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How to get ready for a basketball game mentally
How to get ready for a basketball game mentally
6 Pregame Mental Preparation Steps
6 Steps for Pregame Mental Preparation
Do you know that the warm up routine is also a time to become mentally prepared for the game?
What mental game strategies help you get mentally ready before a game?
When I ask my athletes: what’s your pregame routine? Most will answer this by describing their physical warm up.
In today’s sports insights, you’ll learn the top mental game skills to use in your warm up routine prior to competition…
Also, keep in mind that the warm up routine is not a time to practice your skills. Your skills are already set that day–the goal is to prepare to get the most out of your game.
Pregame anxiety is a major obstacle to a relaxed and effortless performance for athletes.
This is where a pregame warm up routine can help you relax, focus, and be confident for competition.
I work with athletes every day to help them prepare a pregame routine so that they can perform well in competition.![]()
(I also created The Relaxed Athlete workbook and CD program to help you do this as well.)
Here’s the purpose of your warm up or mental prep routine:
- Feel poised and relaxed about an upcoming competition.
- Feel confident in your skill at the start of competition.
- Enjoy competing and overcome pregame jitters.
- Trust in your skills you have trained in practice.
6 Steps for Pregame Mental Preparation:
- Transition from life to sports and enter the role of the athlete. Focus only on the role of athlete and park any worries from life.
- Discard outcome expectations or strict demands. Let go of the expectations you feel to be perfect or win.
- Be proactive with confidence prior to competition. Take full control of your confidence level before the start.
- Focus on execution or the process and not results. Stay into the moment and don’t think too far ahead.
- Rehearse your performance and game plan.
Visualize how you want to perform and execute you game or race plan. - Prepare your mind and body to trust in your skills. Get ready to become a performer and stop practicing so you can get into the zone.
Do you want to learn all my mental game strategies to help you mentally prepare and relax before competition?
Check out The Relaxed Athlete Today…
Check out our video on Pregame Mental Strategies
Improve Pregame Mental Preparation!
Do you become too tight to perform your best because you worry about embarrassing yourself or making mistakes in the game?
Do you have trouble sleeping the night before competition, cant eat before you compete, or are so anxious and tense stepping onto the field, court, course, or track that you are already tired or spent before competition starts?
Check out The Relaxed Athlete!
The Relaxed Athlete CD and workbook program is a 14-day plan for optimal mental preparation.
This program is ideal for any athlete that wants to overcome pregame anxiety, worry, or excess tension and learn to perform with poise.
Learn more about one of our most popular CD programs in The Confident Athlete Series…
The Relaxed Athlete: A 14-Day Plan For Optimal Mental Preparation
What are customers saying?
“Patrick, with your great instruction on the mental game, I had the best nationals I have ever had. And even more important, I got through the five days relaxed and had fun – a new concept in my life! The bottom line – I got five firsts and one second! Thank you! You are just what I needed.”
~Dennis O’Brien, Swimmer
Add More Value To Your Mental Training Programs!
This workbook series was designed for coaches and mental coaches to use with their athletes.
The Athlete’s Mental Edge workbooks complement your existing mental training program. Each of the 15 workbooks in the Athlete’s Mental Edge System teaches your athletes a specific mental skill to improve their performance.
For mental coaches, this system is ideal for between session education.
For sports coaches, you’ll be able to conduct 15 team seminars using the workbook system.
In the Athlete’s Mental Edge workbook system, you receive 15 easy-to-read, practical Mental Edge Workbooks on PDF, as well as 16 coaches’ game plan MP3 audio files.
Athlete’s Mental Edge Workbook System
What are coaches saying?
“I’ll start by saying that the Mental Edge Workbook program is awesome. It put all the pieces together for my mental work with soccer players.”
~Eitan Azaria, Mental Coach for Soccer
Boost Your Self-Confidence And Focus With Expert Mental Game Coaching!
Master mental game coach Dr. Patrick Cohn can help you overcome your mental game issues with personal coaching.
You can work with Dr. Patrick Cohn himself in Orlando, Florida or via Skype, FaceTime, or telephone. Call us toll free at 888-742-7225 or contact us for more information about the different coaching programs we offer!
What are our students saying?
“After going through a week of practice using your pre-kick routine, I was perfect on three field goals on a muddy field and a windy day in my final college game.
Now I am entertaining the idea of trying to enter the professional ranks. Thank you for your help!”
~Nate Littlefield, Collegiate Kicker
The 5 Best Mental Toughness Exercises For Basketball Players
Contents
- 5 Best Mental Training Exercises For Basketball
- 1. Habitual Preparation
- 2. Visualization
- Confidence
- Accuracy
- How To Visualize
- 3. Goal Setting
- 4. Exercise
- 5. Focus On What You Can Control
- Conclusion
As any good player should know, when it comes to being a good basketball player it’s important to focus on improving yourself both physically and mentally.
Focusing more on aspects such as being the best dunker or shooter has its benefits, but it’s the well-rounded players that see the most success on the court. Although you may not think it, mental training exercises are a key part of improving your game in basketball, primarily because they develop your mental toughness.
If you can’t tap into the right mindset going into a game, either because of thoughts that cloud your mind or distractions that take away your focus, that’s going to reflect heavily on the way that you play. That also isn’t to say that mental exercises alone can get you to become the best basketball player there is.
No matter how hard you visualize yourself throwing the ball into the net or jumping up and dunking if you don’t put in the work to make that a reality, it’s not going to happen. Again, the best players are the well-rounded ones that delve into becoming better both physically and mentally.
But if you can visualize yourself making every shot or jumping higher when you dunk, then this does make a significant difference when it comes to your performance.
So with the goal in mind of becoming a better player and incorporating mental training into our routine, let’s look at some of the best mental exercises to get you into the correct mindset and well on your way to improving your game and mental toughness.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I’ll earn a commission, at no additional cost to you. Read my full disclosure here.
5 Best Mental Training Exercises For Basketball
The most popular mental exercise that will lead to amazing improvements in your game is to form a habit before playing that you perform every time.
1. Habitual Preparation
Habitual preparation is the routine that you consistently perform throughout the day before entering every game.
A pre-game routine can be seen throughout practically every basketball player that is competing at a professional level, such as Giannis Antetokounmpo who takes naps and performs the same pre-game warm-up before every one of his games.
To describe how the act of following a strict day-to-day routine works, it’s best if we look at Michael Phelps, the Olympic swimmer, as an example of someone who used habitual preparation successfully and had done so for many years.
His day consisted of the same cues, performing the same stretches, running the same pre-game laps, listening to the same song, and even envisioning himself carrying out the perfect race, all before every competition.
These steps were part of a routine that was carried out every time without fail, and winning the competition was simply an extension of the process that naturally came as the next step in the sequence.
Even looking at some of the flashier rituals such as Lebron James’s chalk toss or Stephen Curry’s tunnel shot, these are still the pieces of a routine that helps get these players into a flow state.
Building a Habit
Now, there is no perfect routine for everyone to use; learning how to properly get into this flow state will take time with plenty of trial and error of doing more of what works and getting rid of everything else.
Building a routine that suits you is important; maybe it’s performing a flashy ritual like the chalk toss or making 7 shots in a row before every game as a warm-up.
Ever tried to make 7 shots in a row?
Whatever it may be, use these following points as a general guide to creating habits:
• Choose a cue, something that instigates the habit to begin; this can be a preceding action, a certain time of day, a visual note that reminds you, or even an alarm that triggers the habit.
• Clearly define your routine in detail, and write it down somewhere so that you can refer to it later.
• Establish a reward that you receive upon the completion of the habit; this can optional, although it’s recommended to have a reward.
• Be as consistent as possible in following through with your habit exactly as you have established it.
To give an example:
At 3:45 PM I’m going to the basketball courts to practice my shot for 1 hour,
afterward, I’m going to watch videos for 10 minutes.
Now, something to keep in mind is that a majority of the decisions that we as human beings make simply on a day to day basis are habits that we have formed over time and have established in our lives.
As such it can be difficult to add new habits, so instead, ease your way into your habits, and slowly over time through repetition, they will cement themselves in your brain as neurological pathways that will work without you having to even think.
Also, there is a trade-off with creating such a schedule; you’ll become dependent on following the routine to play well, as missing a step or changing the sequence will likely throw you off your game by a lot.
However, the upside of being able to consistently get into the zone at will and play at a professional level more than makes up for this downside.
2. Visualization
Visualize the action before you do it
Visualization is one of the strongest mental exercises you can perform that will lead to amazing results, as it affects two very important aspects of your ability to play the game, those being your confidence and your accuracy.
This secret tool has been used by both professional athletes and Olympians for years and is still applied by trainers and coaches today.
Confidence
You might not realize it, but visualization is an exercise that will help you understand yourself and your game on a more fundamental level. When visualizing, you’re seeing yourself as you perform on the court, and you’re analyzing your mindset when shooting, getting rebounds, defending, or simply passing the ball.
The reason why you want to visualize yourself going through the motions is that you gain a much better perspective into the mindset you have at that given moment. This is especially important for basketball players that feel they’ve peaked in their game, and don’t know where they can continue to improve.
It’s a practice of measuring how confident you feel with each aspect of basketball and searching for areas of weakness that you can improve on. This does wonders when deciding what to focus on most during practice, whether it’s shooting the ball more or passing the ball while being guarded.
Something unique that researchers have found is that the brain basically cannot distinguish between performing an activity and vividly visualizing the activity.
This means that visualizing yourself playing basketball can be just as effective as actually training on the courts.
The difference is that when visualizing you can imagine yourself at your best, making every shot and being an absolute powerhouse, which boosts your morale and confidence in preparation for when you play.
Accuracy
Want to increase your shooting percentage?
Harvard researchers have found that the act of visualizing a task in advance causes the person to carry it out with almost complete accuracy.
When you see yourself constantly making a shot, that has a very powerful effect on the mind and your performance on the court. Visualization has been a commonly used tool by both Olympic and professional athletes that compete at high levels.
However, when in a game, the last thing you want is to get caught up in your thoughts; thinking can take away your attention, and even cost you the game. Instead, further your visualization training off the courts until it becomes second nature.
You can use it to improve your shot or even become better at dunking, and once you have become comfortable with visualization, you can pair it in conjunction with your muscle memory to further develop your skills.
How To Visualize
To visualize, it’s as simple as imagining yourself playing basketball, whether it be shooting a basketball, dunking, defending, etc.
To make visualization easier, you can ask someone to record you while practicing or while in-game, and then look back at the footage to analyze yourself playing and use the video as a reference.
Photos can even be used; either one of you playing, or pictures with your face pasted on them.
3. Goal Setting
Goal setting is the action of defining specific goals you want to achieve and writing them down, which helps create clarity in the mind as to what to focus on specifically.
Goal setting is a great habit to build in general
This exercise is meant to be used alongside visualization, since the act of visualizing your goals, in specific visualizing them as completed, makes them much more meaningful to the mind and entices the brain to want to achieve those goals.
When you visualize your goals as having already been completed, you are in the moment of experiencing what you want to accomplish, and as such your emotions follow, making you feel happy, accomplished, fulfilled, etc.
Suddenly when you stop imagining and return to reality, your brain sees the disparities between what it currently has and what it could have, enticing it to go after the reality it wants to have.
Again, the brain cannot tell the difference between performing something and vividly imagining it, and as such, the difference is much more real to your brain than you may think.
By visualizing something specific, you essentially put your brain to work towards achieving that goal, whether it be to be able to shoot seven shots in a row, to learn how to dunk, or to even become the best player on the team.
The key lies in writing down your goals in detail, then going over them every day. This keeps you focused, and by reminding yourself of your specific goals, you begin to self-motivate yourself to continue improving.
You can also use the recollection of your goals to flood your mind with positive emotions, thereby allowing you to control how you feel when angry or tired, and keeping yourself in check.
Process-Setting
On other hand, focusing on your goals too much can become problematic as you treat them like the standard you must meet rather than something that provides direction. These issues can include:
- Brief enjoyment followed by long periods of disappointment.
- Measuring the wrong thing.
- Failing to continue growing once you complete a goal.
Goals are a guide, not the end. Your final aim is not to make seven shots in a row; it’s to become a better shooter. Goals are great for giving you direction but work well for little else, which is why you should instead focus on the process.
The process is the training that you put yourself through each day. Look at that system and ask yourself, “What is my trajectory if I continue?” A good process will bring you closer to becoming who you want to be, whereas a bad process pushes you farther away.
Remember, losers and winners have the same goal. The work you put in and the system you follow is what’ll make the difference.
4. Exercise
The discipline shapes you to be able to handle more discomfort
Although I’m sure you already workout to some degree as an athlete, the idea behind exercising as it relates to mental training is to force yourself to perform something you don’t want to do.
This is quite literally the pinnacle of improving your mental toughness, as the habitual nature of doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, such as an intense training session, builds the muscle in your brain that tells you to withstand the fight or flight response.
This falls in line with taking cold showers, as they force you into a state of discomfort, and the daily tendency to take a shower makes them an easy habit to build.
Cold showers also reduce muscle soreness and increase circulation
To put it into perspective, this is essentially a type of brain training where you condition your own mind to withstand more discomfort, much how a Muay Thai fighter conditions the legs to become stronger.
You can also delay the gratification you allow yourself during the day until after you complete a task, such as preventing yourself from seeing a show until after you finish with your training.
There are various other techniques for strengthening your perseverance, but the important thing to keep in mind is to develop these different methods as a part of your routine. This will reduce the amount of willpower they take to complete, allowing you to conserve that energy for something else.
Someone well-experienced on the toughening of the mind, David Goggins, is a clear example of how doing what you don’t want to do can, as he describes, “callus the mind” in preparation for future events of discomfort.
This skill translates well into basketball as it toughens you to deal with problems on the court, such as feeling tired and agitated or playing against a tough team that has the lead.
Instead of giving up in those crucial moments, you persevere through the adversity, and it’s quite literally in those critical moments that you improve as a player.
5. Focus On What You Can Control
Focus on what you can immediately do
In truth, although there are many things you can do to improve your chances of winning a game, there will always be factors in a game that you simply cannot control.
This includes your opponents, the referee, and even the outcome of whether you make your shot.
Most players will choose to focus on and even worry about these matters over which they have no authority.
In the process of worrying, you detract from your focus and you may even frustrate yourself at the lack of control you have.
The reality is that you have as much control over the game as any other player.
Choose to instead focus on what you can control, and learn to play in the present moment, paying attention to what you’re doing now.
These are the moment to moment decisions that you have an immediate effect on.
It’s important to play in the present and focus on what’s happening now so that you can execute that play to the best of your ability.
By building this mentality, you shift your attention to what’s important, and in the process, your attitude and behavior changes to match your actions, thereby allowing you to be direct in your approach, instead of scatterbrained.
What to Focus on
When shooting, don’t preoccupy yourself with the shot from before or the upcoming shot; your only priority at this moment in time is to make this shot.
Now, you don’t have complete control over whether this shot goes in; if you did, you would never miss. Instead, focus on what you can do to improve your chances of making it.
This includes:
• Having the correct stance
• Identifying a target on the hoop
• Using your shot pocket
• Shooting with proper form
• Following through
By identifying the process in the current moment and analyzing each part, you begin to focus on the factors that can influence the outcome in your favor.
Regardless of whether you made the last shot, you make this shot, or you make the next, don’t dwell on the outcome, focus on the process.
Conclusion
These five mental toughness exercises can be combined with other aspects of your training, whether it be shooting drills or dribbling drills, to further the results you see from practicing.
Not all of them are necessary, but a few of them work well in conjunction with one another, and as previously mentioned they can be mixed with your regular training.
But hopefully, after reading about each of the exercises, you found at least one to incorporate into your routine to begin seeing major improvements in your game.
Psychological preparation of basketball players | Article in the journal "Young scientist"
Bibliographic description: Egorov, A. V. Psychological training of basketball players / A. V. Egorov. - Text: direct // Young scientist.
- 2015. - No. 8 (88). — S. 428-430. — URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/88/17429/ (date of access: 07.11.2022).
Basketball is the most important means of physical education of students, aimed at increasing the efficiency and improving the psychophysical qualities of those involved. This is an exciting athletic game that contributes to the development and improvement of the physical, mental and intellectual qualities of a person; mastery of professional motor skills and abilities by players. Basketball classes instill in athletes willpower, endurance, perseverance, courage, determination, self-confidence, a sense of duty and responsibility, patriotism and collectivism.
The effectiveness of the education of these qualities depends, first of all, on how purposefully the physical, psychological and moral education of athletes is carried out in the training process. The educational and training process in basketball is built on increasing the complexity and intensity of training sessions, acquiring special knowledge by players about the psychophysiological properties of the individual, the structure of the body and the biomechanics of human movements.
In the process of detailed preparation for a long season full of various competitions and, directly, in the lessons on the technique and tactics of the game conducted by the coach, athletes acquire the necessary professional knowledge, skills and abilities to increase the variety of individual and team technical and tactical actions of basketball players. This suggests that the key to the successful performance of a basketball team in competitions is the high sports training of players (implemented mainly in sports training), which includes all aspects of preparing athletes for a long sports season (theoretical, technical, tactical, moral-volitional and psychological). Thus, sports training is a complex specialized process aimed at the formation, development and improvement of the necessary physical, psychophysical and psychophysiological qualities of players, which has a versatile effect on athletes [1].
Basketball is a team sport that requires full dedication from each player in changing game episodes on the court; it allows you to develop endurance, good coordination of movements, flexibility, mobility and jumping ability in the game.
It is an excellent school for teaching the interaction of players in a team, because success in the game depends not only on the developed eye of athletes, but also on their ability to understand the intentions and tactics of other team members. An important factor is the ability of the players to make instant decisions, taking into account the game situation on the court, since the specifics of the game involve sudden changes in the direction of movement and pace, which alternate with forced jumps during shots, fighting for a top ball and attempts to cover the throw.
The main task of the coach-educator in preparation for the sports season is to gradually lead the players to optimal physical, technical, tactical and mental readiness. At this stage, psychological preparation consists in the formation of a set for competitive activity and the creation of conditions for the adaptation of players to the extreme conditions of this activity. This is due to certain features and conditions of the competition, as well as the individual mental characteristics of the personality of each athlete.
Psychological preparation ensures the formation of a mental state that contributes, on the one hand, to the optimal use of the physical and technical preparedness of the players, and on the other hand, the ability to withstand pre-competitive and competitive knocking factors (uncertainty in one's abilities, fear of a possible defeat, stiffness, overexcitation, etc. .). Intensive training sessions, a tight calendar of competitions, are characterized by such high physical and mental stress that bring neuro-emotional stress to the limits of the athlete's individual capabilities. The most effective in sports activities are the means of mental rehabilitation to restore the expended nervous energy. Here it is important to reduce the level of neuropsychic tension, remove the state of mental depression, which significantly affects the acceleration of recovery processes in various organs and systems of the body.
The effectiveness of the use of psychological means of recovery is reflected in an objective assessment of the results of psychological influences on athletes in the process of psychological rehabilitation.
For the formation of psychophysical resistance to various environmental conditions, it is required to form the psychological preparation of athletes by improving the motivation for sports training, creating optimal conditions for the training process. The use of psychological means of recovery in sports training makes it possible to reduce the level of neuropsychic stress, remove the state of mental depression, restore the expended nervous energy more quickly and thereby influence the acceleration of recovery processes in various systems of the player's body [4].
Psychological preparation includes general (year-round) preparation of players, mental preparation for competitions and management of the neuropsychic recovery of athletes. At the training sessions regularly conducted by the coach-teacher, in the process of sports training, the physical, psychophysical and moral qualities of the individual are developed and improved, contributing to the formation of mental stability of the players.
The use of modern methods of training during sports training, the effective use of pedagogical and psychological means of recovery allows us to determine the professional level of the psychological and pedagogical skills of the coach-teacher, the presence of a system of knowledge and skills that allow him to successfully organize the educational and training process [2].
The effectiveness of the activity of a coach-teacher, his professionalism, lies in the correct organization of the educational and training process, which includes all aspects of the team's sports training, including educational and cultural work. His responsibilities include:
- jointly, with the administration of the university and the chairman of the sports club, creating conditions for year-round training sessions, instilling in those involved in love for the chosen sport, interest in regular practice in the chosen sport and striving for the growth of sportsmanship;
- ensuring general and special physical training of those involved in the group of sports improvement, passing by them control standards and tests for physical fitness and physical fitness;
- organization in a rationally constructed training process of systematic educational work to form such important qualities as diligence and discipline, honesty and decency, goodwill and integrity, camaraderie and mutual assistance, the ability to rationally organize one's work and introduce elements of creativity into it, a sense of responsibility for the results of their work and collectivism;
- instilling in players the skills to comply with sports ethics, principles of morality, love and devotion to their team;
- strengthening the health of those involved, their observance of the rules of personal hygiene, which includes a rational sustainable regime of an athlete, body care, hygiene of clothes and shoes, as well as control of public hygiene, training hygiene and a clear organization of medical control;
- systematic participation and holding of control and friendly games, as well as participation in calendar competitions;
- propaganda and popularization of basketball among students and teaching staff;
Basketball training sessions at the university are held in accordance with the plan of sports work for the academic year approved by the chairman of the sports club of the university.
The program of the annual training cycle contains educational material, on the basis of which the planning of training sessions is based, which provides for the theoretical and practical training of players, as well as the passing of control standards. The periodization of the training process, necessary in the annual cycle, is carried out taking into account the calendar plan of the competition, which allows you to fundamentally prepare for the games and most fully solve the problems of each period of training of basketball players.
The main task of a coach-teacher in the preparatory period of the annual cycle is to prepare the basketball team for a successful performance in the upcoming competitions. The basis for the development and improvement of the physical and psychophysical qualities of those involved is the optimal physical preparation of the players, which is divided into general and special training. Therefore, the preparatory period is a basic training cycle, in which training sessions are aimed at providing general and special physical training of players and improving their sports performance.
Special physical training (SPT) of basketball players is provided only on the basis of general physical training (GP). Its task is to improve the special qualities of players aimed at developing skills and consolidating the skills of playing basketball. The mastered motor actions when using special physical exercises in training sessions are an effective means of strengthening the health and restoring the mental, mental and physical strength of an athlete and can be further used in independent forms of physical exercises.
With the optimization of sports training, which consists in a gradual increase in physical and psychophysical load, the role of the coach in the psychological preparation of the players increases. During the training sessions, players are recruited into the team and their volitional qualities are developed, which ensure overcoming difficulties in the fight against fatigue in accordance with increasing physical and psycho-emotional stress. To this end, in order to improve the quality of the psychological preparation of players, the coach-teacher during training uses individual means of training aimed at developing courage and determination in combat with an opponent [3].
At the stage of pre-competitive preparation, further improvement of special physical and technical training takes place, mastering the tactics of playing individual players, units and the team as a whole, improving the moral-volitional, technical-tactical and psychological training of players, determining the main and reserve composition of the team. The competitive period consists of several cycles, starting with the participation of the team in competitions for the city championship, held in various tournaments, and at the end of the period, in competitions for the championship of universities held in offset of the regional sports day. In this period, special attention should be paid to creating a cohesive and well-played team, improving the technical and tactical skills of the players, maintaining and improving the sports form and eliminating existing shortcomings in the team's game, as well as further improving the strong-willed and psychological preparation of the team.
Literature:
1.
Basketball. Theory and teaching methods / Ed. ed. D. S. Nesterovsky. — M.: Academy, 2004–336s.
2. Sports games: Improving sportsmanship: A textbook for students. universities / Ed. Y. D. Zheleznyak, Y. M. Portnova. - M .: Academy, 2004. - 400s.
3. Sports games: Technique, teaching tactics: Proc. for stud. higher ped. textbook institutions / Y. D. Zheleznyak, Y. M. Portnov, V. P. Savin and others; Ed. Y. D. Zheleznyak, Y. M. Portnova. - M .: Publishing Center "Academy", 2001. - 520 p.
4. Yakhontov E. R. Psychological training of basketball players: Textbook / St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg GAFK im. P. F. Lesgaft, 2000. — 58 p.
Basic terms (automatically generated) : occupation, sports training, educational and training process, psychological preparation, psychological preparation of players, psychological means of recovery, special physical training, basketball team, annual cycle, further improvement.
Psychological preparation of basketball players | Physical education
Author: Poletaeva Nina Petrovna
Organization: MBU SShOR "Yunost"
Settlement: Belgorod region, Stary Oskol
CONTENTS
| | Introduction | 3 |
| 1. | Content and tasks of psychological training of basketball players | 3 |
| 2. | Types of regulation of mental states of an athlete | 4 |
| 3. | The content of the psychological preparation of basketball players | 4 |
| 4. | Literature | 10 |
| | | |
Introduction
Basketball is the most important means of physical education aimed at increasing the efficiency and improving the psychophysical qualities of those involved. This is an exciting team game that contributes to the development and improvement of the physical, mental and intellectual qualities of a person; players' mastery of professional motor skills and abilities.
Basketball instills in athletes willpower, endurance, perseverance, courage, determination, self-confidence, a sense of duty and responsibility, patriotism and collectivism. The effectiveness of the education of these qualities depends, first of all, on how purposefully the relationship between the physical, psychological and moral education of athletes is carried out in the training process. The training process in basketball is built on increasing the complexity and intensity of training sessions, acquiring special knowledge by players about the psychophysiological properties of the individual, the structure of the body and the biomechanics of human movements. In the process of detailed preparation for a long season full of various competitions and, directly, in the lessons on the technique and tactics of the game conducted by the coach, athletes acquire the necessary professional knowledge, skills and abilities to increase the variety of individual and team technical and tactical actions of basketball players.
This suggests that the key to the successful performance of a basketball team in competitions is the high sports training of players (which is mainly realized in sports training), which includes all aspects of preparing athletes for a long sports season (theoretical, technical, tactical, moral-volitional and psychological). Thus, sports training is a complex specialized process aimed at the formation, development and improvement of the necessary physical, psychophysical and psychophysiological qualities of players, which has a versatile effect on athletes.
Basketball is a team sport that requires full dedication from each player in changing game episodes on the court; it allows you to develop endurance, good coordination of movements, flexibility, mobility and jumping ability in the game. It is an excellent school for teaching the interaction of players in a team, because success in the game depends not only on the developed eye of the athletes, but also on their ability to understand the intentions and tactics of other team members.
An important factor is the ability of players to make instant decisions, taking into account the game situation on the court, since the specifics of the game involve sudden changes in direction and pace, which alternate with forced jumps during shots, fighting for a high ball and trying to cover the throw. The main task of the coach in preparing for the sports season is to gradually lead the players to optimal physical, technical, tactical and mental readiness.
- Content and tasks of psychological training of basketball players
Psychological training is understood as a pedagogical process of formation and improvement of personality traits important for sports and mental qualities underlying them, in other words, psychological training can be understood as the process of forming a sports character [5].
The character of an athlete is determined by the properties of the personality, which is formed by fixing the necessary psychological states caused by certain mental processes.
In terms of the psycho-pedagogical theory of activity, the management of mental states and the education of personality traits are correlated as a means and a result.
In this case, the mental state is understood as the appropriate attitude of the athlete to the world around him, which can arise both under the influence of external influences of the coach (external regulation of mental states), and due to the efforts of the athlete himself (self-regulation of mental states). Consequently, the coach, in addition to his own influence on the athlete's psyche, must teach him the methods of self-influence, which will significantly increase the effectiveness of the process of psychological preparation.
- Types of regulation of mental states of an athlete
J. Wooden notes the importance of psychological training in basketball: every coach must know psychology and be a psychologist. Speaking about the “pyramid of success” he developed, which is based on diligence and enthusiasm, and faith and perseverance help to reach the peaks, he writes: “We all differ in our abilities.
Some may have more abilities than you, they may be bigger, faster, stronger and have superiority in other physical qualities, but no one should surpass you in such very important qualities and characteristics as team spirit, enthusiasm, hard work, cooperation, constancy, determination, honesty, sincerity, reliability and integrity. Acquire and keep these qualities - and success is guaranteed" [2].
The need for special psychological preparation for sports competitions is clear to anyone who is preparing himself for a career as a basketball coach. Preparing a basketball player for high sporting achievements is a long process that requires certain lifestyle restrictions associated with the need for large time expenditures to participate in training. Therefore, it is important to form an appropriate psychological attitude not only to sports competitions, which are a bright holiday, but also to the heavy gray everyday life of a long training process.
All of the above allows us to consider the content of the psychological preparation of basketball players in three interrelated blocks: 1) psychological preparation for the training process; 2) psychological preparation for competitions; 3) regulation of mental states in a particular match.
Hence there are three general tasks of the psychological preparation of basketball players:
— to form a positive attitude to the training process;
— to form mental qualities that contribute to success in competitions;
- create favorable mental states in a particular match.
- The content of psychological training of basketball players
High results in modern sports require many years of intense sports training and a lifestyle subordinate to it. The athlete must be psychologically prepared for this. Such preparation is carried out in the course of the sports training itself due to the constant formation of motives that are the motives for sports and training activities, or through the creation of favorable attitudes towards various aspects of the training process. This division is conditional, since motives can be formed, in particular, through the creation of appropriate relationships.
However, the specificity of motivation requires its separate consideration. The process of formation of motives and attitudes towards sports training, in addition to external regulation by the coach, can be carried out, as noted above, by self-regulation. This is an important component of the content of psychological preparation for a long training process.
From here it is possible to formulate particular tasks of psychological preparation of basketball players for a long training process:
— to form motivation for the training process;
— to form relationships that ensure the success of the training process;
— teach methods of self-regulation of psychological states.
Analysis of numerous scientific and popular literature on psychology,
experience in psychological counseling of game students and a series of experimental studies conducted jointly with students of the Samara State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, allowed the author to come to the following conclusions.
The desire to train can arise in a player without the influence of external causes, arbitrarily, from the awareness of sports training as a goal, from interest in the game, the desire to improve one's skills, etc. It can also be caused by external factors, such as punishment and encouragement, threat and demand, group pressure, expectation of future benefits, etc. All these incentives
for sports training (in any activity in general) are called motives in psychology.
Motivation is the most important part of the learning process, and coaches are doing the right thing by focusing on this aspect of training. Most often, a coach motivates his players using rewards and punishments.
However, it is clear to the experts that when a coach cares about increasing the level of motivation of his players, relying on their self-esteem, common sense and the need for self-improvement, he achieves better results.
According to special studies of foreign sports psychologists, among the motives for going in for sports, attractive for young people can be considered the possibility of maximum manifestation of their abilities, the ability to control oneself and the environment, and achieve physical perfection.
Less significant motives include the desire to be a “real man” (for young men), achieve social status, or receive large monetary rewards.
Setting distant goals. Winning a city, country, world championship, or the Olympics are examples of far-reaching goals. The coach must show the player a series of intermediate goals, the successive achievement of which will lead the player or team to achieve far distant goals. At the same time, it is important that the achievement of the first intermediate goals is difficult, but real, allowing the athlete to experience a sense of success. Gradual achievement of goals after intense training contributes to the formation of an attitude towards a serious attitude to the training process.
Shaping and maintaining a mindset for success. At the heart of these actions of the coach is the encouragement of the development of the sports ambition of the players. Among the means of forming and maintaining the attitude to achieve success or develop sports ambition, one can note the promotion of the athlete's success.
This is facilitated by the constant posting of statistical reports on the achievements of basketball players in individual components of the game on the wall of the gym, the creation of stands with photos of the best players and sports trophies of the team, mentions in the media about the sports achievements of individual players and teams, etc. At the same time, the coach must control the process of the formation of sports ambition and prevent it from turning into the form of sports vanity.
The optimal ratio of rewards and punishments. The most common means of increasing the motivation of players to the training process is the coach's assessment of their performance in the form of praise or disapproval. Any of these methods are more useful than the coach's markedly indifferent attitude towards a player with insufficient motivation. The issue of preferential use of praise or disapproval is decided based on the needs of a particular pedagogical situation and the player's personal characteristics, and in this sense, the behavior of the coach should be quite flexible.
In addition to praise, real symbols of the players' achievements are used as an encouragement: badges, diplomas, tokens, medals, prizes, etc.
Emotionality of training sessions. It is understandable that praise or disapproval by a coach elicits an emotional reaction from the players. Thus, motives are closely related to emotions. In other words, if the training process is not emotional enough, it is difficult to maintain the necessary motivation for it.
The increase in the emotionality of the training process and the corresponding motivation for it on the part of basketball players is facilitated by the inclusion of outdoor games in the training, the competitive method of organizing exercises, the introduction of background music into certain parts of the training, the presence of spectators at individual training sessions, encouraging the emotional behavior of the players, the emotional behavior of the coach himself .
Development of team traditions. The formation of a close-knit team of players and team spirit is one of the important means of increasing the motivation of basketball players for the training process.
When a player begins to feel that his personal efforts help to solve collective problems, he has a different attitude to the training process. The development of the team's traditions is facilitated by the unified sportswear of the players, the organization of festive rituals, for example, on the birthdays of the players or the reception of new team members, commemorative tournaments and tournaments of team veterans, festive evenings after the end of the season, etc.
Special decoration of the room for the team can also become a tradition, as B. Knight described it.
Motivation is a year-round process. Players need to know what we expect from their games. We have a lot of slogans that we put up in the team room. One of them: "Victory loves those teams that are less likely to make mistakes." Basketball is a game of mistakes, and the team that makes fewer mistakes has the best chance of winning.
Pete Newell, who in my opinion is the best basketball coach in the world, shared this view: “Basketball is a simple game.
You must hit more accurately than the opponent and make more throws. If you hit more accurately than they do, it says about your attack. If you hit more than they do, it speaks to your defense."
Another of our slogans: "Calmness and movement are equal to an accurate throw." I also encourage mine to read and leave materials in the locker room that I believe will help the player in their development as both a citizen and a player, motivation keeps your players doing what is necessary to play basketball successfully.
Making collective decisions. Discussing the goals and particular tasks of the training process with the team, making collective decisions on training and lifestyle issues under the guidance of a coach significantly increase the players' motivation for the training process. An excellent example of this is the experience of B. Knight.
Goals are set for the whole team, in accordance with this, static information is collected at each game, with which the players get acquainted after the end of the game, dividing it into three groups - attack, defense and general.
On the side of each goal, leave a place to mark the result. If we have reached the goal, we write down the percentage in black, if not, we make a mark in red. Goals should be challenging enough, but achievable. We've maxed out at eight goals in a single game, and have averaged five goals in every game over the last two seasons.
Attack targets: field goals - 52%; free throws - 75%; losses -10%.
Objectives of defense: 1) to prevent the opponent from scoring more than 65 points per game; 2) to prevent the opponent from exceeding 42% of the effectiveness in shots from the field; 3) prevent any of the opponent's players from scoring more than 20 points; 4) force the opponent to make 214 losses.
General goals: 1) score first in each half; 2) pick up 58% of all bounces; 3) commit no more than 16 personal fouls; 4) make 12 throws more than the opponent.
If you achieve all these goals, it will be impossible to lose. It is not enough to tell a player to play to the best of their ability.:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13128999/KELDON_JOHNSON_MBB2018_01_CW_600x900.jpg)
This task must be specified in numbers.
At first glance it seems that Knight is talking about a special psychological preparation for the competition. However, it is not difficult to imagine how the players begin to relate to the training process after making these kinds of collective decisions.
Personal characteristics of a coach. A strong motivating factor in the conscientious attitude of players to the training process is the personality of the coach himself.
To quote B. Knight again: “Motivation starts with the coach. We must motivate ourselves daily. I try to do this by going to every training session, counting everything from the moment I enter the court, for example, if there is any of the players that I need to reprimand in order to set them up for a good job.
Among the many characteristics of a coach's personality that help motivate players, one should first of all name confidence, exactingness, optimism and perseverance, curiosity and professional intuition.
The coach must be confident in his competence and the decisions he makes. We must remember: the fact that your team is not in the top three, and you yourself are not yet part of the coaching elite, constantly mentioned in the media, does not mean that you cannot train. Your confidence instills faith in your students.
The coach must be equally exacting (we are talking about discipline) to all players. Otherwise, he will begin to lose confidence in himself. It is good if behind his firmness the players will feel friendliness, respect for themselves. In the end, the success of the coach and the success of his students are interdependent, which is a sufficient basis for mutual respect.
Coach's optimism helps players to overcome the inevitable difficulties of the training process. Everyone understands that it's easier to be optimistic when your team is winning. If she loses, it is useful to recall the statement of Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci that 90% of their experiments ended in failure.
But they were persistent, and this ultimately determined their success. Remind your students of this.
Dictionaries define curiosity as the desire to acquire new knowledge; inquisitiveness. At first glance, the coach's curiosity concerns only himself. In fact, everything in the communication between an athlete and a coach is interconnected. An inquisitive coach is always eager to learn more about the secrets of his profession. His wide erudition helps him explain to the players the patterns of the training process and the need to use certain means of training in it. Knowledge of this kind helps players to form a meaningful positive attitude towards the training process.
But it's not so much about that, but about the fact that the training process is too multifaceted, and each player is too individual to give recipes for all occasions in advance. The most necessary at the moment ways of influencing students, including to increase their motivation, the coach helps to find professional intuition, the development of which is determined, on the one hand, by practical experience, and on the other hand, by the desire to acquire new knowledge, or curiosity.
Summing up, it should be noted that, according to one of the country's leading hockey coaches V.V. Tikhonov, the final meaning of the coach's activity is not physical, technical or tactical training, but the formation of the will of the ward. And the development of the will is associated primarily with the formation of a rich motivational and semantic sphere of the players. And the coach must know how to do it.
In addition to the formation of players' motivation, the coach's task also includes the formation of a system of attitudes towards different aspects of the training process. "The system of relations determines the nature of the experiences of the individual, the peculiarities of the perception of reality, the nature of behavioral reactions to external influences." The elements of the system of players' attitudes to the training process are the attitude to sports training in general, the attitude to physical activity, the attitude to training sessions, the attitude to the sports regime.
In order to create a positive attitude of players towards sports training in general, the coach should not determine the team's starting line-up during the pre-season. It is better for him to constantly change the starting five so that the substitutes do not feel useless. According to B. Cosey, the late deadlines for determining the starting five make the entire team take a more responsible attitude to the training process.
D. Wooden advises ending each practice session on a positive note so that the coach and players look forward to the next session. If the coach and players end a session in an irritated or pessimistic state, they are unlikely to look forward to the next session and have to start under difficult conditions that might not be there.
Fear of large training loads is basically removed by good motivation. Hockey coach V.V. Tikhonov talked about the "barriers" that are built in front of each athlete and coach in his activity and which must be overcome in order to move on.
His main ideas included the following provisions:
1) there are no limits in loads;
2) the idea that one should take care of oneself is wrong. As soon as the thought of “saving” oneself appears, the athlete ends there: he was unable to overcome such a barrier;
3) the athlete must strive to be in peak form all the time, avoiding a drop in form.
V.V. Tikhonov sees it in breaking the barrier of fear - the fear of burden.
D. Wooden also spoke about the experience of developing positive attitudes towards large training loads through the collective acceptance of what he called “training rules”. Here are some of them: “Never think about your bruises and fatigue. If you are tired, think about how your opponent might have run out of steam”; “The condition is improved by hard training work after you are exhausted. Force yourself to work when you get tired”; "Set a goal for yourself to be in better condition than your supposed opponents." Copies of these jointly agreed rules are given to each player on the team, after which, according to Wooden, he must either agree with them or leave the team.
Practice has shown that following the principles formulated above significantly speeds up the process of transferring the nature of the team's activities from collective to joint.
References:
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educational activity: materials of the annual scientific session of the BPA May 25,
2000 - St. Petersburg: BPA, 2000.
[2] Wooden D. Modern basketball / Per. from English. and foreword. E.R. Yakhonotov. - M.: Fizkultura i sport, 1987.
[3] Gomelsky A.Ya. Basketball team management. - 2nd ed., add. - M.: Fizkultura i sport, 1985.
[4] Gomelsky A.Ya. Prove yourself right by winning. — M.: Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1987.
[5] Gorbunov G.D. Psychopedagogy of sports. - M .: Physical culture and sport, 1986.
[6] Daimatsu H. Follow me / Per. from Japanese.
