What is Mental Preparation?
To be mentally prepared means preparing ahead of time to be your best. This increases your self-confidence and keeps you focused during the game because you will have thought in advance about what you want to do in any situation. This in turn will improve your performance.
Just as you exercise your body to be in shape to play the game, you must exercise your mind to be in shape to play the game. If your body is ready but your mind is not, you will probably not get the results you want.
Mental preparation for a game should start long before the puck drops. It means thinking about how you will position yourself, challenge your opponents and manoeuvre the puck. By the time the game begins, you should already have visualized your performance. Both players and coaches need to have a personal mental game plan, which means a personal strategy on how they intend to perform during the game.
As you go up in levels, you will encounter more and more talented athletes. While team skills are equal and player skills are comparable, the difference between success and failure will be found in the mental game.
The Importance of Transition
Everyone has "lots of stuff" going on in his life. The mentally prepared hockey player is able to put that "stuff" aside and put himself in game mode. Each player and coach needs to determine what it means to be in game mode. For some, it might involve listening to music. For others, it might involve a personal ritual. It does not matter what you do as long as it works for you and it puts you in the hockey mindset for that game. Bringing your life problems or issues into the game will cause problems. It will distract you and your team mates and affect your game. Your problems won't be resolved while you are on the ice; they will still be there when the game is over. Push aside those issues for the game and deal with them after the game. You probably won't enjoy yourself if you think about those problems during the game anyway. Isn't the point of playing, coaching or officiating hockey to have fun?
You can put yourself in game mode by:
- Visualizing yourself in the rink.
- Thinking about what you will do during the game.
- Rehearsing your tactics for various situations.
- Focusing on what you want to accomplish in the game.
You can start when you are at home getting ready to come to the rink. The warm-up is an excellent opportunity to put yourself in game mode. It is more than just a preparation for the body-it is also a time to prepare your mind.
Conditioning Your Mind
You can strengthen and condition your mind to achieve quality results just as you strengthen and condition your body to grow muscles, have more power and be more capable. Conditioning your mind is teaching your mind to think in a certain way to experience or perform a certain activity effectively.
Mental conditioning involves self-talk, visualization, relaxation and concentration. This means handling distractions and creating internal emotional control.
How Do You Mentally Prepare?
It might seem uncomfortable at first to consciously "prepare" your mind. After all, you're used to thinking a certain way and getting yourself to change that thinking requires effort and THINKING!
Here are a few techniques that you can use immediately to condition your mind:
Self-Talk: Talking to yourself can be either uplifting or detrimental. Since your experience in life is determined by what you say to yourself, make sure that you choose your words wisely. Your self-talk will affect your moods, behaviors and ultimately your results. Words such as "smart, amazing, confident, ready" are power words that make you feel good and become self-prophetic. Using power words is positive self-talk.
EXAMPLE: After a disappointing game, if you say to yourself, "I screwed up. I didn't play well. I'm not as good as so and so," chances are you will feel even worse. This kind of talk does not put at your best.
However, if after that disappointing game you tell yourself, "I know that I can play better then what I did today and I will apply myself to do that at the next game. Today was a good learning experience for me and now I'm moving on," then you will probably feel revived and ready to try again harder and better. It's the same situation but with a different self-talk which creates a different outlook and causes a different behavior which will yield different results.
Use Positive Questions: Asking a question is an easy way to direct your self-talk and speak to your mind. No matter what you ask yourself, your brain will always search for an answer.
EXAMPLE: If after a disappointing game, you ask yourself, "How could I have been so stupid as to miss that goal?" your brain will search all its "files" in an attempt to answer you and come up with something like, "Because you don't what you're doing, you're not good at anything, you're so dumb." Now you don't feel so good about yourself while contemplating that answer. This negative self-talk will not help you to be prepared.
However, if after that same disappointing game, you ask yourself, "What did I learn from all this?" then your brain will probably come up with something like, "I need to work on hitting the net in practice" or "I need to relax when I have the puck in front of the opponent's net." It changes your position from feeling bad to feeling like you can do something about the situation. Suddenly, you're feeling empowered instead of discouraged.
Visualizing: Visualizing an outcome before it happens or seeing yourself perform is another way to create success and set yourself up for victory. All of us have a very powerful imagination that we can unleash to help us achieve our dreams. We have all heard the fantastic stories of people overcoming the odds to achieve great feats. How did they do it? Most of them, if not all, saw themselves winning or achieving in their minds first. That is where it starts.
EXERCISE: This exercise will show you how you can see what you will achieve before it happens.
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Stand tall with your arms by your side.
- Reach down and touch your toes.
- Make a mental note how far you can go.
- Stand back up again.
- This time do the same exercise... but in your mind. Stand tall, close your eyes and see yourself in your mind touching your toes.
- With your eyes closed, envision yourself coming to the point where you stopped but this time going even farther. In fact, so far that your head touches your knees and your hands are flat on the floor.
- Now, open your eyes.
- And with your hands and arms actually do the exercise again. Touch your toes.
Did you go farther this time? Most people go about 20% farther. Such is the strength of your mind.
Relaxation: calmness. Calm relaxed states or feelings will help you make logical well-calculated decisions. If you could work a feeling of peace with full energy or power levels ready, then you would be a top performer at your level.
EXERCISE: This exercise will help you achieve a state of tranquility. For 10 minutes:
- Sit comfortably and quietly
- Empty your mind of all thoughts and questions
- Breathe in deeply from your abdomen - expand your rib cage
- Breathe out for a longer time then your breathing in - collapse your rib cage
- When a distracting thought pops up, "shoo" it away with your out breath
- Concentrate on your breathing
- Feel your body moving with the rhythm of your breathing patters
- Doing this act of tranquil meditation before a game will place your mind in a neutral state. It will allow you to start playing with an empty mind so that you can think quickly and respond appropriately to each situation as it presents itself.
Dealing with Distractions
Distractions cause you to turn away from your original focus of interest. If your attention is drawn away from your game, even for a second, then you are distracted. Distractions can test your focus and ability to continue with your current thought. Unwanted noises or interruptions can make a player fan on his shot or lose sight of the puck. Natural distractions such as poor ice quality or ill-fitting equipment can also be distracting.
Distractions are different for players in different age groups. For example,
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5-8 years old:
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A small bird flies in the rink and flutters from one rafter to another. |
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9-10 years old:
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A player with new equipment thinks about how it does not feel right. |
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12-13 years old:
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A player is told by his grandparent that if he scores or gets a |
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shutout, he will receive a gift or money. |
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14-16 years old:
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A player has his new girlfriend watching him for the first time. |
With time, players learn to block out these distractions and stay focused on their game. Most adults would ignore the distractions mentioned in the examples above but to a young player, these can affect how they think and react in a game.
A great way to handle distractions is to deal with them in advance. For example, coaches could play loud music in a practice while drills are going on or they could invite parents and friends in the stands to scream and yell during a practice. After a while, this will eventually aid the players to block out the distractions. Deal with the potential distractions before a game. That way you can focus on what you want in a game and not be preoccupied by what you don't want.
Controlling Your Emotions
Controlling your emotions is a key element to proper mental preparation and conditioning. Aggravation and frustration can be some of the worst feelings to have. They will prevent any player, coach or official from seeing clearly and maintaining the focus of a task.
One of the best and quickest ways to control emotions is by taking a deep breath. It helps to momentarily calm down the nerves. When you are in a calm state, you can think clearly. When people are tense or angry, they tend to hold their breath, which makes it difficult to think rationally.
Fear is another emotion that can cause distraction. It prevents people from achieving the levels of success they deserve. The degree of fear that a player feels will depend on the situation he faces. Imagine going for the puck in the corner and you are in a foot race with another player. Think of what your initial feeling is based on these instances:
- The opponent is ten inches taller than you
- The opponent is six inches shorter than you
- The opponent is a girl
- The opponent is your best friend
- The opponent is the other team's best player
In all of these instances, you may have had different thoughts or feelings when racing for the puck, ranging from confident to passive. Your emotional control is vital to the level of effectiveness you will deliver for that task.
Track Your Mental Conditioning Progress
Tracking your progress in mental conditioning is very similar to tracking your progress in physical conditioning. By writing down what you think, when you think of it and what your feelings are, you will understand why you did what you did. When you look back, you will be able to see your mistakes and successes.
People are creatures of habit. We do something the same way over and over until someone or something shows us differently. By journaling your activities or emotions, you will be able to teach yourself to break your undesirable habits and create new empowering ones. Here is a list of things you can keep track of after a game to help your progress:
- Emotional control: how you are able to control your feelings in a competitive environment
- Concentration: how you can focus on the immediate task at hand
- Handling pressure: how you react when demands are put on you to deliver
- Self-talking: what you say to yourself
- Visualization: what and how you see something in your mind
- Distractions: things that happen around you to get you off your game
Processing all of this information is significant but it does nothing if you do not reflect back on it. In other words, read your journal on a regular basis to see your progress.
Your journaling doesn't have to be fancy or elaborate. You can write in a book, in a binder or even have forms or templates that you fill out for yourself as in the following example.
Category |
Unsuccessful Instances |
Positive Instances |
Emotional control |
After being assessed a penalty, I yelled at the referee. |
After being slashed by another player, I said nothing and continued to play. |
Concentration |
At the end of my shift, I was tired and instead of clearing the puck in their zone, I skated with it and then got hit and retaliated. |
During a shift, I was able to play my position in our zone, clear the puck and get a shot on net. I blocked out the noise form the yelling crowd. |
Handling pressure |
At the end of the game, I had 2 guys on me in my corner and just got rid of the puck which resulted in a shot on our goalie. |
In the final few minutes of the game when we were down, I took a few deep breaths and focused on what I can do to help my team. |
Self-talk |
When I was in the penalty box, I said, "How could I be so stupid?" |
In the final few minutes of the game before my last shift, I said, "I am focused, I am quick, I pass well." |
Visualization |
I was upset with myself and kept thinking of what I had done, instead of what I needed to do for the next shift. |
I sat on the bench before my last shift and could see myself making the pass to my line mate for the tying goal. |
Distractions |
While I was in the penalty box, I kept looking at the fans and thinking, "I wish they would be quiet". |
While I was on the bench, I was able to block out all noises and focus on what I needed to do on the ice. |
Pre-Game Preparation
Pre-game preparation should include reading the power words you wrote for yourself. Saying them over and over will do wonders for your confidence while increasing your concentration and honing your focus. Relaxation should be another element in your preparation. One way to relax is to socialize before a game in the front lobby of a rink and talk with family and friends. Deep breathing in the room while you dress will put you in control. Clear your mind of any distracting thoughts.
Your mental condition is based on how you plan to work your mind. Mental weights include good images, power words and exercising focus through concentration. You do what you need to do to become the best you can. You cannot control your outside surroundings but you can control how you handle them.
Learn more about MENTAL PREPARATION |
www.igotmind.com
Former NHLer, Bob Wilkie, has a program for players and coaches all about having the right mindset and attitude in hockey and life. Learn all about it today!
www.kidssportspsychology.com
Practical, Proven, & Easy-To-Learn Mental
Strategies To Boost Sports Kids' Confidence & Success.
www.mentalgame.com
National Sports Marketing Group has developed a unique mental program called "The Mental Game Plan" (MGP), which enhances athletic success. The program offers the athlete a plan for self development through goal setting and develops a formula for self improvement.
Other Resources:
The Complete Player by Dr. Saul L. Miller
Sports Psyching by Dr. Thomas Tutko
www.flowinsports.com Sports psychology coach Lior Doron provides personal and practical mental skills exercises.
The Hockey Source does not necessarily endorse all the information on the linked pages it provides.
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