MENTAL SKILLS TRAINING FOR SPORTS: A 4-HOUR WORKSHOP

This workshop expands on the content of the book Mental Skills Training for Sports and serves as a method for introducing coaches to mental skills training for athletes. It also serves to explain the content for self-help programs by individual athletes. The conduct of this workshop is different to most others because a copy of the actual text needs to be provided each attender. The outcome of this experience should be an enthusiasm and confidence for introducing mental skills training as part of sporting programs.

Prospective Audience

Coaches, serious athletes, students of sport, and sport psychologists.

1. Potential Users of Mental Skills Training
   • An athlete without assistance
   • A coach without assistance
   • The psychologist or sport consultant
2. Increasing the Positive Aspects of a Sporting Experience
   • Increasing the intensity of self-reinforcement
   • Positive interactions with other athletes
   • Stopping negative thinking
   • Positive imagery
3. Goal-setting
   • Setting sporting career goals
   • Setting relatively long-term goals
   • Setting performance goals
   • Setting performance progress goals
   • Setting group training goals
   • Setting and evaluating personal activity goals
4. The Development of Commitment
   • The establishment of a daily positive focus
   • Daily positive recall
   • Periodic self-reinforcement
5. Performance Enhancement Imagery
   • Learning image control and vividness
   • Sensory recall training
   • Movement imagery training
   • Performance enhancement imagery
6. Relaxation
   • Structuring self-help tapes
   • Relaxation and positive imagery for self-concept
   • Relaxation and positive imagery of an activity
   • Localized relaxation
   • Rest, sleep, and relaxation
7. Precompetition Mental Skills
   • Waking with a positive attitude
   • Trouble free planning
   • Establishing contest site mind-sets
   • Contest build-up routine
   • Learning and using precompetition strategies
8. Competition Mental Skills
   • Segmenting a performance
   • Task-relevant thought control
   • Mood words content
   • Positive self-talk
   • Special considerations
   • Integrating a basic strategy
   • Coping behaviors for competitions
   • Intensification skill
   • The start segment
   • Debriefing a performance
   • Competition goal-setting
9. Team-building
   • Structuring a leadership group
   • Implementing a decision-making procedure
   • Determining rules, sanctions, and procedures

Materials

This workshop is a departure from other workshops as it requires each participant to have a copy of the text Mental skills training for sports authored by Brent S. Rushall. Workshop organizers will have to plan to procure and charge participants for copies of this text.

Reference Rushall, B. S. (1995). Mental skills training for sports: Second edition. Sports Science Associates, 4225 Orchard Road, Spring Valley, CA 91977.

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