Puzzled about why your performance has
plummeted? Try these eight ways to get your sports mojo back in
action.
Even professional athletes struggle with performance downturns. Andre Agassi slipped from No. 1 to No. 141 in world rankings in the late '90s before climbing his way back up to the top. Tiger Woods did not win a major in '03 or '04, only to win six since.
Sports psychologist Jay Granat, Ph.D., voted one
of the "Top 10 Mental Gurus" by Golf
Digest, says he often treats patients suffering from
performance slumps. Some descend so low, they want to quit their
sport. "They've consulted pros and gotten new equipment,
but nothing works," Granat says.
In Depth: How To Overcome Your Exercise
Slump
Getting out of a slump is a matter of harnessing your mental game and working on your concentration. Step one: identify the problem.
Quite often, a slump in exercise pep stems from stress at home or work that follows you into the gym or onto the course. Managing stress is one of the first steps toward beating your slump.
Slumps leave your confidence shot, so you also need to focus on the positives in your game and set realistic mental and physical goals.
Performance drops are most commonly seen in
non-contact sports like golf or bowling, where the individual's
mental focus is key. Situations like losing a match to a co-worker
or missing the final putt in a golf tournament can haunt players
for years and subsequently affect their performance, sports
psychologist Granat says.
The best thing you can do in those situations is forget the past. Bad experiences result in negative self-talk, causing players to over-think the nuts and bolts of their game.
"If things aren't going perfectly, you can magnify the problem," says Shawn Arent, assistant professor at Rutgers' department of exercise science and sport studies.
In the case of golf, once confidence is shot, players start gripping the club too tightly, releasing putts too early, or focusing too intently on holes to come, rather than focusing on the stroke at hand.
The bottom line: Experts agree that exercise slumps are all in your head. Overcome whatever stress and strain you bring to your game, and you can climb out of your low.
"The brain doesn't distinguish between physiological and psychological stresses," Arent says. "They all add up and can affect your endurance." "On the one hand, exercise does reduce anxiety," Arent adds. "But on the other hand, your performance may suffer based on your stress level."
Everyone has ups and downs, even the pros. The sooner you view shortcomings as an opportunity for improvement, rather than a failure, the better off you will be.
In Depth: How To Overcome Your Exercise Slump
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