Week 1
As a sports phychologist i needed to find out James Lloyd's strengths and areas for improvement and i believe that having an informal meeting i would find out about James by asking valid questions about his sports performance and finding out how and why his level of performance has decreased.
The meeting has been regarded as an successful one as my findings were that he lacks in confidence during match situations and also he rarely reaches optimum arousal level which are both huge factors of why his decrease in performance levels, an example of a question which was asked during the meeting is "During a match which you are leading , do you ever feel like that you could lose the match ?" and James answer was "Yes as i feel tired and feel like the opponent is better than me? " which is one of the main questions which pointed me to right direction that he lacks confidence and hasnt got enough arousal during matches.
Week 2
For week 2 , I introduced imagery which i used Rothley Tennis Club as the location to try to get James's imagination working to maximum potential, at first i told James to imagine he was playing at his full potential in an important match which he was hitting baseline shots which were unstoppable to hit back, i believe standing on his own tennis clubs courts made it more realistic and also James could imagine more as his next match was on these courts.
After using imagery on the court, i asked James to have a match with me and to also take the match very seriously trying to hit winning baseline shots every chance possible, i believe this training strategy worked as he rarely missed a shot and also forced me into many mistakes , i also believe that the strategy wouldnt of worked if any other sports phychologist attempted the strategy they wouldnt have the tennis ability to be able to compete and give James a good game and to give him the chance to play the ball back at his maximum potential.
Week 3
Week 3 was based in the clients house which involved writing up an imagery script which is beneficial so i as a sports phychologist could understand what he is was imagining and to make sure it was realistic and beneficial towards his performance, James wrote down on his imagery script that he was imagining that he was in a tournament final and his coach has told him that he must play powerful baseline shots in order to win the match, he goes out there after the break and hits every shot possible towards the baseline so the opponent can not reach the ball , James also said that after the imagery strategy he believes that it helped him in the practice match which he played against me.
I do believe the strategy was successful as James said it benefited his performance but i also think that James might need to the imagery work before every match in order to raise his confidence and so that he can be aroused in order to win the match.
Week 4
In week 4 I introduced goal setting to James which is one of the training strategies which can maintain arousal , i firstly explained to james that there is many types of goals which you can set and benefit you many different ways.
- Subjective goals - General statements of intent such as having fun or doing your best.
- Objective goals - Attaining a specific standard of proficiency on a task, usually in specified time.
- Outcome goal - Focus on achieving a victory in a
competitive situation (e.g., beat someone). - Performance goal - Focus on achieving standards based on one’s previous performances, not on the outcome of others (e.g., increase shot accuracy percentage).
- Process goal - Focus on the actions an individual must engage in during performance to execute
or perform well.
All the different goals are used for various different performance aspects and i believe the performanc goal will work well the imagery strategy as he could set a performance goal before every match which will focus on different aspects of James game , for example increasing forehand top spin accuracy, if James does imagery before matches and also sets a performance goal then these could work together and increased his performance levels and also obtain optimum arousal.
Week 5
In week 5 we went over the Goals that could be set depending on the opponent and court which James is playing and we also went over the importance of the goals being SMART.
· Specific - Specific to the sport
· Measurable - able to understand if goals are met
· Achievable - a goal which is not impossible to achieve
· Realistic - Realistic to achieve and not impossible
· Time based - realistic with time which you have to achieve the goal
It is important to be a smart goal so James can develop the goal or advance and progress if the goal is
achieved, after looking over James next opponent who is an experienced baseliner we have come to
conclusion that the SMARTest goal to have is to play as many drop shots as possible forcing the
opponent to come to the net so he cant play his powerful baseline shot.
Week 6
The final week of the programme and the De-Brief session is looking over all of the previous sessions and making sure the client understand what he needs to do to maintain his optimum arousal and to also keep high confidence during matches which involves never giving up .
The question i asked James at the end of the De-Brief was if he feels the 6 week training programme was beneficial and was going to improve his overall performance and he answered the question saying " Yes it has been a brilliant experience i think i can go into matches now obviously depending on the importance and the opponent with optimum arousal and also high confidence as long as i stick to the training strategies."
