Sport Psychological Interventions in Competitive Sports

Jürgen Beckmann · Anne-Marie Elbe

Feb 2015 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

About this ebook

Sport psychological training, an important part of athletes’ preparation, can give them the final edge in competition. This book provides a systematic structure for conducting sport psychological interventions that can be followed not only by sport psychologists, but also by athletes and coaches. The authors describe sport psychological measures that are based on scientific knowledge and have proven to be valuable in their applied work.

The book is divided into two main parts. Part 1 presents the basic structure for sport psychological interventions and Part 2 focuses on concrete interventions and training measures. Part 1 further addresses the importance of personality factors for sports performance, illustrates how an athlete’s personality development can be enhanced, gives basic knowledge about diagnostic tools, and discusses talent selection.

The second part of the book describes basic training, which focuses mainly on relaxation techniques, as well as skills training, essential for the stabilisation of athletic performance. Maintaining a balanced recovery-stress state is particularly important for the avoidance of overtraining. The book illustrates how athletes’ stress and recovery levels can be monitored in order to prevent overtraining. Part 2 further addresses how critical situations in an athlete’s career (including, for example, conflicts, career termination, and injuries) are to be handled, presenting various impact interventions, including clinical hypnosis. The final chapter of the book presents a mental toolbox, giving the practitioner an overview that will help to quickly identify a problem, its possible causes, and solutions.

About the author

Jürgen Beckmann, a Full Professor of Sport Psychology at the Technische Universität Munich, Germany, is a certified coach in a number of different sports. As a sport psychologist, he has been consulted by numerous top athletes and national teams for more than 25 years.

Anne-Marie Elbe is an Associate Professor of Sport Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Vice-President of the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC). She is a licensed track and field coach and, as a sport psychologist, has been consulted by athletes and coaches in numerous sports for more than 10 years.