Building Sporting Confidence

Sporting confidence is the mental boost that sets the pace of an athlete’s performance in a competition or an event. Athletes with the right amount of confidence have the ability to believe in their capability to execute their training and preparation. In this webinar of the RFYS Athletics Development Series, Maithili Bhuptani, Sport & Exercise Psychologist at Sir H.N. Reliance Foundation Hospital, elaborates on how young athletes can build sporting confidence.

Watch the full webinar here:

 

Sporting confidence is the mental boost that sets the pace of an athlete’s performance in a competition or an event. Athletes with the right amount of confidence have the ability to believe in their capability to execute their training and preparation. In this webinar of the RFYS Athletics Development Series, Maithili Bhuptani, Sport & Exercise Psychologist at Sir H.N. Reliance Foundation Hospital, elaborates on how young athletes can build sporting confidence.

Sporting confidence creates an awareness of the intensity of the environment that an athlete is placed in, which eventually impacts their actions and performance. It is important for:

  • Building cognitions
  • Developing one’s behaviour
  • Developing the right frame of mind

Confidence in sports can be drawn from various sources like:

  • Performance accomplishments
  • Vicarious experiences
  • Verbal persuasions
  • Imaginal experiences
  • Physiological state
  • Emotional state

It is important to visualise scenarios and think of positive outcomes and try to replicate them in competitions.

Coaches play an integral role in building confidence in sports and they can induce sporting confidence by:

  • Planning challenging sessions
  • Setting realistic goals
  • Creating opportunities for athletes to succeed
  • Normalising failures
  • Being mindful of the choice of words
  • Using encouraging language
  • Having a feedback approach
  • Emphasising the importance of process

These techniques impact the overall state of an athlete, both physically and mentally.

Impact of confidence levels can be viewed in one’s physiological state through an increased heart rate that indicates:

  • Anxiety
  • Worry and fear

However, it can have different outcomes, such as:

  • Natural cause of anxiety

To tackle a state of anxiousness, one can learn to:

  • Accept the situation
  • Deal with the symptoms
  • Worry and fear

This can be rooted from:

  • Constantly try to change the situation
  • Trying too hard too initiate negative thoughts

Thus, it is important to manage and tackle ways of how you handle emotions.

Maithili further illustrated different body languages that personify different emotions and outlooks of an athlete. She also highlighted a few case studies that demonstrate how body language affects athletic performance. Following are some of the points that were covered:

  • Pre-competition body language
  • Importance of maintaining a good posture
  • Parking aside one’s doubts
  • Normalising Pre-competition nervousness

The session was then summarised by discussing the key factors that improve one’s sporting confidence:

  • Ability to believe in themselves
  • Non-verbal communication
  • Improving one’s body language
  • Practising good posture

Maithili summarised the session and also suggested that the key takeaways from the webinar can be inculcated in athletes by coaches. The session came to an end by clearing up all the queries & doubts in the final Q&A session.

 

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