http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,164671.htmlAthletes need mental training
By COREY CONNELLY Sunday, August 12 2012
United States sprinter Tyson Gay turned to music for comfort ahead of his semi-final heat in the Men’s 100-Metre event at the Olympic Stadium in London, United Kingdom, early last week. Pacing the warm-up track, Gay was spotted with headphones swaying to a tune, either as a means of soothing his frayed nerves or to inspire him to greatness.
It may well have been that the music also served as a distraction from preparations for his hope — for qualification to the Men’s 100-Metre finals in which he was yet to win an Olympic medal.
Gay, who had been dogged by injury within recent years, eventually placed fourth in the competition, but still left the Olympic Stadium in tears.
Gay’s long time rival, veteran Jamaican sprinter, Asafa Powell, meantime, who also ran in the Men’s 100-Metre final, slumped to the ground in pain — the result of a groin-related injury — metres away from the finish line. A bewildered look on his face, Powell’s dream of acquiring an Olympic medal, too, had been dashed.
Alternatively, a once injury-plagued US quarter-miler, Sanya Richards-Ross, shed tears on the podium after a narrow win the Women’s 400-Metre race, a victory which had eluded her at the Beijing Olympics four years ago.
The Dominican Republic’s, Felix Sanchez, had a very personal agenda when he set out to win the Men’s 400-Metre hurdles. With a photograph of his late grandmother affixed to his chest, ran the race of his life in complete dedication to her.
Sanchez, who had won the event in the 2004 Athens Olympics, had failed to repeat the feat in Beijing when he woke up on the morning of his preliminary heat to the news that his grandmother, who raised him, had died.
The Olympic Games enjoys its “last hurrah” today but the apprehension, nostalgia, triumph and agony, synonymous with international sporting meets of this stature, will forever be remembered by the athletes who experienced these emotions over the past few weeks.
Trinidad and Tobago’s athletes are no exception. Despite swimmer George Bovell 111’s seventh place finish in the Men’s 50-Metre Freestyle and TT’s botched handover on the second leg of the Women’s 4x100 relay — which many felt could have been an easy medal — and Njisane Phillips spirited cycling sprint (although he did not receive a medal), the country still delivered gutsy performances alongside the best in the world.
Nineteen-year-old Keshorn Walcott yesterday registered TT’s second gold medal in Olympics history with an outstanding win in the Mens Javeling, days before Lalonde Gordon, who came into the Games as a virtual unknown, received a bronze medal after placing third in the Men’s 400-Metre event. He later joined fellow athletes Jarrin Solomon, Ade Alleyne-Forte and Deon Lendore to secure another third place finish in the Men’s 4x400 Metre relay on Friday.
Dexter Voisin, manager of the TT team, said last week he was proud of the team’s accomplishments in London.
“We can safely say, so far we are having one of the better Olympics in terms of the number of finals that we are in. And, not just track and field, but the whole Trinidad and Tobago team,” he said.
“Njisane Phillip (and) George Bovell reaching semi-finals (respectively in cycling and in Bovell’s case, 50 metre freestyle final).
Several former athletes have also said this year’s performances were TT’s best to date.
The reality, though, is that performing at the Olympic Games, regarded as the pinnacle of sporting excellence, requires tremendous commitment and perseverance both on the part of the athletes, staff and their supporters.
Psychologist Laila Valere said in order for athletes to perform at their peak, training must go beyond physical activity into the realm of psychological, mental and emotional discipline. “These are very important, but I feel very sad to say that Trinidad is yet to fully embrace this concept,” she told Sunday Newsday during an interview on Friday.
Valere lamented that mental and emotional training in this country was being done in an almost piecemeal approach quite unlike developed countries in which sporting programmes are regarded as incomplete without such emotional and psychological preparation.
“So that the gymnast who falls off the beam can jump right on again because they know what they have to do,” she said.
“In the same way, in Trinidad, we have some ongoing, regular training in sporting skills but there is not the ongoing mental and emotional training available to our athletes. This one-and-done programme will not suffice.”
Referring specifically to mental training, she said, “They have to be able to control their thoughts and inner dialogue so that it would be positive. They have to be able to do mental rehearsal, through visualisation and imagery to build their confidence.
“They have to do attention control training. Those things are essential as well as being able to control their emotions.”
She added that athletes must also be able to control their stress, anger, frustration and other anxieties.
“Those are essential if they want to become a professional athlete but we do not do that sort of training in Trinidad which is really a pity,” she said.
Valere, who had done extensive pyschological training with the members of the senior West Indies cricket team more than a decade ago, said the managers of the team had seen the benefits of the exercise.
She said, “Cricket was leading the way in that (mental training) a long time ago. It started in 1997 when they took the senior West Indies cricketers. I designed a programme for them. This was in the time of Alloy Lequay who had the foresight and the vision that this is the concept we have to use.”
Valere said the players had undergone a six-week retreat programme, where, apart from mental, emotional and spiritual training, they also received assistance in financial planning.
“I don’t know if that was ever continued,” she said, alluding to subsequent teams.
“After Alloy left I think all those things fell down because he had extended that programme to the Under-13 cricketers as well as the Under-15, 17, 19.
“In the Under-15, we had won the regional tournament for four years. And the first time the Under-15 won the World Cup in England was after they were mentally trained consistently.”
Another psychologist, Courtney Boxill, said it was quite possible that local athletes were not being exposed to much science and technology when preparing for major international sporting engagements.
Failure to adopt this practice, he said, will lead to sub-standard performance among local athletes.
Boxill told Sunday Newsday: “If a company or individual is using science and technology and the company or individual’s competitors are not using science and technology, the company or individual who is using science and technology will always do better than the company or individual who is not using science and technology. It is very likely that our athletes are not using enough science and technology and that is very important.”
Boxill said research indicated that an athlete performs at his or her best if he or she is in an ideal performance state.
“At present, so-called developed countries are using machinery to get athletes into his or her ideal performance state. If an athlete is in his ideal performance state, then he is likely to be competing in his zone,” he observed.
Claiming that many sporting administrators were not aware of this concept, Boxill said Sports Minister Anil Roberts was the exception.
He said, however, Roberts had not put the structures in place to allow for athletes to be in their ideal performance state. “Fortunately, our Minister of Sport, knows about the ideal performance state and whereas he has been commended for ensuring that villages have adequate grounds for cricket, track and field, football, my complaint is he is not providing the infrastructure for our athletes who have to perform internationally.
“It’s time that he provides these structures so that when we go to international meets we can perform at our very best,” he said.
Like Valere, Boxill also made a plug for visualisation as a vital ingredient in an athlete’s regimen.
“The evidence is that most, if not all top athletic performers are very good at visualisation,” he said, citing former West Indies batting star Brian Lara as an example.
“Most top athletes use it because it can point our errors better than the camera and then they can seek to correct it when they have identified their errors through visualisation.”
Reviewing the performance of the Jamaicans, who dominated several major events at the Olympics, including the Men’s 200-Metre race, Boxill said he was surprised to learn from a commentator at the Games that the country had a sports science centre where it groomed athletes.
“We don’t have that. What are we waiting on? We have plenty more money than Jamaica.” he said of TT.
Boxill, a retired senior lecturer in psychology at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies, urged Roberts to initiate the process in establishing a similar facility locally.
“I am pleading with Anil Roberts who knows about these things to bring these things here,” he said.
“We will be able to pay for it through sport tourism because athletes from all over the Caribbean would come here to prepare for athletic events. We have to provide the infrastructure for our athletes to achieve their potential. Without that, we will remain Third World in our preparation of our athletes.”
The psychologists also shared strategies for helping athletes cope with defeat and tragedy either during or before an event.
Valere said she has often used what she called confidence recovery strategies to assist the athletes by way of recalling their past successes.
“One of the things they could do is to recall their best ever performances and that will help them to make a recovery. They have to manage their self-thought so it is not negative. That will help to motivate them after the defeat,” she said.
Also, Valere noted that most athletes usually enjoy a short professional career and many of them should think seriously about life after the sport.
She said, “There is an expiry date as an athlete so they have to plan their life after the sport to be able to motivate themselves to move on. They must decide whether they want to stay in the sporting field or move somewhere else.”
Nervousness is also a common trait among many athletes. And, believe it or not, even the indomitable Usain Bolt experiences pre-race jitters.
“I was really under a lot of pressure,” Bolt had told reporters after delivering a 9.63 seconds win in the Men’s 100-Metre competition, alluding to the back problems he experienced and which had hampered him during the Jamaica Olympic trials in June.
Valere again suggested that athletes use imagery to stay calm.
“Once they have developed their energy and skills, they can be able to recall good performances and anchor them. They have to have positive self-thought. They have to keep things in perspective by knowing it is not a matter of life and death,” she said.
Valere also advocated deep relaxation routines, such as effective breathing techniques.
“This will determine how they manage their anxiety,” she said.
She said anxiety is contagious and athletes should try to stay away from people who display this tendency.
On the issue of financial and emotional support, Valere said apart from the Government, the corporate community, as well as citizens, also needed to do much more to assist athletes.
“The corporate community can do more to sponsor some of our athletes by facilitating the kind of training they would need,” she said.
“We have to plan and develop something more comprehensive to support our athletes and follow them through. We have to be able to identify those that need extra training. That is what needs to be done.” Boxill said it appeared as though the Jamaican team had a tremendous support system both through the Government and its citizens.
“That, to me, is one of the reasons why Jamaica is where Jamaica is (in athletics). When you have an athletic event in Jamaica, its stands are filled to capacity. In Trinidad, the stands are ten percent filled. In Jamaica it is 100 percent. That kind of support is reflected in how the Jamaicans perform. We do not seem to be as patriotic as the Jamaicans and that is important,” he said.
Another psychologist, who wished to remain anonymous, minced no words in saying that maximum performance was required of all athletes at every level.
“Maximum performance can be the mastering of athletic, physical, technical and mental strengthening,” he told Sunday Newsday on Friday via an e-mail.
He said there were many ways in which athletes could motivate themselves, particularly in defeat.
“The very basics would be to remain firmly committed to their short, medium and long term goals and achieving them,” he said.
The psychologist said the athletes’ supporters also had a responsibility to them.
“Society can aid by always positively supporting their athletes through all elements of their progress and development. One way in which persons can be more supportive is by educating themselves on the facts and knowledge of the sport.”
