week 2

week 2 - 4/04/14:

aim of the week: to develop/increase your arousal in order to improve perfromance.

Hi, this week I am going to implement an arousal programme for you, by the way thanks for viewing last weeks blogs of goal setting i hope it has helped.

Arousal has been defined as state of anticipation and alertness that prepare the body for action.

It is evident form the Questionnaires administered that you don't have a high anxiety levels, I have however observed and from my chats with you it is obvious that you are a very laid back individual who would benefit from increasing  his arousal level up to improve performance.

Arousal effects on sports performance

The effect on sport is that your arousal levels different depending on what outcome you are willing to achieve. If your arousal level is high, then you will be more motivated to win and if you win it will increase the meaning of that win. If your arousal levels are low then it means that you are more likely to not perform as you normally can. Arousal is mental and physical. It is psychic energy-the activation of certain parts of the central nervous system that leads to physiological and behavioural changes. You can partially control arousal and thereby improve your functioning as an individual as well as an athlete.

generally there are two categories in which arousal falls into which are physiological and psychological, i will explain the symptoms of both:

Physiological/somatic:

•      Increased heart rate
•    Intense blood circulation
•   Sweat
•    Digestion slows
•       Jelly legs
•   Muscle tension

Psychological/cognitive:

•     Stressed
•   Negative thoughts
•    Reaction time
•     Overthinking
•       Mind wonder

by creating the optimal mental aleartness, interest and focus it means you need to be activated appropiately for the task. futhermore this means increasing your arousal levels. some performers prefer to increase their mental and physical arousal levels by constantly taking short, sharp and shallow breaths. i would like to ask any of the performers to try this breathing technique and then if they can accompany themselves with anything that naturally increases their arousal. it is physchologically proven that an athlete can short vigorous activity or perhaps muscles tensing can also help. however i would just like to clarify that this does not generally activate any emotional or mental aspects of arousal.

Inverted U theory:

An increase in arousal causes improvement in performance which eventually reaches optimal level. However after this point increased arousal leads to deteriorated performance.

There are a number of factors that affect position of the zone of optimal functioning:

The top athletes have an optimal arousal/anxiety level (3 categories of athlete low ZOF, mid ZOF and High ZOF). These 3 categories can be emphasised on depending on how the athlete’s performance is as well the intensity. Having a balance of both being good will result in hitting superior optimal ability. When an athlete is in the zone they often report a feeling of calmness, an ability to read the game and to also produce skills effortlessly.

Your skill level can affect your individual zone of optimal functioning. This can affect this because your skill level can vary. If you look at an athlete with an elite skill level who has mastered everything in their particular sport then they will be in the zone as they will know the correct techniques to use. An example of this would be football superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic he has conquered the 4 European leagues Your personality can also affect the way your ability is optimising. Showing a good attitude can help on the way you behave and perform. If you look at someone like Lionel Messi who is currently hailed as the best footballer in the world, he isn’t ill mannered or loud as soon as he steps onto the pitch his general attitude towards the opposition and the referee is very good which enables him to optimise in his ability and perform well. In conclusion to this if you look at his statistics it proves that he is optimising as they will blow you away. On the other hand if you look at someone with a bad personality e.g. Joey Barton his ability in football isn’t so good, mainly because his general attitude stinks and isn’t able to perform that well. If you look at the types of skills being performed by a professional footballer such as Cristiano Ronaldo he is able to do them at a fast pace and can literally do any trick in the book. This shows he has superior optimal ability. An example could perhaps be the stopover skill where he is able to dazzle past defenders and leave them for dust. On the other hand if you look at a footballer who hasn’t got such a high status they may not be able to perform skills with such a high intensity because they won’t have had enough practises and will be new to the skill. There is a difference between fine skills such as a golf put and a penalty kick. You most likely would want your arousal level to be low as you want to be calm in the situation. On the hand a sprinter would want to be hyped up fully by wanting the crowd to cheer him on so he would want a high arousal level also known as wanting the 12^th man behind him.

music can be a soloution to solving your problems, maybe you can choose some songs that really get you going. in particular look at tunes that spark emotion and aleartness examples could be the song "eye of the tiger" from the famous Rocky Balboa movie. however fast pitched songs with a good beat arent alwatys the soloution maybe you can listen to slower songs with a slower tempo which will eventually provide a powerful emotion.