1. Sport
Psychology
Sabrina Jeffery

2. What is Sport Psychology all
About?
 Sport psychology is concerned with
psychological factors, such as; anxiety,
excitement, and stress that affect how
athletes perform in sport.
 Sport Psychology is about goal setting,
imagery, keeping track of your development
and time management.

3. Goal Setting
 Athletes of all sports, ages, and experiences gain from
the setting of goals. Goals assist us to stay motivated,
focussed and give us a way to monitor our progress and
success.

4. Using the S.M.A.R.T principle
 Specific – don’t make the goal too broad or
vague
 Measurable – Know when you’ve achieved
the goal
 Achievable under your control – do
something to achieve it
 Realistic – not too easy or too hard
 Timed – set an approximate time frame
in which to achieve the goal

5. Goal Setting
 There are two main types of goals: outcome and
performance goals.
 Outcome goals focus on the results of a contest (i.e..
Beating someone).
 Performance goals focus on improvements in relation
to an individuals past performance (i.e. improving one’s
time in a k).

6. Goal Setting
 Important considerations:
 Goals are best as performance or process goals
(improving your skills) rather than outcome
(wanting to win) based.
 Goals need to be important to the person.
 Goals should be written down.
 Goals are best when evaluated regularly.
 Goals need to include family, relationships, school
and sport.

7. Imagery
 Imagery is using one’s senses to re-create or
create an experience in the mind.
 Polysensory experience (Use of relevant
senses):
-Auditory -Tactile
-Olfactory -Kinaesthetic
-Gustatory
 Research indicates that when individuals engage
in vivid imagery, their brains interpret these
images identical to the actual stimulus-situation.

8. Imagery as a Mental training tool
 Imagery allows athletes to practice sport
skills, strategies and mental skills without
physically being in the training or competitive
environment.
 Athletes must use imagery in a continuous
and systematic manner for it to qualify as
mental training.
 Imagery enhances thoughts and emotions
-^ self-confidence, motivation, attention control, controls
pre-competitive anxiety in combination with other mental
training)

9. Imagery as a Mental training tool
 External perspective-
Outside the body
 Internal perspective-
Inside the body. Elite athletes more likely to use
than nonelite athletes.

10. Enhancing sport performance
and learning
 Mental practice: Better than no practice at all
and compliments physical practice.
 A Canadian Olympic gold medalist in the
bobsled emphasized this point:
“In bobsledding, you can only do two or three
runs per day, due to the physical demands.
So I did a lot of imagery instead and it was a
real learning process… Each track took up a
video-tape in my head.”

11. Imagery Usage
 99% of Canadian athletes in the Olympic
games reported using imagery (4 days per
week, 12 minuets per session).
 Tiger Woods: “You have to see the shots and
feel them through your hands”

12. Olympics 2012-
The importance of Sport
Psychology
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8DSzLpE
ru0

13. Keeping track- using a diary
 Writing things down in a diary will help you to maximise how
effective you are in monitoring your own progress as you develop as
an athlete.
 Things a diary can help you with:
 Writing down your goals
 Reviewing your goals
 Recording and working on emotional issues that effect you as an
athlete
 Record and work on negative self –talk that effects your
performance & address those with positive statements
 Track your imagery practice
 Record and work on distractions that disrupt your focus
 Develop better pre-competition/event/game plans & routines
 Write down strategies
 Record feedback from your coach/mentors