Issue 011

March 2006

By James Barraclough

At lower levels of sport performance, the better athletes tend to be those who are physically fitter or stronger, and often bigger. If you can remember back to your school days, the best rugby, football or cricket players tended to be the ones who were more physically mature. At higher and elite levels of sport these physical differences tend to be less pronounced.

This is certainly true in Mixed Martial Arts and other combat sports where weight divisions mean that you only ever fight someone of similar size to yourself. Therefore, at these higher levels of sport the differences tend to be a lot more psychological.

A Hard Lesson to Learn

An example of this that I frequently use is the two fights between Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman a few years ago. For the first fight Lewis failed to prepare properly, arriving in South Africa a few weeks before the bout, not ‘acclimatising’ properly and not training anywhere near hard enough for the fight. Consequently, he lost.

For the rematch, Lewis trained exceptionally hard and took the bout a lot more seriously and won. These were the same two fighters, both at an advanced stage of their careers, so the difference in skill improvement between the two fights would have been negligible. Lewis would very probably have been physically fitter for the second fight after losing the first, but a major factor in the difference in performance was down to his mindset.  

He went into the first fight thinking it would be easy and that he would not have to train very hard or adjust to the different conditions (e.g. time difference) too much. He though he just needed to turn up on the day. He ultimately paid for his complacency and lack of respect for Rahman by losing. The second time they fought, he prepared himself much better because he was aware that Rahman was capable of beating him if he went in with the wrong mental attitude.

Aiding Performance with Psychology

In sport there are four main elements of performance. These are: 

Physical (e.g. strength and conditioning)

Technical (practising relevant techniques e.g. triangle, arm bar, etc.)

Tactical (when to employ these techniques)

Psychological (e.g. concentration)

Traditionally, coaches and athletes have concentrated on the first three and neglected the mental side of training. If you can train your body and learn techniques and tactics, then why shouldn’t you train your mind for better performance?

Sport psychology is not about inventing problems that do not exist; it is more about helping the athletes to help themselves in order to improve their performance. Indeed, nobody is perfect so it is likely that any athlete can benefit from psychological support. It is all about enhancing performance and getting the athletes to think positively about themselves.

Making the Difference

At an elite level of sport the difference between winning and losing is down to very small fractions. If you think of the difference between hitting the bar in football and scoring, it can be millimetres, or in motor racing it can be hundredths of seconds between winning and second place. The same is true in MMA, the difference between winning and losing can be very small. With this in mind, it makes sense to try to give yourself every possible advantage, even if it only improves you by a fraction of a percent. That tiny amount could make all the difference.

Most professional sport careers are relatively short lived, so it would seem an intelligent thing to do to maximise your potential during that time and not retire wishing you had achieved more. If you have been born lucky enough to be blessed with the talent to become a pro athlete you should appreciate that you are already extraordinary and do not have to live the mundane nine to five existence that many others do, but even amateur athletes can benefit from sports psychology. 

Sport psychology is not about trying to radically alter an athlete’s mind; it is more about improving what is already there by working in harmony with that athlete. As a science, it is still pretty much in it’s infancy, having only really come to the forefront from the mid-1970’s onwards, but is already proving itself indispensable to athletes at all levels. 

In future columns, we will look at ways you as MMA athletes can prove your performance by bringing sports psychology into your game, and how well-known fighters use it to aid theirs. 

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]