Sport Psychology

Book excerpt: Think about your favourite sport. Now ask yourself how much of success in that sport is down to physical skills and how much is down to mental skills? We all know that physical skills are vital for performance and understand about training them. We know that psychology is important too, but what people actually do to understand and train in it is less well known. Sport Psychology: A complete introduction gives you the answers, explaining everything you need to know in one place. Structured in two parts, theory and application, part one defines the idea of personality and covers essential psychological traits, including mental toughness, confidence, motivation, stress and character. Part two covers topics such as assessment, skills training, coping techniques, building concentration and working with coaches and teams. You will also find substantial coverage of measurement questionnaires, skills and routes to practice. As well as learning about how the mind works and how that has an impact on sporting performance, you will discover what sport psychologists actually do to improve a performer's psychological skills and mindset. Sport psychology used to be simply about performance. Now, the role of the sport psychologist is more holistic and includes athlete wellbeing, working with coaches and support teams, and operating at a more organizational level. Whether you are a student, interested in sport and sport performance as a professional practice, or involved in sport at any level, Sport Psychology: A complete introduction is your go-to guide.