Mental Strength Training For Quality Athletic Performance

Today we’re going to look at the strategies to help you consistently make your athlete training both a physical, technical and mental strengthening that will prepare you for field of competition.

Some of what we’re going to go over will sound familiar and I believe it’s important to review again and over again, if necessary…until you are demonstrating these aspects in reaching your peak performance.

I’ve seen and talked to many athletes with a realistic opportunity to live their dream.  Whether this to get a Division 1 scholarship, be drafted by a pro team or even represent the USA in the Olympics.

With these goals within reach, you’d think they would have every reason to be motivated, focused and purposeful about his daily training. Yet, admittedly many struggle with these things, almost on a daily basis.

This got me thinking about athletes and athletic performance, in the genera context…what keeps them going and how can they stay focused and motivated, no matter what level of athletic performance they are at.

In this post, we are going to take a look at why the idea of mindful, purposeful, quality training is so important and identify specific tactics you can employ to enhance your daily training.

We’ll look at ways for you to consistently improve your physical, technical and mental strength training by bringing up the intensity and effort. You’ll be able to purposefulness bringing quality into athletic practices. Qualities required for you to optimally prepare yourself for competition.

By now you may find yourself asking, “Why all the fuss, I’m training every day. Isn’t that enough?”

The simple answer…“No!”

So much more can be achieved when you train with purpose and intensity…when you integrate the mental strength with the physical…versus just training, that is, when it is strictly a physical and technical endeavor and going through the motions.

Intensity and purposefulness in your training today is going to enhance your training tomorrow. Quality training leads to quality athletic performances.

For example, compare two tennis players who both take a hopper of balls out to the court to work on serves. One player pounds out their serves one after the other and gets through the basket of balls as quickly as possible.

The second player takes a different approach and performs their pre-serve routine prior to every serve and really works on getting full extension as they drive up to the ball (something they’ve been struggling with recently).

Pretty easy to see which player is achieving more and having a higher quality practice, right? While they hit the same number of serves, the quality and focus of the practice is drastically different.

The mental strength aspect of intensity and purposefulness in your training will help develop the mental strength skills needed for peak performance in competition.

To perform at your best competition, you need to be using the mentally strength skills of being focused, composed and confident. Just as you train the physical and technical skills that are necessary for performance, you need to train and develop mental strength skills—effective concentration doesn’t just happen, it needs to be learned and developed.

Mental strength skills need to be trained in training so that become second nature in competition.

Below are a few strategies to bring the mental strength skills of intensity and purposefulness into your training.

• Set Training Goals. Before each training session, identify one thing that you want to accomplish to bring purpose to your training session.

• Use Cues to emphasize important points during practice. “Rotate,” “torpedo off the wall,” “explode,” “run like a gazelle.” Performance cues can help you focus on the process without getting overwhelmed with “every little thing” you need to do. It is these same performance cues that you bring to competition.

• Integrate Imagery. Prior to a drill or a repeat, visualize correct execution. This offers you an additional form of practice and “imprints” success.

• Be an Athlete. Prior to a training session, make a conscious effort to place stress, worries, thoughts unrelated to your sport aside and commit to being an athlete for the next 1 – 2 hours. These distracters have a way of creeping into training sessions and taking mental energy away from the task at hand.

• Strive for Excellence. In talking with a coach, he noted that athletes sometimes fall in the trap of accepting “sloppy” technique in training yet turning around and demanding excellence in competition. Don’t allow this to happen to you. Every day, remind yourself that how you train is how you will compete.

• Remind Yourself of your competition goals. Sometimes a reminder about “why” you are training hard every day can enhance daily motivation. Tell yourself that your effort today will pay off at the end of the season.

• Take a Mental Break. Just as you need rest and recovery days built into a training program, you need a mental break as well. Identify days in your training program where you can allow yourself to rest mentally (i.e., slow, easy days, cross training days). Th is will keep you mentally fresh.

Call to Action

These suggested strategies for enhancing your athletic training – that will carry over to peak athletic performance in competition – are a great start.

And now it is your turn.

Many of you have been training and competing for years and years, even decades.  So let me ask you:

• What do you do to bring focus, intensity and quality to your training?

• How do you structure your training so it is more than just “going through the motions or putting in the time?”

You have undoubtedly figured out some effective strategies to integrate the mental strength piece into your training and bringing a quality and purposefulness to it.

Please let me know your strategies and tactics in the comments below.