Mental Training Plan for Individual in Need of Exercise Program - Case Study Example

A Mental Training Plan for an Individual Who is in Need of an Improvement in an Exercise Program Grace is an athlete aged 18 years who has been in pursuit of her talent for about two years now. She entered into the field of athletics after showing great capability throughout her junior and senior education. With encouragements from her parents and teachers, she decided to venture into the athletics field (Welnberg and Gould 248). Although she seems to possess great potential, her performance does not indicate her full potential. Having studied her closely, I can confidently say that she has a few distractions that seem to draw her away from her set goals. Athletics needs determination and development of a positive attitude in order to be successful however, it can clearly be said that Grace lacks these attributes (Welnberg and Gould 250). Grace’s psychologist, I have identified some of the skills that Grace needs to perfect so as to improve her performance; focus, energy management, self confidence, stress management and above all team cohesion (Welnberg and Gould 258). Having realized the challenges that Grace faces, I devised a mental training plan to help her improve her performance. I organized for a five-session training that I will go through with her in order to make her understand how to build up determination and a positive attitude in her. We decided with Grace to be meeting in my office, two times a week- Monday and Thursday for five consecutive sessions after which am confident that her performance will be impressive (Welnberg and Gould 262). First Session: Benefits of the Training and Arousal regulation. Though we have met with Grace a few times before, I had to make her feel relaxed since it was our first meeting under the training. Hence, I was very friendly and a bit informal as the rules of psychology demands in order for Grace to have more trust in me (Welnberg and Gould 265). This will help her to be more open and by so doing it will be easy for me to help her. We introduced ourselves to each other once more, and now we were ready to start what exactly had brought us there. To start with, Grace had to understand the need of what we were about to do so I explained to her comprehensively what mental training is and what it entails (Welnberg and Gould 265). She needed to understand its benefits in order to enable her develop a positive attitude throughout the sessions. Since Grace was a short-race specialist, she explained to me that she usually experienced great tensions when a race is about to start. I noticed that Grace had no idea that that is very normal and it usually happens to a majority of athletes (Welnberg and Gould 271). I explained to her that that is normal however she needed to know how to manage it so that it does not hinder her from winning a race. She then outlined that she has the ability to sprint very fast and does not tire easily. Also having presented one of her strengths to me I told her that she should focus on that strength, improve it in order to be able to perfect it (Welnberg and Gould 275). To end our first session I asked her to come up with some of the things that distract her from her career. Second Session: Imagery, trust and self talks. On our second session Grace seemed to have developed much confidence in me and now she was sure that I was concerned with her improvement (Welnberg and Gould 266). I started by asking her to present her homework. In her homework she had listed some of the things that come in her way as she tries to be positive about what she is doing. First on her list was her attitude towards athletics; I realized that Grace had no self confidence. An individual feels that she is not meant to be the best because there are others who are better than her (Welnberg and Gould 294). This is exactly what Grace felt sometimes and she did not have much trust in her routine practices as she sometimes viewed them as a waste of time. By this time Grace was able to understand how much she was worth (Welnberg and Gould 302). She agreed that she has been focusing more on what she had lost and this has been terribly weighing her down. I urged her to always focus of what she had achieved and this will give her positive approach to her endeavors. I also advised her to take her practices seriously because it is through them that she will be able to perfect her strengths (Welnberg and Gould 310). Moreover, she needed to restore a positive self talk within her, through reviewing all that she had done during the few times that she won. The homework for our next session was on ways on stress management. Third Session: Composure, self confidence and managing stress. Stress is one of the major obstacles to success in many fields and athletics is not an exception (Welnberg and Gould 319). Grace had listed a few ways of managing stress and she read them out to me. From what she had presented, I would say that she did have a bit of knowledge on managing stress. I then asked her to explain to me how she would apply one of the strategies if she was under stress. I realized that she did not have great problems with stress management however she had problems with self confidence. She did not have the strength to compose herself when a race was about to start (Welnberg and Gould 325). My greatest advice on this was to try and keep a great control of her emotions. I told her that it is normal to be uneasy when you are about to start a race but this should not go all the way to distract you from winning. It is argued that you should have belief in yourself, try to focus on yourself and avoid looking to your competitors during a race (Welnberg and Gould 331). As an athlete you are expected to focus on the target, as looking at your competitors might make you to lose focus or get discouraged. You are expected to assume that you are the only one on the race and give it your best. By so doing you will avoid the regrets that come after when you feel that you did not give it your best (Welnberg and Gould 332). On our fourth session I asked her to come up with her goals. Forth Session: Setting Goals and determination. In doing all that we do we are expected to have set goals that will give us a guideline on what we should focus on, in order to be successful (Welnberg and Gould 343). Grace presented some of her goals to me and I could surely say that they were very motivating. One of her goals was, to be a world greatest athlete by winning the major races in the world Olympics. Such a goal was very realistic and all it needed was determination. It was a long term goal and I took the chance to explain to Grace how to start goal setting with short-term goals (Welnberg and Gould 349). By setting short-term goals first, it will be easier for you to achieve them. Consequently, this will give you motivation and the will to strive to achieve the long-term goals. After setting realistic goals, an individual needs to be determined to achieve them (Welnberg and Gould 352). I explained that without determination, the goals set will seem unrealistic even though they are realistic. Grace lacked the will to fight hard in order to achieve her goals. She sometimes felt like winning the Olympics was meant for other people like and not her. I was then forced to cite a few examples of the individuals who had won in the world Olympics and showed her they were just like her. I can recall my exact words during this session, “We can achieve what we aspire even things that seem impossible through courage and determination” (Welnberg and Gould 355). With that we closed our session by asking her to think about her attitude on practice and pregame routines. Fifth Session: Concentration on Pre-game routines and Practice Pregame routines are the rehearsals that are done before a game starts while practice is what is done frequently in order to improve one’s strengths (Welnberg and Gould 364). Having familiarized that with Grace, I asked her to present to me what she had found out to be her attitude towards practices. I realized that grace had a very low opinion of practices, as she could sometimes choose to intentionally ignore them. I then concluded that this might have been her greatest challenge to her success. Grace was very open to me by this time and she told me exactly what she felt about it. I took this chance to explain to her the benefits of rehearsals and practices (Welnberg and Gould 368). I started by telling her that pregame routines help one to relax and familiarize herself with the environment (Welnberg and Gould 375). I stressed to her that ignoring this might make an individual to lack composure during a race. She also agreed that this might have been the cause for her emotional un-control throughout her races. Practice on the other hand helps one to improve her strengths, since without practice one might not be able to identify strengths and focus on them. Moreover, regular practice has been found to strengthen muscles in preparation for the actual races. It creates mental preparedness in an individual thus preventing stress (Welnberg and Gould 384). With that Grace was able to learn a lot and she promised that she will practice all that had have discussed. I was then sure that her performance will definitely improve. Work Cited Welnberg, Robert., and Gould, Daniel. Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology (5th Ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2010. p. 271-384. Print. Read More