Coaches' Winning Psychological Strategies for Champions
Department
Health Promotion and Physical Education
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2007
Abstract
An athlete’s performance often reflects a coach’s competence. If a coach is unable to mentally prepare athletes for competition, the athletes may not achieve peak performance due to psychological barriers such as competitive anxiety. Coaches’ power and their coaching behaviors have a profound impact on athletes’ psychological well-being. Thus, the focal points of this paper are to examine the following four issues (1) coaches’ psychological pressures before or during competition, (2) coaches’ common misbehaviors, (3) athletes’ anxiety processes responding to coaches’ negative behaviors, and (4) the successful model of the Olympic coaches’ psychological strategies trained by the author for the preparations of the Olympic gold and silver medalists in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.