Ask the Experts - Fitness

Answers from John Shepherd:

Q. I’m a provincial level Badminton player and have been training for three years. I train every day and take my sport very seriously. However, when it comes to tournament I play no where near my capabilities. I play amazing in practice, but once I go to tournaments, I lose in the 3rd or 4th round...then I look at the finals and ‘know’ I can beat them. This has been happening for 2 years. Do you have any suggestions?

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Answer:

There are numerous stories of sportsmen and women leaving their best performances on he training field or court. And there are equally numerous possible reasons for this, most of them reside in the realm of the psychological.

It’s possible, for example, that you have created a mind-set that says, ‘do well in training, not competition’. This could be born out of familiarity. You know ‘your’ training surroundings - you may know your opponents (training partners), you have a precise training time and so on. All this means that you’ve created a winning situation that reinforces success. Unfortunately you’ve established this in the wrong place. You need to do the same for your match-play. Here’s one mental strategy - visualisation. See yourself winning tournaments, beating those players you say you can beat. Experience the smell and feel of the tournament and play it over and over in your mind. See yourself winning from every match situation. Do this and the chances are you will do so in competition.

To further change your mind-set I believe you should re-consider your approach to training. I don’t want you to go through the motions in practise, but then I don’t want you to leave it all on the training court. Here’s a strategy I use in my own sprint training and competition preparation. I see all my workouts (and some less important competitions) as stepping zones on the way to peak performance in a major competition. I have a plan and the plan starts with the comps. By focussing on them and working toward them in training I automatically begin to programme my brain to unleash my best at the ‘right’ time when it matters. Doing this and using visualisation will change your mind-set - from being a training winner to a competition winner. Good-luck