Lesson video

Hi, and thank you for joining me for today's lesson on Mental Preparation for Sports Performance from the Sports Psychology: Mental Preparation for Performance unit.

My name is Mr. Broome, and this is a great lesson, not only because it's part of your GCSE PE, but also because those of you who are participating and playing sports regularly or physical activities regularly, today's lesson is gonna give you something that you can practically apply to your own preparations, which could help to improve your performance, or enhance how well you are playing your sport, and so some really useful tips from today's lesson.

So let's begin, shall we? So in today's lesson, by the end of the lesson, you should be able to explain how mental preparation techniques can be used to improve performance.

And here are the keywords for today's lesson.

There are three.

Why don't you pause it here if you'd prefer to have a look at the definitions, but these are phrases we will become very familiar with throughout the lesson.

And as you can see, today's lesson on mental preparation for performance is a two-parter.

The first section is called using mental rehearsal to improve performance.

Okay, here we have a basketball player.

This basketball player is preparing to take a free throw.

Hopefully, you are familiar with that skill.

If not, very briefly, it involves a basketball player who's been fouled having a shot at the basket without any interference from defenders, a little bit like a penalty in football perhaps, but there's not even a goalkeeper there to worry about.

You just quite simply get to take a shot at the basket for free.

Now, I wonder, today's lesson is on mental preparation, and so what do you think this basketball player could do right now to help them feel really confident about their ability to score? What might you do? Let's have a look, shall we? So to give them more confidence about achieving success in this free throw shot, they imagine themselves scoring before taking the shot.

There we see the basketball going through the hoop successfully, and that's what they're picturing in their head.

They might have a look at themselves from outside of their body, imagining themselves performing the skill, and they will imagine that the skill is performed perfectly with great technique, and that the basketball goes through the hoop.

Here's a second example.

Here we have a javelin thrower.

They're on the track about to perform their javelin throw, but they haven't yet.

They're in the preparation stage.

What does it look like she's doing there? So the technique that we're talking about here in which the performer in a basketball example and the javelin example here, they're picturing themselves performing the skill perfectly.

So what this javelin thrower will do is imagine all the different stages of the javelin throw, performing it perfectly, and then perhaps imagining a positive outcome before they attempt it.

So in this case, with the javelin thrower, they will perhaps imagine that perfect technique, and then the positive outcome would be that javelin flying through the air perfectly, perhaps further than they've ever thrown it before, landing with the point in the grass, which is the ideal finish to a throw.

And in the case of the basketball player that we just saw, he imagined that positive outcome, didn't he? 'Cause the basketball went through the hoop, just as he hopes it would.

So if we do picture ourselves performing the skill perfectly, or we imagine that positive outcome before we attempt it, in this preparation phase to perform the skill, this is called mental rehearsal, a very important phrase in today's lesson.

Now, mental rehearsal can be used by any level of performer to help improve performance.

It's important to remember this, I think.

What we've seen are clearly athletes, and the basketball player and the javelin thrower, who are high-level performers.

And it might be easy to think, oh, this is just something that the elite-level people do, or the professionals do, but that's not the case at all.

In fact, mental rehearsal can be used by people at the very beginner stage of learning something to help them improve their performance, and that's something we'll look at a little more as we move on.

Here, we have a very interesting activity, BMX racing.

Now, how do you think BMX racers might use mental rehearsal? Well, the riders in a BMX race, they might visualise themselves completing the track before they actually race.

So that will allow them to familiarise themselves with all the bends and the jumps that are going to come their way when they're racing, and if they do that before they actually go and do it for real, it can increase their confidence in their ability to get through that track, and have a successful race and cross the finish line.

Now, here's a group of people who are particularly renowned for their mental rehearsal routines, and they are people who kick for goal in rugby, as we can see in this image here.

Now, a little bit like the basketball free throw that we discussed earlier, this is a chance to score points.

It's a self-paced skill, which means that you perform it when you are ready, and because it's a self-paced skill, that really gives you the time to mentally rehearse what you're doing before you actually perform the skill.

Now, rugby players will have a mental rehearsal routine, and that helps 'em to concentrate, and to do something, what you say get in the zone, which is to have this sort of perfect level of focus that you need, and that perfect level of focus, I mean not in the case of the person in the picture here, but some rugby players will perform this skill in front of 70,000 people, and that mental rehearsal routine will help them to block out any distractions that they get from all the people around them, including the crowd.

Here's an example you may have seen if you watch rugby on the TV.

The person here you see is Owen Farrell.

Now, he has the responsibility for kicking for goal for the England rugby team.

Now, he has a very particular mental rehearsal routine, which if you've seen it, you probably will remember.

It's a very interesting one, and as I said earlier, lots of rugby players who kick for goal have similar kind of routines.

The way he prepares mentally to kick the ball is that he imagines a line, which goes from the ball to a point that he picks out somewhere in the crowd, it might be a seat, it might be a person, but that line goes perfectly through the posts and hits that seat, or person, or whatever it is behind the goal, and then he doesn't worry about the posts.

All he concentrates on is trying to kick that ball along the imaginary line that he created.

Now, many rugby players who kick for goal have similar mental rehearsal techniques.

I remember a guy called Jonny Wilkinson who used to kick for England, and he had this crazy routine where he used to imagine a lady, an old lady behind the goal, was eating an ice cream.

Again, a little bit like Owen Farrell, that person would be sat in the ideal spot for him to kick the ball, but he imagined that old lady eating an ice cream, and he was trying to knock the ice cream out of her hand.

Not the nicest thing to do, but it wasn't actually for real, of course, but a very strange example of mental rehearsal.

But he was very successful with it.

Here, we have an image of somebody putting in golf, and what you can see there, it's rather unusual for golf, but if you are a high-level performer, this might happen.

There is a crowd of people watching that performance, standing in quite close proximity and watching you perform the putt, which is a fine skill, and it's really dependent on accuracy and precision.

So Jun says, "Imagine being that person who's putting the ball "to win a game in front of all these people.

"How would you feel?" Can you put yourselves in the shoes of that person? How would you feel with all those people so close watching you perform? Chances are you might find it quite a stressful situation, and sport does create lots of stressful situations for the people participating.

Now, by using our mental rehearsal technique that we've talked about in this lesson, that can help to reduce that stress and anxiety that comes with performing something like this putt in golf in front of a big crowd.

So we've already come across quite a number of benefits of mental rehearsal, and this question, which will check for your understanding so far, asks you which of these is not a benefit of mental rehearsal? Is it A, increased confidence, B, that it lowers concentration levels, C, reduced stress, or D, some familiarisation with the skill? Which do you think? Okay, well done if you spotted that B is not a benefit of mental rehearsal.

Hopefully, you've recognised that mental rehearsal actually can help to increase concentration levels by helping you to focus and get in the zone, as we say sometimes.

The other three, A, C and D, are benefits of mental rehearsal, therefore, and let's have a very quick look.

So mental rehearsal can help us to increase our confidence.

We talked about that with the basketball player, didn't we? How they picture themselves scoring, and using the perfect technique, and therefore, they feel confident before they go ahead and take the shot themselves.

It can help to reduce stress, as C rightly said.

And we talked about that with the golfer just now, didn't we? About how mentally rehearsing that ball rolling into the hole perfectly would help to reduce any stress that had built up by that stressful situation.

And D said familiarisation with the skill, and that is a benefit of mental rehearsal, isn't it? As again, we mentioned earlier with the BMX racers, and how that they familiarise themselves with the track, and so they feel confident about being able to tackle whatever it is that they're about to do.

Well done if you said B.

So Alex thinks it's worthwhile.

Let's have a quick recap of all the benefits of mental rehearsal we've discussed so far, and we saw some in that check for understanding just now.

I think this would be a great opportunity for you to pause the video, and see how many you can list.

Here we go then.

Mental rehearsal can increase our confidence, can improve our familiarisation with the skill.

So just before we perform it, we remember all the important parts of the skill, or all the important coaching points that we've been told before.

Can help to reduce stress and anxiety, can help us to block out distractions, like a crowd perhaps, helps us to get in the zone, which is that perfect level of focus, and it can increase our concentration and our focus.

Well done if you recognised so many of those benefits of mental rehearsal.

It really is looking like something that's a very useful technique to use, isn't it? Quick check for understanding.

Mental rehearsal is only for professional athletes.

Is that true or false? Okay, hopefully, you recognised that that statement is false.

Now, why did you think that is? Hopefully, because you recognise that anyone can benefit from mental rehearsal techniques.

These techniques can help all of us to improve our performance, from beginners to elite athletes, okay? Even somebody who's really at the very early stages of learning a skill can benefit from picturing what that skill should look like.

Perhaps they've been shown a good demonstration that they're going to copy, but picturing what that skill looks like, mentally thinking about what it should look like, and then trying to perform it.

One mistake that might be made is to think that athletes who are elite or professional, and where their sport is their livelihood.

No.

One reason you may have said true is because lots of people associate these kind of advanced techniques, perhaps, with professionals because when a professional, when their sport is their livelihood, and it's their job, they will look for all the different ways that they can potentially make themselves better performers, and so they will have come across mental rehearsal.

It would've been recommended to them perhaps by a coach.

and so it's easy to think perhaps that it's only the professionals who use techniques like this, but we could all benefit from them, and it's something you could definitely use if you don't already.

When you play your sport, or your physical activity next time, give it a try.

Here's the practise task for this first part of the lesson.

So we've learned a lot now about using mental rehearsal to improve performance, and that's an important part of this task, is the improved performance.

So I'm going to give you four statements that I want you to develop, okay, and I'm going to give you an example, so that you know what I'm asking you to do here.

So the statement should be developed and identify different benefits of mental rehearsal on performance.

Let me give you the example first.

So the statement will begin, and you'll get four of these.

A dancer replays their routine in their mind before going on stage.

And that's where you will then develop the statement further.

So we've got the context here of what is happening, the mental rehearsal that's happening, but how will that benefit that dancer's performance? So here's one way we might develop that statement.

We might say that, well, a dancer replays their routine in their mind before going on stage to give them confidence and reduce anxiety.

That's showing me that you know how the mental rehearsal might have an impact on their, on how they feel before they go on to perform, and then it says before going in front of the crowd and performing the routine perfectly.

So the impact on performance is that the routine was performed perfectly.

Okay, see what happened there? What are the benefits of the mental rehearsal, and then what is the impact on performance? Here's four statements I'd like you to try to develop, okay? Number one, a football player visualises herself taking a penalty.

How will you then develop that statement? Again, you're going to tell me what that visualisation is going to do for the football player, but then what is the impact on the performance of taking that penalty? Hopefully, you get the idea.

Here's three more.

Before putting the ball, a golfer mentally rehearses their putt.

Number three, a long jumper takes time to imagine themselves leaping into the sand.

And number four, before a race, a Formula 1 driver.

So pause the video here, and develop all four of those statements to show me that you understand how that mental rehearsal technique will benefit the person, and how it will impact their performance.

I'll see you in a moment when you've done that.

Okay then, so you were tasked to develop those four statements, and here's some things you might have said, and I think it's important here to note that these are my examples of what you might have said, but you possibly have said something different.

So for the football player who visualises herself taking a penalty, I said that that will increase their confidence in their ability to score.

So increased confidence, and then they'll place their shot where they want to.

Okay, so I recognise that the benefit to the athlete is that they will increase their confidence, and then the benefit on the performance or the impact on their performance is that they'll place their shot where they want to.

Number two, before putting the ball, a golfer mentally rehearses their putt, which reduces stress, and allows 'em to play their shot calmly and accurately.

Reduce stress is the benefit to the performer, and the impact on the performance is that their shot is played calmly and accurately.

Number three, a long jumper takes time to imagine themselves leaping into the sand.

If you've ever seen long jump on the TV, maybe in the Olympics, you'll know that they take a long time before they begin their run up just rehearsing, just mentally preparing themselves for what they're about to do.

In my case, I said that that will help them get in the zone, and allows 'em to time their takeoff well, and put maximum effort into their jump.

Okay, and number four, before a race, a Formula 1 driver visualises the racetrack to ensure they are focused, and allows them to drive the track along a perfect racing line, a little bit like the BMX riders earlier.

So just be sure that each of your answers noted the impact on performance.

Just saying, "Oh, they increase their confidence," great, that is the impact on the performer, but what's then the impact on the performance? Okay, why did that make them perform better? How would that make them perform better? Well done if your four developed statements look something similar.

Of course, they're not going to look exactly like mine.

The second section in today's lesson on mental preparation for performance is this, using the warmup as part of mental preparation.

Let's go.

So here, we see an image of somebody.

It's a very typical image of somebody warming up, isn't it? And warmups are performed before physical activity to make sure we are physically prepared for the activity.

I'm sure you've performed hundreds of warmups down the years in whatever sport or activity you do, and in your PE lessons, and generally, most of us would think, yeah, it's about the physical preparation for the activity, getting your muscles warm, getting your joints mobilised, et cetera.

But Izzy's gonna ask you a question, which I wonder how much you've thought about this before.

She says, "Did you know that a warmup "can be an important opportunity "for mental preparation too?" I wonder how many of you use that period of time to mentally prepare before you do your physical activity or your sport, or how many of you might use it just to physically prepare, but perhaps mentally, you're just chatting to your friends or not really focused on what's coming up.

How much do you use your warmups for mental preparation? As Izzy said, they're an important opportunity to mentally prepare, and we're going to learn more about that now.

So here we have somebody warming up.

It looks like they're about to go for a run, doesn't it? Maybe it's a competition, or maybe it's a training run.

But either way, this warmup has provided them with the opportunity to focus and contemplate the upcoming challenge.

Now, this runner looks particularly focused, I think.

They're using that warmup time to not only physically prepare, but to mentally prepare.

And that might include mental rehearsal, as we've discussed already in today's lesson.

This runner might be imagining themselves running with perfect technique, or perhaps crossing the finish line, seeing that positive outcome at the end.

I am strong and fast, and I will win this race today.

Interesting.

Do you ever speak to yourself like that and tell yourselves positive things about yourself? So the warmup is an opportunity that athletes may take to use something called positive self-talk.

That will help 'em to build their confidence levels.

So let's go back to our athlete here.

He's saying "I am strong and fast, "and I will win the race today." That's clearly a very positive statement that they're saying to themselves.

They might say it out loud, or they might be saying it inside their head to themselves, but it's positive because, well, it's a very positive statement, isn't it? I am strong and fast, and I will win.

And it's what we call self-talk because essentially the only person they're talking to is themselves.

Here's a check for understanding.

Lifting weights wouldn't need to use the warmup for mental preparation because it's too basic.

What do you think about that? Is that a true statement or a false? In fact, that's a false statement.

So why did you think that? Well done if you said false.

Why would you think that's the case? So weightlifting, like many sports, can benefit from using mental rehearsal during the warmup, okay? And that will be used to picture themselves using the correct technique.

Or the person who's about to lift the weights might use positive self-talk, like we just saw the athlete doing.

That might get them psyched up, as we say sometimes, to have the energy it's gonna take to lift what might be some quite challenging weights in that next session or competition.

So absolutely not a true statement.

Look, lifting weights isn't so basic that we don't need to mentally prepare.

In fact, there's no sports where we couldn't benefit from mentally preparing.

So warmups also give us the opportunity to speak with the coach.

Here, we have a group who are having a team talk with the coach just before they go out to play.

Now, warmups give the coach an opportunity to speak positively with their performers about what they're attempting to achieve, and this can help them to gain confidence before the task.

This is a team of volleyball players.

If the coach has given them really positive messages, that gives them some confidence just before they go and play the game.

So here we have another picture of a coach talking to the athletes during the warmup before a performance.

What do you think they might be saying? So this is a great opportunity to help any anxiety or stress that's built up in the athletes to be reduced by the coach saying the right things.

So positive talk from the coach or even their teammates can help to calm anxiety building up before the performance.

Because that warmup, that immediate period of time just before you perform, could really be a stressful time, couldn't it? Especially if it's an important game or something you've been worrying about.

And those last few moments, really, the anxiety might really ramp up, and so it can be a great opportunity to calm that person, and to reduce the stress that they're feeling.

Here's three things that a coach might say.

This is your check for understanding.

Which of these will be beneficial to the performer's mental preparations? In A, the coach says, "Do you remember in the last game "how you bowled so well? "Picture yourself bowling like that again." In B, the coach says, "Please don't make the same mistakes you made last week.

"You must have been playing them over "in your mind all week." And in C, the coach says, "Think back to how you performed your routine perfectly "in practise this week." Which of those are going to be beneficial to the performer and their mental preparations? Okay, well done if you noted that A and C are likely to have positive impacts on the performer's mental preparation.

So let's look at each of them in turn, shall we? So in A, the coach said, "Do you remember in the last game how you bowled so well?" Very positive, isn't it? Reminding them that they can perform the skill well.

And then the second part, I really like.

"Picture yourself bowling like that again." So what's the coach done there? Well, they've encouraged that athlete to perform some mental rehearsal, haven't they? We know all the benefits of mental rehearsal.

So the coach encouraging them to do that mental rehearsal of the good technique and the successful technique will increase the athlete's confidence, won't it? Let's jump to C, because that's the other positive one.

"Think back to how you performed your routine perfectly "in practise this week." Again, it's encouraging the athlete to think about how they can perform things well.

It's a positive statement, and it's going to lead to an improved confidence or reduced anxiety.

And so, again, something good to be said by a coach in the warmup preparations.

However, if I was just about to perform a skill in a game, and I was just warming up for it, and a coach came along and says, "Please don't make the same mistakes you made last week.

"You must have been playing them over "in your mind all week," well, I know how I would feel.

How would you feel? That would make me feel awful, I must say.

I would then start picturing and probably doing the opposite of what we want to be doing in mental rehearsal.

I'll probably be picturing myself performing it badly, as clearly I did the week before, and so that's going to make me feel more anxious, perhaps more stressful, and certainly lacking in confidence, given that I was reminded that I didn't play well the week before.

So that's not something to be said by a coach during the warmup preparations that's going to benefit the performer's mental preparations, for sure.

Well done if you said A and C.

This is the practise task for this section on using the warmup as part of mental preparation.

Here, we see a scenario which often occurs right at the end of the warmup and just before the performance begins.

So in the final moments of a warmup before the game, the captain is often the person who's responsible for getting the players into a huddle like this, and they will speak with the team in a huddle like we see in the photo.

What I'd like you to do for this task is explain three ways in which the things which are said inside the huddle could be used to help mentally prepare the team and improve performance at this vital moment, just seconds perhaps before the performance begins.

What could be said in that huddle and how will it impact the performance positively? Pause the video here, and write down your three things that could be said with the impact, and I'll see you in a moment with some suggestions.

Okay, so there we have our huddle.

Let's think about some of the things that might be said in the huddle, and how it might impact on the players.

The captain might remind the team of the game plan.

That will help ensure that they are all focused.

Okay, focused being a good part of mental preparation.

The captain uses motivating words to increase the confidence of the players.

The captain might remind people how well they've performed before.

It'll help reduce anxiety in those last few seconds before the game.

The captain might ask players to visualise certain game situations to increase their readiness for it to happen.

Okay, so remember what we did in training.

The captain may model positive self-talk to encourage players to believe in themselves.

He might say how he's going to perform in today's game, how he feels confident, how he believes in himself, and encourage other players to use positive self-talk themselves to really get their focus and confidence levels up.

Well done if you said something similar in your three statements.

That really focused on how that huddle could be used to improve confidence perhaps, or focus, or to help players to mentally rehearse, or to reduce anxiety or stress levels just before the performance itself.

That brings onto the summary for today's lesson.

Let's read through it together.

Mental preparation can positively impact performance by helping a performer to manage their emotions.

Increasing positive emotions, such as confidence and focus, while reducing negative emotions, such as anxiety and stress, are important benefits of mental preparation.

Mental rehearsal is an important technique, which uses imagery to improve confidence and performance.

And the warmup is a valuable opportunity to practise mental preparation techniques, and they're not only for physical preparation.

Important thing to remember.

Now, I imagine you're all sports performers, or you have a physical activity that you perform in.

So I really encourage you to think about how you might use mental preparation in the future if you don't already.

Think about how you can use that warmup to help mentally prepare.

You might visualise yourself performing it well.

You might mentally rehearse some skills.

You might go and positively self-talk to yourself, or maybe even use positive talk with others to help improve their confidence.

Hopefully, this is something you can practically go and apply to your own performance, as well as needing to know it for your GCSE.

I've really enjoyed this lesson.

I hope you have too, and I can't wait to see you again for another one.

Bye-bye.