16 Week Face of America Training Plan & Guide | Page 14
your visualization, stop, “rewind the tape,” and go
back and see yourself performing successfully.
End each session with a few slow deep breaths
and open your eyes before getting up.
Start with 5 minute visualizations or imagery
segments with small breaks in between.
Review/discuss what was visualized, and provide
constructive feedback to your coach/athlete.
Once you’re rather proficient, you can quickly
relax and get into a 20-30 minute imagery session.
A good session of this length can allow you to
recap positive successful performances, correct
negative trends in technique or coping skills,
prepare more thoroughly for an upcoming
important race, or even maintain technical skill
proficiency while injured.
Lastly, once proficient at imagery, you can rather
easily enter a visualization state and perform a
short session prior to a race. For those who
benefit from this type of routine, many will review
the course or their successful race strategy one
last time – as a final tune up. In addition, as with
Goal-Setting, Mental Imagery training sessions
should be oriented on process and performance
rather than outcome.
Mental Preparation
technically, tactically, and personally. The
fundamental level of your future successes will largely
be attributable to how you manage these mistakes.
Often times, there is so much focus on the positive
and successful aspects of performance that we fail to
recognize mistakes made, and therefore do not
incorporate changes to improve or remedy such
instances. Furthermore, several mistakes gone unremedied often facilitate declines in motivation and
focus, and may even result in injury. Some keys to
managing mistakes are the following:
What are the size and scope of my mistakes, in
other words, how much impact on my
performance are they making?
What is the frequency of occurrence?
What are the root causes (e.g. lack of technical
proficiency, focus, motivation, stress overload)?
Once you can adequately answer the three questions
above, then you can figure out how you’re going to
manage the mistakes by initiating strategies to
overcome them. As with nearly every component of
the psychological side of athletics, as well as
instituting a viable mental training program, effective
two-way communications between coach and athlete
are critical to successful mistakes management.
Mental Preparation is an overarching theme that
incorporates the various psychological aspects of
preparing to compete. Areas such as Anxiety
Management techniques, Breath Control Training,
Attentional Focus, Goal-Setting, Imagery, etc., are all
mental preparation steps taken to mitigate stress and
anxiety, and to optimize performance potential. Just
as one incorporates numerous physical training
techniques to prepare physically, one should also
devote as many mental preparation techniques
necessary to achieve optimal performances.
Negative Thought Stopping
Mistakes Management
Below are some tips on Negative Thought Stopping:
Mistakes management is the process of identifying,
recognizing, understanding, and managing mistakes
through a constructive means to improve
performance. Athletes are going to make mistakes –
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Negative Thought Stopping is a technique initiated to
stop negative thoughts and replace with positive
affirmations, cue words, and positive thinking.
Negative thoughts only perpetuate a negative
downward spiral of psychological and physical
performance. By staying positive, sub-par actions or
performances are treated as learning points, and can
subsequently uplift the psyche when focus is on
improving future performances.
Incorporate Negative Thought Stopping into your
repertoire of control and focus tools.
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