Sports Therapy
Athletes, professional and non-professional alike, experience intense pressures that arise from competition, focus, motivation, and physical injuries. Sports therapy is a specialized therapy focused on how psychology influences sports, athletic performance, exercise, physical activity, and recovery from injuries. The focus is to understand what motivates athletes and how athletes can improve their performance.
Sports Therapy Techniques
Counseling athletes and non-athletes alike to learn how to enjoy sports, release pressure and performance anxiety, provide support during recovery from an injury, and improve performance and stick to an exercise program.
- Attentional Focus: Involves the ability to tune out distractions and focus attention on the task at hand.
- Mental Conditioning: Utilizing visualization, concentration and relaxation techniques to perform a task, such as participating in an athletic event or successfully performing a particular skill.
- Motivation: Examining both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. Extrinsic motivators are external rewards, such as trophies, money, medals, or social recognition. Intrinsic motivators arise from within, such as a personal desire to win or the sense of pride that comes from performing a skill.
- CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy): Identifying the source of the stress and understanding the emotional response to the stress, empowering a more constructive response.
Sports Therapy Treatment
Sports therapy helps identify underlying thought patterns and behaviors that contribute to diminished athletic performance. By identifying the causes of pressure and anxiety and the emotional response, more helpful and healthy alternative responses can be formed. Formation of effective goals, visualization, relaxation strategies, and self-talk techniques enhance psychological skills that invariably improve athletic and sporting performance.