Issue 018

October 2006

By James Barraclough

The coach is one of the single most important people in an athlete’s life and career. It is important then if you are a coach, that the correct behaviours are ‘modelled’, and that you act as a role model for everyone under your influence. This may involve acting as a kind of sport psychologist yourself, or helping to assist in delivering their ideas, thereby adding credibility to those ideas. As a coach myself (football), I realise the importance of being open-minded to new ideas. As with anything in life, if you start thinking you know everything, how can you keep learning and updating your knowledge base? You would still be stuck with ideas from 20 or 30 years ago, and probably would not be willing to embrace new ideas such as sport science (such as psychology, physiology, biomechanics and all the benefits they can bring).

For an athlete, it is also vitally important that you choose your coach carefully. A coach that takes a multi-discipline and modern approach to their work would obviously seem more open-minded than one who sticks to tried and tested methods (however, that is not to say that these methods are not any good either).

I have been very lucky as a sports psychologist in working at the Straight Blast Gym in Manchester, where Karl Tanswell has welcomed my input with open arms. Just looking around the gym, there is no doubting Karl’s commitment to a broad approach to coaching. As well as the standard mats and other training equipment, there are a number of speed and agility tools, as well as a strength and conditioning room and even a sports injury clinic. For a prospective member of any gym, surely this is the sort of approach that should be looked for.

It may be that the coach already displays the necessary behaviours required of a good coach, but they may need slightly refining. A sport psychologist is in a position where they can give an unbiased opinion of how the coach is behaving. After all, no matter how self-aware a coach is, I myself know that sometimes when you evaluate your own behaviour, you do have certain biases that might make you miss small details. It is here that an objective observer can be very valuable. 

So what can a coach do to improve an athlete’s chances of success? As well as constantly modelling confidence, there are certain other things that a coach can do to help their fighter mentally. It may seem obvious, but if your fighter is working with a sport psychologist, it is very important to encourage them to use any ‘interventions’ that have been given them. This may be as simple as encouraging them to use imagery on a daily basis. It may also be helping them to use interventions at the right time. For example, if the fighter is feeling over-aroused and is in danger of ‘psyching out’, the coach may be better able to notice this than the athlete, and better placed to deal with it than the sport psychologist. In this case, the coach can help them reduce their arousal levels by encouraging them to use relaxation techniques (such as centering, self-talk or progressive muscular relaxation).

The coach is even more important in terms of psyching up a fighter if they are under-aroused or de-motivated. It is easier to psych down (the fighter should be able to do this themselves with training) than psych up, so when psyching up is needed the coach is probably the most important person, again because they are on the ‘front line’, next to the fighter. Physical contact is a good way of doing this, such as a jab to the arm, or arm round the shoulders. This should be accompanied with a ‘pep talk’, remind the fighter what they are there to do, how good they are, that it’s ‘their time’ and similar.

It is also vitally important to emphasise that they are ready for the competition and that their performance is not down to luck. There is a saying; “Luck is where hard work meets opportunity”. The opportunity in this case would be the competition, and the hard work is the training (including mental training). If a fighter has fully prepared themselves mentally, they should already have an advantage over an opponent who has not; as I have stated in earlier articles, the difference between success and failure at an elite level is purely mental, as physical differences tend to be minimal.

During preparation for competitions, the coach should also collaborate with both the fighter and the sport psychologist to set the fighter’s weekly process goals. These are based on prioritising areas of physical/technical/tactical/mental performance that need improving. It is important that the fighter themselves has an input as this can increase their motivation towards achieving these goals. It is also important to give feedback on a weekly basis as to which of these goals have been achieved and which need ‘rolling over’ to the next week.

It may also seem stating the obvious, but in the run-up to a competition it is important that the fighter experiences success in training. If they are constantly sparring against people bigger than themselves and getting beaten, then this will be a drain on their confidence.

So to summarise, the coach is a hugely important link between the sport psychologist and the fighter in implementing and reinforcing the principles of ‘mental training’. As you have seen above, there are a number of ways that a coach can do this, but most importantly is an open-minded and multi-disciplinary approach.

James Barraclough is a sports psychologist from Manchester who works with MMA fighters. If you have any questions relating to his articles or sports psychology in general, you can email him on [email protected]