The use of concentration routines in competition

Today, it is evident to anyone the importance of psychological variables in performance and sports experience. The fact that a team considered "small" eliminates a "big" team after coming back from the latter's home tie is difficult to explain from a technical or physical point of view. That a team goes from flirting with relegation to winning the League, the Cup and reaching two Champions League finals cannot be explained if we do not allude to some concept taken from psychology.

Nerves, motivation, pressure, camaraderie... are elements that can decide a result, and all of them can be optimized after mental training. One of the most important is the one that is based on concentration routines.

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What is concentration in sports?

Concentration is the psychological variable that implies the ability to maintain attention on a specific stimulus. In sport, it is of vital importance to ensure that all our skills and knowledge are available to us at the necessary moment. It is what we colloquially call “being plugged in”.

There are several ways to train this variable. The main thing is create artificial situations that may require putting it into practice during training, since psychological variables are like a muscle, the more we use them the more we will develop them (and if we stop using them, they will reduce their performance).

There are multiple dynamics designed to exercise attention, but the most basic is the classic handkerchief game (each participant has a number assigned and has to run for a handkerchief when a moderator sings said number, competing with the participant with the same team number contrary). The tenths of a second it takes us to recognize our number can make the difference between getting the point or not for our team, in a similar way to the tenths it takes us to observe where there is an unmarked teammate in a game. The session can be adapted to the sport in question replacing the handkerchief with a soccer ball, basketball, etc.

The dynamics can be sophisticated with the only limit of the imagination of each one, for example, dividing the field into three parts and putting different rules in each third of it (only play at first touch in the first, not return the ball to whoever passed it to me in the second, etc.). In this way we train the muscle of concentration, setting it up for when we need it to its full potential in matches.

However, in addition to training concentration, there are strategies designed to invoke it in times of greatest need (throwing a free kick, a penalty, a serve...), due to the importance of the situation or its vulnerability to distracting elements.

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concentration routines

For this purpose there are so-called concentration routines. These routines consist of a sequence of two or more simple behavioral gestures, the last of them leading to that state of concentration (for example, putting on the left sock, putting on the right sock, dribbling the ball and shooting for a basket on a free throw).

The underlying functioning is that of association of stimuli, and for this reason it is worth noting the importance of systematicity in training these routines, since, in training, it is the athlete himself who causes that state of concentration after the sequence and, after many rehearsals, the sequence will end for being associated with that state, being able to use it at times when it is more difficult for us to concentrate voluntarily during the competition, in a similar way when a smell reminds us of a person or the song that we have on our alarm clock ends up causing us rejection by itself if we hear it at any time in the day. The most famous examples of routines in elite sport would be those of the tennis player Rafa Nadal, before serving, or that of the soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, before taking the free kicks.

It should be noted that a routine does not have to be a visible behavior, but can consist of a thought or a phrase of self-talk.

The ability to focus our attention on each moment of the game can be a variable that makes the difference, and the dynamics or Routine training in sports psychology is a resource that can mean added value between our team and the rivals.