Annika is now competing in gymnastics at level 7; there are a number of new and difficult moves she now has to perfect. One of these, as an example, is the back hand spring on the beam. Annika is at the point where she can successfully do it, but only when her coach is spotting her; and barely spotting her at that. On the drive hope we talked about mental preparation; I’m not sure that this has been discussed in any depth at the gym, and I think Annika is at the point now where she needs to be aware of the importance of, and practice, mental exercises to get her ready for competitions.
This morning I found this link, to help introduce Annika to the idea and importance of your mental game. This will be the start of a new journey, beyond the physical realm. Some excerpts from that link:
Shannon Miller, an Olympic Gold Medalist in gymnastics, agrees that mental preparation is key to success—and she says she couldn’t have gotten to the Olympics on physical ability alone. “The physical aspect of the sport can only take you so far. The mental aspect has to kick in, especially when you’re talking about the best of the best,” she says. “In the Olympic games, everyone is talented. Everyone trains hard. Everyone does the work. What separates the gold medalists from the silver medalists is simply the mental game.”
“When you are an elite athlete, one of the best in the world, the physical differences between you and your peers are very, very small.” says Scott Grafton, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Dana Foundation grantee, who studies action representation, or how the brain organizes movement into a goal-oriented action. “So what really determines success? The way athletes are approaching their sport at the cognitive level.”
Leading up to the 1996 Olympic Games, Miller and “Magnificent Seven” teammate Dominique Moceanu practiced six to eight hours a day, six days a week. Even on days of competition, Miller says she would practice her routines up to ten times before performing for the judges. “We did a lot of repetitions. It was important to help perfect your routines, of course. But it also helped with the mental game,” she says. “With that much practice, you knew when you got into a competition situation, and you were a little bit nervous, you wouldn’t blank. You could count on your muscle memory taking over simply because you had done the routine so many times.”
And, according to Moceanu, not overthinking things is important. “Right before I would go up on any apparatus, I would just say a little prayer and then let it all go,” she says. “I let it go to autopilot and let my training take over. Because if you try to think too much, you overwhelm yourself and end up making uncharacteristic mistakes.”
For example, Moceanu says that her mental game has been very beneficial to the rest of her life. “Sport is a model for life and it’s helped me with my entire life, with my focus, discipline, and reaching my goals,” she says. “You learn how to budget your time, to work hard, and to balance things. It’s invaluable.”
Moceanu agrees. “I’ve seen so many gifted athletes not make it because they couldn’t handle the sport mentally. It’s such a huge part of gymnastics—really any sport once you get to a certain level. Only those with a strong mind are going to compete at a high level. Only those with a strong mind are going to win.”
Another link.