What are the Four Mental Preparation Techniques?

When you want to improve your physical skills, what do you do? You train. This is why, a mental coach for athletes, will take the same approach to improving your mental skills.

If you are a basketball player, for example, and you want to improve your shot, you would likely spend time each day improving your mechanics and shooting over and over again.

If you are a softball player, for example, and you want to improve your swing, you would likely spend time each day in the batting cage working off the tee and taking batting practice.

What this shows is the importance of repetition.

So, let’s say you want to increase your confidence, what would you do? You’d perform an exercise that would work to build self-confidence.

The same goes for focus, mental toughness, resilience, and any other mental skill you can think of.

In this post, you will learn the four main mental preparation techniques a mental coach for athletes will use to improve your mental skills.

Technique #1: Visualization

Visualization involves imagining a scene in your mind.

This is a powerful technique you can apply to many different areas of your game and use to strengthen a few different mental skills.

Here is a list of the different types of visualization you can perform:

● Visualization for skill mastery.

● Visualization to increase confidence.

● Visualization to perform better under pressure.

● Visualization for when you’re injured.

● Visualization to promote relaxation.

Now, no matter what your goal is with your visualization, the technique will look pretty much the same. Here are the steps you can use to visualize:

● Step 1: Get into a quiet location (this is best done before you arrive at the field or court).

● Step 2: Close your eyes and spend a couple of minutes doing some deep breathing to get yourself nice and relaxed.

● Step 3: Imagine yourself performing. Go into as much detail as you can. See yourself from a first-person perspective.

● Step 4: Bring emotion into the visualization.

Technique #2: Mindfulness

The second major technique used by mental coaches for athletes is mindfulness.

Having the ability to control your focus, and compete with a calm mindset is huge for you as an athlete.

This high level of focus requires training. Mindfulness is focus training.

Here are the steps you can take to perform mindfulness meditation:

● Step 1: Find a quiet location free from distractions.

● Step 2: Sit in a comfortable position. A great way to do this is in a chair.

● Step 3: Set a timer for 5-10 minutes.

● Step 4: Close your eyes and begin taking nice and slow deep breaths. Bring all of your attention onto your breath.

● Step 5: As you notice your attention drift (which it will), simply return your focus onto your breath.

Technique #3: Self-Talk

A third technique used by mental coaches is self-talk.

Self-talk refers to how you speak to yourself. This is largely going to be in the form of the thoughts you have.

How you think directly impacts how you feel. As a result, these two combine to influence your actions on the field or court.

Controlling your self-talk is how you can work to control your emotions. For example, speaking to yourself more confidently will work to increase the confidence you feel.

When working on altering your self-talk, a mental coach for athletes will show you how to reprogram the way you speak to yourself. This is done through repetition and the use of affirmations.

Technique #4: Breathwork

Breathwork is different than mindfulness in that it is geared towards helping you calm down before or during competition.

Imagine you’re getting ready to start a game. You’re feeling all sorts of nerves and your hands begin to tremble. Not exactly the best state to be in to perform your best, is it?

So, what can you do?

You can turn to your breath!

Your breathing in that scenario is likely shallow. When we are nervous, we tend to take short breaths. This does little to calm our racing hearts.

Here are a few different count breathing techniques you can use whenever you’re feeling anxious:

● Breathe in for a count of five and out for a count of ten.

● Breathe in for a count of four, hold for four, and breathe out for a count of four.

● Breathe in for a count of four and out for a count of eight.

Final Thoughts

Mental skills require work and repetition, just like physical skills.

As an athlete, if you want to improve your confidence, focus, resilience, mental toughness, or any other mental skill, you need to be making use of mental training.

There are four main mental preparation techniques you can use: visualization, mindfulness, self-talk, and breathwork.

These are the main ones used by a mental coach for athletes to help build a stronger mindset. And a stronger mind leads to greater success on the field or court.