Introduction to the Athlete

This is the introduction to the 6 weeks psychological training skills programme of my chosen athlete. I have chosen athlete X and on this blog I will write information of each week programme including the strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities of athlete X. To start off with I will introduce the personal profile of athlete X.

Personal Profile

Athlete X in action

Athlete X is quite a sporty person. He plays several sports, with his main one being football. Athlete X attends St Mary's College and that's where he gets the most opportunities to play his main sport. He regularly trains on Monday afternoon, and Friday afternoon, with the games being played at Wednesday afternoon. Athlete X  plays for St Mary's 2nd football team, although he had played one game for the 1st team in which he played as a goalkeeper. Football is a sport that athlete X has been playing for quite a long time, although always at an amateur, but competitive level. His main position on the pitch is centre back, although he sometimes used to play as a right-back or even a goalkeeper. Athlete X shows good understanding of the tactics, and can easily adapt to them wherever he is playing on the pitch. However, athlete X does not have the drive and mindset that an athlete needs to become a professional and play at a top level. Athlete X is highly motivated and never gives up, but what is stopping him from moving off the amateur level is the fact that he does not believe in his own abilities. In his mind he always worry a lot about his performance. He is not confident that he can go out the pitch and play good, even though in most of the games his performance is a top standard. This athlete to start believing in himself and feeling more confident on the pitch needs to have a psychological plan that does not take too much time and includes relaxation techniques, such as music, so that athlete X can improve his confidence and, what comes with it, his overall performance on the pitch.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths - 
Athlete X has got quite a lot of strengths in football, most of them comes from his physical ability when playing that sport. His main strength is the fact that he never gives up. Although athlete X has got to work on his self belief and confidence, one aspect of his mind is that he never gives up, even if he is having a very bad game. His will to succeed is pushing him forward and also the feeling of letting his team down is making him work harder on the pitch in order to put a good performance. Even though his technical skills in football aren't the best he always plays with his heart, and that makes him the type of player who will never give up whilst playing football. His physical strength is athlete X's another big strength. He is quite a powerful and strong lad who isn't afraid of going into tackles or fighting for the ball, (this could link with him never giving up). In many games he got a slight injuries because of him fighting for every play, especially when he plays as a defender. His strength and power is an advantage for him as he can easily fight with the opposition's strikers for the ball and, most of the time, he manages to win that ball.

Weaknesses - 
Athlete's X main weakness is in his mind. Like I have mentioned before, he does not believe in his ability and has not got the confidence on the ball. Athlete X is the kind of player that worries a lot about how he perform and what would happen if he fail, before the start of the match. This is very bad for him as it stops him from improving his performance and moving up to another level. He is not very confident on the ball. He can go into tackles, and win headers, but when he has the ball in his feet and has to pass it, he fails. Most of the time he rushes to pass the ball as quick as possible because he doesn't like it and therefore when he plays football he mostly concentrates on stopping the oppositions attack and does not want to get his team attacking play started; he leaves that to his partners in defence. The mind aspect is the most important thing that I will need to work on with athlete X, but other than this he also needs to improve on his tactical skills as maybe than it would be easier for him to feeling more confident on the ball.

Opportunities - 
In the 6 week psychological skills training programme I will provide athlete X with an opportunity to get his main weaknesses becoming his strengths. I will do everything possible to make athlete X worry less about his performance before the game and also feeling more confident on the ball. In order to do that I will provide athlete X with some training programme that he will have to follow of the 6 week period. Hopefully after that his performance will improve further and he will be able to get rid of the bad emotions that he has got in his head at the moment.

Threats - 
The main threat that could stop athlete X from improving could be the fact that athlete X is 18 years old and he has been playing football for over 10 years now. If he didn't manage to belief in himself and improving his technical skills on the ball, than I think it could be too late now as it could harder for him to learn something new when he has been playing like that for a very long time and got used to it by now. However, I will try everything possible and hopefully at the end of this 6 week training programme athlete X will be a completely different player.

When I first met athlete X I gave him some questionnaires to fill in. I wanted to see his mental aspects of the game and some of the results that I got have indicated to me that his mental aspect of playing football is very bad as it includes a very low self belief and confidence. The first questionnaire that I gave athlete X was to assess his sport psychological skills. There was no right or wrong answers and X had to answer 28 questions by choosing the score out of 3 where 0 was almost never and 3 being almost always. At the end I have recorded down the results and they are as follows:

* The higher scores indicate greater strengths - the scores are up to 12

Coping with adversity = 2 - This has assessed if the athlete remains positive and enthusiastic even when things are going badly, remains calm and controlled, and can quickly bounce back from mistakes and setbacks.
Coach-ability = 12 - This shows if an athlete is open to and learns from instructions that his coach gives him.
Concentration = 7 - This reflects to whether an athlete becomes easily distracted.
Confidence and achievement motivation = 7 - This measures if an athlete is confident and positively motivated, consistently gives 100% during training's and competitive games, and works hard to improve his skills.
Goal setting and mental preparation = 1 - Assesses whether an athlete sets and works toward specific performance goals.
Peaking under pressure = 6 - Measures if an athlete is challenged rather than threatened by pressure situations.
Freedom from worry = 7 - Assesses whether an athlete puts pressure on him by worrying about performing poorly and making mistakes.

After that I have asked athlete X to write down what motivates him. I have created a table which had intrinsic factors and extrinsic factors, and under the extrinsic whether they are tangible or intangible. For the intrinsic factors athlete X has put that improving his performance and the joy of playing football are motivating him. For the tangible X has put that winning trophies will motivate him and for the intangible he said that instructions from the manager and praise from the manager will motivate him more.

In the attribution analysis I have asked athlete X to think about any recent sporting events that have been successful or unsuccessful for him. For the successful event athlete X could only think of one, winning 11-2 against Bolton College. He said that in this game the team was organised, he has put 100% and had a good communication with his teammates. For the unsuccessful events he has said that loosing 5-3 to Oldham College was bad as he unperformed and was worried that the team may loose because of him.  Also, he said that going to a volleyball tournament with college and loosing all 3 games was an unsuccessful event as they had no enough training's and were lacking the knowledge of the rules.

In addition I have asked athlete X to fill in the SCAT Test (Sport Competition Anxiety Test). The athlete had to read each question and answer rarely, sometimes or often. His overall score was 19 which indicated that athlete X have an average level of anxiety.

Also, another questionnaire that athlete X had to fill in was about the competitive state anxiety. In this questionnaire athlete X had 3 different results. First one was for a cognitive or mental anxiety and the result should have been between 9 and 18, however athlete X got 21 in that which is quite worrying. The next score was for somatic or physical anxiety and the result should have been between 19 and 26, with athlete X getting the score of 19. The last score was about the self confidence and the result should have been high between 27 and 36 but athlete X only got 19 which again is worrying.

Finally, at the end I have asked athlete X to complete the performance profile wheel in which I have told him to think of some attributes that he shows whilst playing football and rate them between 2 and 10. The attributes and results that athlete X had are as follows:

Belief = 6
Focus = 7
Mental toughness = 6
Concentration = 6
Confidence = 5
Self control = 6
Awareness = 8
Motivation = 9
Effort = 10
Strength = 9

Now I know exactly all about athlete X when he is participating in his main sport, which is football. I can create a 6 week training programme that will improve his psychological aspect of playing football.