Integrating psychology

MORE PSYCHOLOGY ON THE MOUNTAIN

In 2004/2005, EIS Psychologist Simon Timson travelled with the GB Women’s Ski Squad to provide sports psychology support in the field. In his first dispatch, as well as discovering what it was like to face an Olympic standard downhill course first-hand, he explained how he developed key partnerships with coaches and athletes in a new sport.

Timson recently joined up with the squad in Santa Caterina, Italy, to continue his work and here, he provides a rare insight into the psychology of performance skiing and how psychological support can have a positive effect…

“Aldous Huxley once said, “Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.” Sport psychologists consistently preach the virtues of self-awareness, reflection, and learning from your experiences.

Having crashed skiing from lift to the women’s downhill course start area, then successfully coped with my nerves and doubts about skiing out of the course on race day at the Lake Louise World Cup in December 2004, you may reasonably expect me to feel confident strapping my skis on at the top of the World Championship course in Santa Caterina this year.

So what I had I learned from my Canadian adventure? I know that I can safely ski a downhill course. The practice and race day routines are familiar, I’ve developed good relationships with the coaches and support staff, and I’ve got a clear plan for providing effective support to athlete and coaches.  In addition, I’m aware of colleagues who have worked successfully in this environment and the coaches are complimentary about my skiing.

So taking Huxley’s advice, there I was using my knowledge and experience to provide more and hopefully better support on the piste. Sport psychologists often talk about self-efficacy, which is psychobabble for feeling confident, or not, in a particular situation.

Self-efficacy has four key determinants with previous accomplishments being the strongest followed by vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and arousal control. On this basis, I should have been feeling confident up a mountain at 8am on sunny morning in Italy so why was I nervous again?

Don’t underestimate the power of verbal persuasion and arousal control! Ernst, the British Women’s Ski Team’s new technician, had smiled as he gave me a pair of skis the previous evening whilst telling me that, “they don’t have much in the way of edges but they’re ok.” No edges! As any recreational skier knows, the secret to remaining upright on ice is good edges. Equally, we all know that a World Championship course is going to be steep and icy. So my mind sets to work;

“Its going to be icy and I’ve got no edges, I’m certain to crash and make a fool of myself.”

“I crashed last year in Lake Louise! Everyone will laugh at me and think I’m incompetent.”

“What if I crash and break a leg? That would be really embarrassing.”

“I’m going to have to concentrate really hard tomorrow.”

Added to which, I also began to imagine and visualise myself sliding out of control and crashing the next morning. Suddenly, having not had the best night’s sleep and several coffees later, I find myself at the top of the lift and somewhat nervous, heart pumping, muscles tense, and worried sick about crashing embarrassingly in front of the world’s best skiers and their coaches.

“Practice what I preach! I know more about coping with nerves than most, surely I can take control of my mindset and approach this confidently.”

Unfortunately, the self-fulfilling prophecy and one of the oldest sport psychology clichés in the book (what you see is what you get) was at work here, and sure enough my worst fears and images of myself crashing became reality. Skiing past a group of coaches on a steep section of the course, I caught an edge (a blunt one of course) and catapulted myself head first out of my bindings some 50 metres or so down the piste.

Researchers in sport psychology have spent considerable time investigating the relationship between cognitive (worrying thoughts about performance) and somatic (feelings of tension, restlessness or nausea) anxiety and performance. Therefore, there is plenty of evidence to support and explain the self-fulfilling prophecy. Anxiety effects our ability to produce efficient movement patterns and perform skilfully by impairing timing, reaction time, and decision making. It may also hamper concentration by causing attentional narrowing whereby the athlete loses awareness of important environmental information or muscular feedback.

Whilst the consequences of performance anxiety were little more than a bruised nose and hurt pride for me, it can have far more serious consequences for athletes in high speed sports such as downhill skiing. Attentional narrowing could lead to a skier missing important sensual information from their skis in a turn resulting in a technical error and missing a gate. At worst it may affect a skiers timing in preparation for a jump leading a serious crash.

Therefore, sports psychology plays an important role in helping skiers to be more aware of their thoughts, emotions, and feelings immediately prior to and during racing. Identifying your preferred performance state (physical and emotional) is the first step. Creating a repeatable yet flexible plan of how you will get into your preferred state is the second step. There is no single formula for a creating plans because we all experience different thoughts and emotions of varying intensity in response to similar situations. Plans must be individual. They may include relaxation techniques, positive thought control, visualisation, goal setting, and a game plan (e.g. the desired racing line and key reference points).

Skiers have long been a model of good practice in mental preparation for athletes from other sports. However, coaches and support teams are increasingly recognising the impact that they can have on a skier’s confidence and in minimising potentially harmful anxiety.

Lastly, it is also important that coaches and support staff learn to monitor and control their own nerves and anxiety. Athletes can easily observe signs of anxiety in those closest to them. This can exaggerate or even change their own thoughts and feelings for better or worse. Many of the same techniques used to help athletes cope effectively can also be applied to support teams. Sport psychology has an important role to play in helping entire support teams cope effectively with the pressures of competition and perform to their best.”

Simon Timson