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Poise under Pressure (PART 1) – A True Test of Mental ToughnessIf every championship tournament game, and all of the regular season
conference games were decided by a 40 point margin each and every
night, very little ‘pressure’ would exist in the game of basketball.
The dominant teams would roll into arenas full of confidence and
perhaps even arrogance, expecting another blowout and the poor opposing
much weaker team would play with a hope of just trying to keep it as
close as possible and a hope to ‘look good’ losing. But we all know
that there is no such thing as 100% certainty in sports. Further, games
are often decided by single digit deficits, and at times by just a
point or two. A cursory glance at last year’s NCAA tournament brackets
and the deciding score line will quickly reveal what every coach in
America and every sports fan already knows; games often go down to the
wire. So why spend a short paragraph writing about something
that is already so well understood? The purpose is to provide a strong
reminder of the critical link between tight games, clutch situations
and pressure, a concept and a link that is not so well understood. More
than anything else, pressure affects an athlete’s ability to relax,
which in turn can alter shot selection, assist to turnover ratios,
shooting percentages, overall clutch performance, and the list goes on
and on. Yet for many coaches, composure and the ability to relax is a
double edged sword, with some coaches believing that in order to remain
relaxed, intensity must be sacrificed. This is simply not true. An
inverse relationship between composure and intensity does not exist. A
player can maintain 100% intensity, yet still be fully composed and
relaxed when she needs to be. The dangerous approach So
how do we develop composure in our players? Lets us begin by exploring
how NOT to develop the trait. Yelling, screaming or evenly quietly
admonishing players to “RELAX!” during a timeout or game is certainly
not the most efficient way of achieving player composure. In fact the
opposite effect sometimes is unintentionally created by the coach. A
command to relax that is given to a player who does not have the skills
to relax and deal with the pressure, is only going to make that player
increasingly anxious and nervous, making them increasingly aware of
their state of anxiety in addition to their inability to deal with the
nervousness, tension and lack of composure. Any coach will tell you
that a team can only consistently execute a terrific flex offense if
they know what the flex offense is and have practiced the flex
successfully together as a team at some point. Can you imagine the look
of astonishment on the faces of the assistant coaches if the head coach
yells to the point, “run the flex.” “Ummm Coach,” the apprehensive
assistant coach might begin, “we’ve never run the flex before….they
don’t know it.” Obviously, few head coaches would call for the flex to
be run under these circumstances! Yet when coaches tell players to
‘relax’ or ‘not be nervous,’ in a similar way, they may be asking for
something that the players simply do not know how to execute. An
additional approach which certainly can help with composure, but is
often seen as the only solution to composure, is physical skills
practice. Some coaches mistakenly believe that if you practice
something enough, then it will become automatic under game conditions.
If this were the case, then clutch free throw shooting percentages
would always be as good as practice free throw percentages. As we all
know, this is not always the case. Shooting 800 jump shots a day will
certainly improve shooting composure in games, because being more
proficient at any skill creates greater confidence levels which in turn
can have a positive affect on composure levels. However, shooting 800
shots a day in a practice environment has a much greater effect on the
proficiency and execution of that skill in that practice environment
than it will do compared to execution in a competitive situation or
harder still, a high pressure competitive situation (such as a free
throw to ice the game). The key to performing consistently in high
pressure conditions, is to specifically develop composure as an actual
skill. When I travel the country to work with teams on mental
skills and toughness training who may be performing well, but want to
increase their conference or national ranking, or work with teams that
are underperforming or in a slump, one of the questions I ask as I
examine the critical mental skills and toughness trait issues affecting
the team is, is this issue a ‘won’t do’ or a ‘can’t do’ issue or a
combination of both of these issues? If it is a ‘won’t do’ issue, then
there is an attitude adjustment or a very strong sense of commitment
that I will install. If it is a ‘can’t do’ issue, then there is a
critical skills gap, which requires a different type of training –
mental skills development in a specific area. I share this because in
my experience, a lack of composure or consistent loss of composure, be
it during critical on court decision making or on the free throw line,
is a ‘can’t do’ issue requiring skills training. A team I worked with
in the past four weeks was a strong underachieving division one program
that was not nationally ranked, yet probably should have been were it
not for a number of defeats by just 1-3 points, almost all of which had
occurred as a result of an inability to execute in the clutch. For this
particular team, their clutch performance was often a can’t do issue.
The workshop on composure immediately led to a win over a top 20 ranked
program. Developing the composure skill Contrary to
popular belief, composure can be taught as well as a baseline jump
hook, bounce pass, or pick and roll. After understanding what composure
is and how to practice composure, the key quickly becomes composure
practice consistency. Step 1 – understanding how the mind creates stress People
are often concerned and sometimes fearful about things that they do not
understand. For this reason, pressure and nervousness in sports is
often a huge area of pre-game, in-game and post-game anxiety for many
athletes. Worse still, discussing these thoughts and feelings is a
‘place where few athletes enjoy going’ for fear of being perceived as
mentally weak, foolish, giving away a mental edge or advantage to
teammates who may be competing for their playing time, or having their
playing time affected by a coaching decision due to their public
admission of nervousness. For these reasons, game time anxiety and
nervousness remains an almost silent, unspoken pain. Smart coaches find
smart ways to talk about this vs. sweeping it under the proverbial game
time rug, and these smart coaches find innovative ways to broach the
subject without athletes fearing they have lost face or will be seen as
weak. There is a tremendous sense of bonding and togetherness among a
group of athletes who begin to realize that “its ok,” “everyone is
pretty much experiencing the same things,” “and we’ll get through it
together.” In itself, these types of informal team meetings (some may
be player lead, other meetings coach led) can be of some help to
maintaining composure levels, but it is just a first step. As we will
discover, the next step is to develop a team practice routine to
develop the composure skills that will have a huge impact on game time
performance. Before we get to step 2 however, we must first
outline the type of conversation that needs to occur in step 1. The
first thing to discuss is the fact that this feeling of nervousness has
been common to all athletes, from Michael Jordan to Diana Taurasi. The
feeling is normal and not necessarily a negative. The key is what
becomes of this feeling of nervousness. Is it transferred to excited
energy, or does it become uncomfortable and debilitating muscular
tension? We should next discuss, the process by which nervousness is
created. On a very basic level, any area of the brain called the
hypothalamus recognizes stress and activates two different response
systems. Picture this like a rainstorm at the top of a mountain that
results in two different rivers that flow down this mountain. The first
river is the ‘sympathetic river’ which activates many of our primary
organs directly (causing changes in our heart rate, perspiration,
muscular tension etc), and the second river is the ‘pituitary’ river
that flows through the pituitary gland (a small pea sized gland in the
brain), that in turn stimulates our stress hormones, often resulting in
the same traits as river #1 – increased heart rate with altered
breathing patterns, the shutdown of the digestive system, an
uncomfortable knotting sensation in the stomach and throat, and
increased muscular tension. Collectively, these rivers are caused the
‘fight or flight’ reaction. The interesting thing about this phenomenon
is that when this energy is used to positively focus and sustain
intensity, it can produce lifetime best performances, but when this
energy turns into an uncomfortable level of muscular tension and
nervousness, fine motor skills and intricate firing patterns of the
muscles (responsible for things like free throw shooting) are altered,
and smooth practice mechanics quickly become ‘brick city’ in games. In
time, we will learn how to solve this. However, I cannot emphasize the
following point enough…clenching our teeth and fists and wanting to win
a game the most is NOT the path to a combination of great composure and
intensity. There is nothing wrong with intensity and ‘wanting it the
most.’ In fact it is an important trait of any championship team.
However, this mindset does not guarantee clutch composure. Any
accomplished coach will tell you that only Hollywood gives the win each
and every time to the team that ‘wants it the most.’ In real life, the
team that executes their offense and defense the best will win the game
– period. And skills execution in high pressure/clutch situations takes
composure. Again, even a simple, basic working knowledge of this
process is somewhat comforting for athletes, especially as they arrive
at the realization of how much control they truly have over a process
that is set in motion by their own perceptions of the game or game
specific situation. Part 1 of this discussion has so far
examined the need for greater composure training, explored some of the
myths connected to clutch composure, and provided an overview of the
mind-body connection of composure, important for each coach and athlete
to at least have a basic understanding of. The next issue of the WBCA
journal will include Part 2 of “Poise under Pressure,” and will examine
more of the skills training necessary to achieve a consistent level of
clutch composure. Part 2 will discuss: 1. Reducing muscular tension2. Mistake management to increase composure3. Finding a player’s optimal emotional arousal4. Reducing the stress response under pressure5. Having a championship mindset for clutch situations
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