Concentration in the field of sports

1. Concentration
Ville Lehtinen, Anastasiia Dorokhova, Georgii Iosava, Klavdia
Bukina

2. Table of contents
• What is it?
• Parts of concentration
• Concentration -> optimal performance
• Types of attentional focus
• Attentional problems
• Self-talk
• Types of self-talk
• Test of Attentional and Intentional Style (TAIS)
• Improving concentration

3. What is it?
• Concentration = person’s ability to exert deliberate mental
effort on what is most important in any given situation

4. Parts of concentration
a) Focusing on relevant cues (selective attention)
• Eliminating environmental cues
• For example, athlete focuses on his performance and tries not
to pay attention to disturbing environment (crowd etc.)
b) Maintaining attentional focus over time
• Can be difficult -> median length of time during which thought
content remains on target is approximately 5 seconds
• For example, long periods of focus are needed in golf and
shooting
• Athletes exercise focus maintaining

5. Parts of concentration
c) Having awareness of the situation
• Athlete´s ability to understand what is going around him
• This ability allows players to size up game
situations, opponents and competitions -> making appropriate
decisions (often under acute pressure and time demands)
d) Shifting attentional focus
• Ability to alter the scope and focus of attention as demanded
by the situation
• For example, ice hockey player sitting on a penalty box must
focus on happenings on ice, the coach and the clock as well.
After he gets to ice he shifts his focus on game itself.

6. Concentration->Optimal
Performance
• 3 out of 8 physical and mental capacities are associated with
concentration:
a) Being absorbed in the process (no past or future)
b) Being mentally relaxed and having a high degree of
concentration and control
c) Being in a state of extraordinary awareness of both their
bodies and the external environment
Garfield & Bennett, 1984; Jackson & Csikszentmihalyi, 1999

7. Types of Attentional Focus
(AF)
• Broad AF (several occurrences simultaneously)
• Narrow AF (only 1-2 cues)
• External AF (attention directed outward)
• Internal AF (attention directed inward)

8. Attentional problems
Internal Distracters
• attending to past
events
• attending to future
events
• choking under
pressure
• overanalyzing body
mechanics
• fatigue
• inadequate motivation
External Distracters
• visual distracters
• auditory distracters
• gamesmanship

9. Self-talk
• Self talk is another potential internal distracter(
although it can also be a way to deal with
distractions).
• Uses of self-talk:
1. Enhancing concentration
2. Breaks bad habits
3. Initiating action
4. Sustaining effort

10. Types of self-talk
1. Positive self-talk (increases efforts, energy and
makes positive attitude.)
2. Instructional self-talk( helps to focus on the
technical or task related aspects of the
performance)
3. Negative self-talk( critical and self-
demeaning, also counterproductive and produce
anxiety

11. Test of Attentional and Intentional
Style as a Trait Measure ( TAIS)
• TAIS is a trait measure of a person’s generalized way
of attending to the environment
• It helps to identify particular attentional
weaknesses for the athletes and coaches to work on
• But TAIS does not consider situational factors, that’s
why it was criticized by other researchers

12. Improving concentration
• Why we should do it? -To be able to maintain a
focus on relevant environmental cues.
• How we can do it to make it more effective?-
Using imagery, controlling arousal levels and
setting performance and process goals.

13. Use simulations in practice
Simulation training
• You can prepare yourself to cope with
distractions and the environmental conditions by
systematically practicing.
• You can change/mirror the potential conditions
of the competition by including climatic
conditions, tournament rules, crowd
bias, opponent styles of play.
• You will prepare yourself mentally.
• Simulation practicing with distractions can help
you to develop focus.

14. Cue words, nonjudgmental
thinking, competition plans
• Cue words are used to trigger a particular
response and are really a form of self-talk. They
must be familiar and well learned before
being used in competition.
• They can be: instructional, motivational and
emotional.

15. • Learn how to look at your actions
nonjudgmentally.
• You should not ignore errors and mistakes but
you should see your performance as it is, without
adding judgments.
• Competition plans are helping to prepare yourself
for what you would do in different
circumstances, and also to develop “what if”
approach-prepare a plan for the different
situations.
• Plans can help to focus and maintain attention
throughout the competition.

16. Eye control, overlearn skills
• The key to eye control is to make sure your eyes
do not wander to irrelevant cues.
• Looking at the opposition can result in a loss of
concentration.
• Overlearning helps make the performance of a
skill automatic.
• It helps to keep concentrations in the
competitive situation and to establish automatic
attentional processes.