more to do with, what sports psychologists call it, mental toughness. Sports psychologists James Loehr, calls mental toughness, the ability to handle and even enjoy the psychological pressure of a competitive situation. (Harry Hurt, 1996, p.12) Many of today's best athletes seek help from sports psychologists, in order to help them with their overall game. Negative thoughts and psychological pressure from competitive moments; create many distractions for athletes who do not focus mental pictures in their minds. A vivid picture, is one that allows individuals to see stress and negative thoughts as a challenge, rather than a threat. Psychologists assist athletes in coping with many obstacles that might occur, so that when they get in a pressured dilemma, they can react quickly to the situation. Prior to the 1992 Olympics sports psychologists James Loehr, spent a considerable amount of time mentally preparing Jansen's mind to set high goals, so that he wouldn't repeat failure, as he experienced, in the last two Olympics. (Harry Hurt 1996, p.12) Psychological pressure has a major effect on athletes' performance and individual ability, rather than the physical state. Psychologist tries to set high standards for athletes to maintain poise and discipline. Athletes must make sacrifices, in witch they have to follow steps in order to complete these tasks: first, relax, and let your mind replace all the negative thoughts with positive ones. Secondly, learn from mistakes and make adjustments. To achieve ultimate physical performance it is necessary for one's mind and body work in tandem. The mind is a message center that allows the body to accomplish whatever it wants. Coaches and psychologists believe your mind determines, how fast, you can achieve your goals. Psychologists feel as though, with out self-confidence in yourself, nothing really matters, because in your heart and mind, your have already classified your self as a failure! In Today's field of work, sports psychologist are trying to use different techniques to improve athletes' performance. After comprehensive research and development, psychologists came up with the following findings: first, athletes who view stressful situations as a threat, produce hormones and chemicals in their body that can impair physical and mental performance. (Harry Hurt, 1996 p.12) Second, athletes who meet as a challenge create a rush of adrenaline and sugar inside their body. According to medical sources this is called a natural high, which is responsible for athletes exceeding in their performance. Additionally, James Loehr believed that, the findings mentioned above are difficult to perform, but players that develop self-discipline to commit themselves to do it right, succeed in the sports world, as well as life in general. Musicians, actors, professional business executives, sprinters, and athletes are different in terms of their size, quickness, thinking ability, movement and other characteristics associated to this group. To be successful James Loehr has several techniques that are implement into their daily activity that will make them very successful. According to all his research, it all comes down to is, being able to do these things techniques on constant bases and one performance will be far better than the average person will. These techniques will provide the ingredients, in order to allow their brain to clearly see the task before them. The first technique used by many psychologists is called, replace the pain. Athletes in various sports often get depressed and discouraged because of the different aspects of their athletic skills that they cannot accomplish, because of fatigue or pain. To overcome these obstacles sports psychologists have athletes visualize long term