Mental strength key to success

Kota Kinabalu: Nowadays, a vast majority of elite athletes recognise the importance of psychological training for competition and many great athletes also credit the mental side of the game as crucially important in determining the outcome.So it becomes increasingly important to integrate the mental and physical aspect of performance of each athlete as opposed to before where coaches and athletes have devoted most of their attention to only the physical components of performance.

In order to maximise the State Sukma athletes in their mental aspect, National Sports Institute of Malaysia Sabah Centre has been given the task by the State Sports Ministry and according to Nursyaditina Ain Darussamin, who is the head of the centre here in Sabah, they are going in the right direction.

"Our athletes have benefited a lot with the knowledge provided by us over the years and our main task is to maximise their ability in their respective sport through sports psychology.

"What we do is to emphasise on mental management and the athletes will be set a certain target on what they have to achieve in the tournament they competed in."

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She said the nine state karate exponents who are taking part in the ongoing Thailand Open Karate Championship is a very good example on how it works to improve their mental prowess.

"All of the athletes except one are first timers competing in an international event and they will have to try the mental training that they have practised such as self talk, imagery and relaxation among others.

"Most importantly for them here is relaxation because they need to be more relaxed during their bouts especially with the pressure in competing in this international event where many foreign countries are taking part.

"My job is to give motivation, monitoring their mood during competition and we also make assessment before and during the competition followed by postmortem upon their return, and I will also meet them every night in our schedule.

She disclosed that the athletes were not set any target for the competition in Thailand and only serve as a platform to test their mental strength.

"It is just a training routine for their mental strength and to gain experience for those who make it to the Sukma Games next year and I would like to see them to be able to control their emotion, to stay focused, to work on their mental imagery as well as positive self-talk.

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"And in the postmortem, a video will be shown so they can see for themselves their mood and facial expression during the competition and this is very important as I want them to put up a more improved, focused facial expression in their future outings."

She said basically what sport psychology does for the athlete is to teach each of them how to identify the factors that lead to good performance and those that lead to poor performance.

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