1. Stress Management
Stress, or pressure, occurs when there is a
major difference between what you
believe is demanded of you, and what you
believe your capabilities are, and when
you believe the outcome to be very
important.

2. An athlete’s
perceived
ability
Equals or
exceeds
Demand of
competition
Little anxiety
Experienced
An athlete’s
perceived
ability
Is Less
than
Demand of
competition
High levels of
anxiety
Experienced
Therefore,
Stress is the result of a persons negative thoughts and changes in arousal in
response tho the environment
In other words:

3. Stress Formulae
Stress Formula 1:
Environmental Stimulus (E)
Arousal (A)
Negative Thoughts
Stress (S)
Stress management needs to be somatic; muscle relaxation or
yoga. When an athlete is in the presence of the event that
arouses them, the athlete can start relaxation response
(breathing)

4. Stress Formulae
Stress Formula 2:
Environmental Stimulus (E)
Arousal (A)
Negative Thoughts (NT)
Stress (S)
Stress management needs to be cognitive; self talk or hypnosis

5. Managing Stress
Stress can be both internal and external”
 Personal – desire to win, succeed, achieve goals
 Competition – pressure exerted by opponents
 Social – pressure from coaches, parents, sponsors,
media
 Physical – pressure of having to perform learned skills
under the demands of competition.
Three factors can be changed:
1. Environment
2. Arousal level – through relaxation
3. Negative thoughts – eliminated or reduced through
cognitive stress management
Realising the problem is more in the mind than in the
occasion. The key to controlling stress is altering the
perception of what you believe is being asked of you.

6. Cognitive Stress Management
 What we believe determines our emotions
and influences our behaviour
 Self talk is the things we say to ourselves
from how we interpret the events in our
lives
 Negative self-talk is the reaction to an
event that causes stress, impairs
performance and deprives an athlete from
enjoying sport

7. Negative self talk can be:
 Irrational
 Unproductive
 Specific
 Discrete messages
 Almost always believed
 Spontaneous
 Hard to turn off
Stress will make negative self talk less definable,
more believable and the focus of attention.

8. Causes of Negative Thoughts
 Worrying about performance (comparison to
others)
 Inability to make decisions due to choice of
alternate responses
 Being preoccupied with the physical symptoms
of stress
 Thinking about the possible consequences of
poor performance
 Thoughts of inadequacy – self criticism, self
blame

9. Changing Negative Thoughts
Cognitive Restructuring – thought stopping
 Used after athlete recognises that they are
engaging in unproductive negative
thinking
 Procedure
 Catch yourself having negative thoughts
 Internally yell at your self – “STOP”
 Replace with constructive thinking
You need to have prepared constructive
thoughts to replace the negative thinking

10. Handouts
 Changing Negative Self-talk to Positive
Self-talk
 Sports Commission Anxiety Test (SCAT)
 Stress Questionnaire
 Your State of Stress

11. Relaxation
Self directed Progressive
Relaxation
Technique
Imagery
Relaxation
Biofeedback
Breathing

12. 1. Self directed
 Athletes are guided through relaxation of
the body’s muscle groups while
emphasising slow, easy breathing
 Visualise tensions leaving the body
 Coach/leader directed
 Aim is to reduce gradually the time
needed to be completely relaxed, from
minutes to seconds

13. 2. Imagery Relaxation
 Athletes imagining themselves in an
environment where they feel relaxed and
comfortable
 Set a clear place in your mind
 Need to be alert and not fatigued
 Find a comfortable position
 Needs to be practiced daily
 Use first with minor stresses, leading up to
larger ones

14. 3. Progressive Relaxation
Techniques (PRT)
 Based on principle of neuromuscular
contraction and relaxation – learn to feel
tension in muscles and then let it go
 Works best when you relax the muscle
past its previous level
 Can only be achieved if person can
identify muscle groups
 Time consuming – about 4-6 weeks @ 3-4
times per week

15. 4. Biofeedback
 Athletes own biological responses are fed
back to them to help develop self-
awareness of muscle tension
 Examples of this include:
 The more tense you are the more your body
sweats and heat is dissipated
 Skin temperature drops when muscles are tense
and as a result hands can be cold and clammy
 From biofeedback results, use imagery
relaxation procedures

16. 5. Breathing
 Used to release tension or to avoid
distraction during performance
 There are a series of different techniques
that can be learnt and then used to
control tension or focus relatively quickly.

17. Breathing Activities
Imagery Exercise
Progressive Relaxation
Autogenic training
Self affirmation statements
Self contract
Mental imagery
Test for ability to use imagery

18. Mental Rehearsal
 It is the technique of mentally picturing
the performance or skill before it is
performed
It can:
 Elevate the body to the desired level of
arousal
 Provide a clear idea of what has to be done
 Heightened concentration
 Narrow the thoughts to the task at hand

19. To be effective, visualisation requires:
 The person to be relaxed
 Vivid, realistic pictures in the mind
 More than one complete rehearsal
 A narrowing of thoughts to exclude distractions
 A feeling of ‘experiencing’, seeing colours, hearing
sounds, feeling the movements and noticing the crowd
 Seeing a successful performance. ‘To visualise failure is
to experience failure’
 Practice so that the process can be ‘turned on’ when
required
Direction
 Visualise from inside out – feel yourself performing
 Visualise from outside in – as if watching on TV

20. Performance Practice
 Ideal model – choose a player who you want to copy and
imagine them
 Top performance – repeat a past performance when you have
played particularly well
 Future performance – imagine yourself performing at your
best at a future competition
 Instant replay – is the use of mental rehearsal to prepare for a
specific game
 Create a cue image – create an image in your mind that
produces the feeling you want eg ‘float like a butterfly, sting
like a bee’
 Instant replay – reviewing an action you have just performed
eg mentally rehearsing an aspect of the game the night or day
after the game (even during training)
 Rejecting distractions – rehearsing successfully rejecting
potential distractions eg crowd
Goals
 Control of your images
 Clarity of your images

21. Goal setting
Goal setting is an important component of
individual and team preparation
Goal setting is a process whereby the
athlete’s goals, priorities and expectations
are written down and provide a plan of
action for both practice and game
performance
They monitor progress over a period of
time and can be a powerful motivator.

22. Goals need to be:
 SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Realistic, Time)
 Related to training program and designed to
increase performance
 Measurable
 Self-controlled
 Achievable
 Realistic
 Mutually accepted and agreed upon by coach
and player

23. Long Term goals
These goals should be decided on early in the season
and may even relate to a 4 or 5 year period
Example – win regional championships in year 1, rank in
top 4 at state championships in year 2, medallist in
nationals in year 3.
Your goals must be reviewed regularly, depending on the
time frame involved eg yearly, monthly, weekly
At this time you should determine
 Are they still relevant
 Are they still achievable
 Are they still on target
 What can you do right now to ensure you do achieve
them

24. Short Term goals
 They should be developed and used as stepping
stones to help achieve your long term goals
 It is very important that they are achievable and
assessable to ensure motivation
 Unrealistic goals may be more harmful to
performance than no goals at all
 It is important to evaluate performance in
relation to your goals
 Ensure rewards are given for successful
achievement of goals

25. Short term goals can relate to:
 Performance segments; various sections of a
performance, such as, starts or play at the end
of the half
 Specific skills; maintenance of skills or perfection
of new ones, for example, number of skills
performed in a training session
 Fitness; target specific components
 Concentration; mental application to required
task
 Emotional control; controlling arousal levels and
emotional reactions
 Social goals; cohesion, cooperation
 Performance strategies; overall structuring of
approaches to competition

26. Goal setting activity