Week 7: Training Programme - Mental and Physical Activation

Post title: Training Programme: Mental and Physical Activation
Week no. 7
Date: 02/05/14

Aim of week: to increase mental and physical activation

Hi Performer X, thank you for completing last week’s tasks, I hope that you are now imagining yourself being in certain situations and that this imagery is improving. Ensure that you keep practicing imagery as it is a very useful way of improving your confidence as you are imagining yourself being on that dance floor and imagining your performance and emotions on the day that you won that trophy.

Why I have chosen to increase mental and physical activation

This week instead of trying to calm you down and reducing your anxiety and arousal levels, we are going to work on increasing your arousal levels. Sounds funny that we have spent all this time reducing arousal levels and now we are going to increase them again but there is a reason behind it and that reason is because you need some sort of “hype” before you compete because this will increase your motivation and adrenaline levels.

What it involves – technique

Creating the optimal mental and physical activation state is important because increasing your arousal levels will help with handling pressures so they are appropriately activated for competing. There are many ways in which you can increase your arousal levels, you can do all these techniques the night before competing, immediately before competition and during performance and should be done on a regular basis. 

The first way that you can increase your arousal levels is by repeatedly taking short, sharp and shallow breaths. Whilst doing this you might want to think of additional things that you can do, for example, tightly closing your eyes and carefully think and focus on selected images, this part is very similar to last week’s imagery as you are picturing things in your head. You can also make your breaths noisy and more staccato, this will help you find a rhythm and as a dancer this is normally how dancers prepare themselves by finding a rhythm. Also, going back to week 5, using positive self-talk, will increase you arousal levels. So whilst taking these short, sharp and shallow breaths, add anything that naturally increases their arousal levels.             

If you find that this type of breathing is not sufficient to get a highly mentally and physically activated response then try quicker breathing and trying short vigorous exercise for example shuttle runs, this may work better for some people as it will get their heart rate to increase therefore increasing their arousal.

Another way in which you can increase your arousal levels is by using three other key tools which will increase your alertness and interest when competing, these are imagery, music and self-talk. To answer the question is going through your head, yes you have already worked on imagery and self-talk to increase your confidence, but you can also use them to increase your arousal levels. For imagery to increase your arousal levels do exactly the same as you have been practicing, recalling a situation and remembering how you felt etc. You will also do exactly the same for self-talk. For music on the other hand, it is good if you make a playlist of all your favourite songs that get you “hyped” up, you should listen to these before you train and before you compete, preferably this music should have a strong melody and fast tempo.

Two types of arousal

There are two types of effects that arousal can have, these include physiological effects and the psychological effects. The physiological is somatic, it is all about the body and how arousal affects the body before and during performance, whereas psychological is cognitive, all about the mind and how arousal affects the mind before and during the performance. 

Effects of arousal

Arousal can have effects on the mind and body. The effects that it has on the body (physiological) is that the nerve transmission time is quicker, your heart rate increases, your breathing rate will increase as well as your blood pressure, your body temperature and sweat production will increase, your muscles will become tense and you will get butterflies in your stomach.

The effect arousal has on the mind (psychological) is different to the effects that it has on the body. The effect arousal has is a quicker reaction time, an increase in motivation, awareness and focus/concentration. Your self-talk also increases (your knowledge of self-talk will help to further increase your arousal levels).

All these affects will help your performance because they are preparing you for competition.  

Inverted U 

 

This diagram shows that as arousal increases performance increases but if the arousal increases further than the optimal point then there is a decrease in performance.

To make it easier, even though you want to increase your arousal so that it will increase your performance you cannot increase it too much otherwise your performance will not increase it will do the total opposite and will in fact decrease your performance level. So you must be careful when trying to increase your arousal              

Tasks; please complete the following tasks.

1. Practice each way of increasing your arousal level, the best way to practice this is to do it just before you go to training so then you can see the effects that it has on your body and mind.
2. Once you have tried each technique in a training session choose your favourite that you feel works for you and helps you become aroused so that you are ready for training and for competition.
3. Once you have chosen your preferred way of increasing your arousal level, you should then practice it at least three times a day so that when you come to a competition you can “hype” yourself up and prepare yourself.  
4. After each time you have practiced you should follow one of the procedures from previous weeks to help reduce your arousal back to its normal level so that you don’t become over aroused and allowing it to affect your performance.

I look forward to seeing your results.