Helping hitters who choke under pressure

[HeadCoach]

An interesting article was written last month (Sept 2010) in Health Zone on athletes choking under pressure.

According to the author, sports psychologist Dr. Sian Beilock, it all boils down to worrisome thoughts taking up valuable space in the athletes head, and making it harder to access the information they need to perform.

Here are three tips Dr. Beilock suggests in her article:

1. Meditation
Meditation is a proven tool in managing the worrying that interferes with performance. She cites Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, renowned for their mental toughness in sport, as proponents of meditation.

2. Write
She also recommends spending 10 minutes writing out your worries before a game or tournament. Putting them on paper removes the worries from active status, freeing your brain to concentrate on the matter at hand.

3. Interpretation
Studies have also shown that how an athlete interprets the signals their body sends during an at-bat --- increased heart rate and adrenalin, for example --- can affect how well they perform. Athletes who regard the signals as an asset that can enhance performance are likely to perform better than athletes who regard the signals with dread.

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Editorial Staff, sportsvisionmagazine.com
Visual, cognitive and intelligence skills for elite athletic performance

 

[Coach JV]

Interesting. Yesterday DD had runners on 2nd and 3rd, 2 outs.
Simple pop up to ss, who dropped the ball, both runs scored and
DD told me, her heart was racing for the next batter (who she hit
in the knee) Next batter was a 'K'. Over the remaining 3 innings she
went 1-2-3 each inning and didn't throw 15 pitches in any of those 3 innings.

After the game, she said she felt like she couldn't trust her defense. They did make a few of those
last 9 outs for her though. We won 5-2 with 3 runs in the top of the 6th.

She has a very strong mental approach to the game

 

[sluggers]

Studies have also shown that how an athlete interprets the signals their body sends during an at-bat --- increased heart rate and adrenalin, for example

A parent can help his DD redefine how she thinks about what her body is saying.

When a player says, "I'm nervous"...Redefine and say, "You are excited, not nervous. And you should be...there is nothing better than competing against good players. You are going to have a blast! You know something else? If you weren't excited about the game, then you shouldn't be playing it."