The Ideal Shape of the Body and Physical Self-Worth - Case Study Example

Behavioral Aspects of Human Movement Affiliation Protect Your Athlete – Body Image Perceptions and Consequences Body exercises are associated to weight control, muscle gaining, and body attractiveness. Athletes and coaches should have an idea that individual sporting identity and body exercise are vulnerable to damage due to perceived failure to possess the ideal shape of the body and physical self-worth. However, this can be developed in four forms concerning self-perception: Physical fitness perception Body attractiveness perceptions Physical strength perceptions Short competence perceptions Individuals’ anxiety rises with pressure to conform to leanness and muscularity or an aesthetic ideal this is socially associated with the ability of an athlete. As demonstrated in this article, body dysmorphic disorder is significant when acting on body perceptions of an athlete as it engenders an extreme preoccupation with visualized or small bodily discoloration in the attempt of improving the image of a body. In order to monitor body image’s evaluation in the correct way, it is significant to recognize how it differs between, gender with female more concerned with fatness and in males focus on the muscularity level. Often, this materializes in mostly in females via looking for the reflections to evaluate the self-perceived fitness degree in clothing while in males it evaluates the muscles protrude degree clothing. Nevertheless, females’ athletes, specifically power-based and elite athletes, look alike to males in body checking for muscularity. Yet, male power athletes are differentiated in interpreting the ideal body structure as 25 pounds more muscle and 8 pounds less body fat. Therefore, it is critical for coaches and support staff to keep alive positive and open relationship to recognize the wrong perceptions of body fat and muscle percentage in athletes, as comprehensive diets leads to a very high prevalence of injuries to athletes. In addition, coaches, support staff, and the athletes should manage the athletes’ stress level, obsessive compulsive and repetitive behaviors in order to prevent initial body dysmorphic disorder and eating disorders (Moore, 2014). Anxiety in Sports Performance In this article, Gill illustrates anxiety as a concept that is discussed widely by coaches and performers. Practitioners composed in sports performances require an awareness of anxiety associated symptoms. Once there is creation in the anxiety, it would be prudent to act upon the anxiety associated issues. Anxiety has two distinct aspects. One of the aspects emanates towards trait anxiety. This trait anxiety is associated with innate features that individuals are born with. The second aspect is associated with the state that is situational specific. For instance, a performer may feel anxious during basketball free throwing. Associated to these aspects, other mechanisms are recognized as somatic and cognitive anxiety. Sports performers can suffer from both types or predominately from one over the other. In order to assist performers overcome somatic anxiety, a range of strategies can be analyzed. Performers could develop their own personal strategies through experiences. These strategies include: Relaxation training: This includes teaching performers a range of routines to assist support the body to relax. The significance of this strategy is to enable performer feel relaxed in both body and mind. Deep breathing: This strategy requires to be exercised over time for it to become effective. Thus, performers require beginning focusing on their own breathing as well as on different body parts. Goal setting: this is a simple and useful strategy. It permits performers to achieve significant directions and focus on tasks in hand. Practitioners should set process associated targets and not wholly outcomes goals. Positive self-talk: performances should exercise this strategy on a regular basis. It supports the cognition within their own minds. An affirmative mind will be more equitable and gives better successful opportunities. Emotional control: A successful practitioner should command performers to understand their own levels of performance. They require recognizing feelings at the process of good performance and comparing those feelings to poor performance (Gill, 2014). Athletic Identity Pottratz (2014) defines athlete identity as the degree to which a person identifies with the role of the athlete and looks to others for that role’s acknowledgment. It is regarded as a kind of self-schema or how people perceive themselves. Through sports participation, a person is creating a social statement concerning who they are and how they want other individuals to think of them. An athlete identity is recognized through skills acquisition, confidence, and social interactions during sport. It plays a role in a cognitive and social part. Focusing on cognitive structure, it provides a framework for information interpretation, determines how an athlete copes with career-threatening conditions, and inspires behavior portrayed by the roles of the athlete. Athlete identity plays a social role in which it may be determined by the perceptions associated to the athlete. As a self-concept, athlete identity can demonstrate the manner in which a person evaluates their competence or worth. The worth amount and competence a person places on self-concept may have an impact on their self-esteem, motivation and affect. It is, therefore, significant for athletes and coaches similarly to be aware of the advantages and potential risks of those with strong athlete identity. Athlete identity is a critical dimension of self-concept in most people, not only athletes. It exists in most individuals to some degree, which assist may illustrate the successful maintenance of regular practices over time, or the failure to initiate a practice regime or be physically active at all. Thus, is significant for athletes, practitioners and coaches be aware of the individuals with specifically strong athletic identifies as it does have the capability of implementing negative psychological influences, in particular affecting the self-worth of an athlete. Nevertheless, athlete identity does tend to be a positive self-concept, and it exists in several elite athletes. Dealing with Stress in Athletes It is fact that every person gets stressed. Every individual can suffer stress in various dissimilar reasons, which may include social conditions, work, family issues, studies, and in competitive training especially for athletes. Athletes can experience stress just as easily as any other individual can, moreover in some instances depending on time and condition, for instance, studies, balancing, social interaction, family, and training, which is a difficult challenge to an individual. Elite athletes are more likely to use negative appraisals in conditions that are stressful than other coping mechanism, when compared to athletes that are on other departments apart from the elite. This can make an individual have a detrimental effect on performance if not well handled. Individuals in the best position to assist athletes undergoing severe situation from stress are their coaches, because of the proximity and time spent with the athletes. For instance, according to Robinson (2014) injured athletes, having spent much time away from training, can be vulnerable to stress during return to the exercise, often cause by the frustration of not having the ability to complete training session the way prior to injury. One of the most censorious ways to assist the return to full rim exercise would be an application of relaxation techniques. This can have positive encouragement to cognitive appraisals for performances. Healthcare professionals and trainers, however, should competent to recognize, when and how to utilize such methods, specifically with female athletes. Therefore, athletes and coaches require to have a union in their work in order to identify what as led to stress situation, and use of correct coping mechanism such as goal setting and relaxation. Self-Efficacy in Sport and Exercise: Determining Effort, Persistence, and Performance A comprehensive process of self-persuasion and self-appraisals form lead to the formation of judgments that people build concerning whether they believe they have the abilities to attain. This is recognized as self-efficacy, which relies on cognitive processing from a source range of efficacy information. Self-efficacy, according to Griffiths (2014), is a psychological technique that limits belief of the individual surrounding his or her capabilities to implement control over conditions that influence his or her live. It can be regarded as a conditionally specific self-confidence, impacting the kinds of practices people opt to approach, the effort they impose forth and the persistence degree they demonstrate in failure situations. At the core of self-efficacy, lie two dissimilar self-efficacy aspects that act their own role concerning an individual’s behavior and the results. Outcome expectancies include the belief of a person that a given behavior will lead to specific results. Efficacy expectations are the main cognitive variable. They determine how much effort a person can impose forth and how long a person can persist when undergoing adversities. According to several researchers, self-efficacy determines the effort, performance, and persistence in an exercise setting. However, at the level within-participant, there is evidence to illustrate no effects of self-efficacy in regards to performance. However, with self-efficacy being unobservable variable, it is difficult to have an idea of whether what is being measured is self-efficacy or another psychological variable such as goal striving and motivation. Therefore, future studies should target to measure a range of variable with self-efficacy in order to come up with a valid agreement as to whether self-efficacy consistently determine performance, effort, and persistence in exercise and sport. References Gill, G. (2014). Anxiety in Sports Performance - Sports Psychology - The Sport In Mind - Sports Psychology – The Sport In Mind. [online] Thesportinmind.com. Retrieved 30 November 2014, from http://www.thesportinmind.com/articles/anxiety-in-sports-performance/ Griffiths, S. (2014). Sports Psychology – Self Efficacy in Sport and Exercise - Sports Psychology – The Sport In Mind. Thesportinmind.com. Retrieved 30 November 2014, from http://www.thesportinmind.com/articles/self-efficacy-sport-exercise-determining-effort persistence-performance/ Moore, L. (2014). Sports Psychology – Body Image Perceptions and Consequences - Sports Psychology – The Sport In Mind. [online] Thesportinmind.com. Available at: http://www.thesportinmind.com/articles/protect-your-athlete-body-image-perceptions- and-consequences/ Pottratz, S. (2014). Sports Psychology – Athletic Identity - Sports Psychology – The Sport In Mind. Thesportinmind.com. Retrieved 30 November 2014, from http://www.thesportinmind.com/articles/athletic-identity/ Robinson, A. (2014). Dealing with Stress in Athletes - Sports Psychology - The Sport In Mind - Sports Psychology – The Sport In Mind. Thesportinmind.com. Retrieved 30 November 2014, from http://www.thesportinmind.com/articles/dealing-with-stress-in-athletes/ Read More