What is mental toughness, and is it possible for us to train it?
I believe that we absolutely are able to sharpen an athlete’s mental state through proper preparation, but oftentimes “toughness” is too broad of a term, and we lose sight of what our goals are. The purpose of this writing is to create a synthesized and holistic view of mental toughness, and how to enhance it, based on the current evidence-based literature. While current research is not perfect, it is able to give us a good picture of what we are striving to attain.
What is Mental Toughness?
As coaches we hear a lot about mental toughness, and the benefits of having “gritty” athletes. How do we create these types of athletes? If you look at the current state of collegiate Strength and Conditioning you will see a troubling trend that we are attempting to create mental toughness by forcing athletes to do non-specialized, extremely physically demanding tasks, often hurting some in the process (Ridpath, Litman). Does this help mental toughness? When developing any kind of skill we must have an idea of what we want, before we can decide how to get there, mental toughness training should be no different, so let’s define it before we go any further.
To me, mental toughness is simply being able to efficiently and effectively manage where you sit on the Performance/Arousal Scale at any given moment (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. (from 6 Steps to a Positive & Successful Mindset)
On page 247 of “A Framework of Mental Toughness in the World’s Best Performers”, mental toughness is defined by Jones et al. as:
“Having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to, generally, cope better than your opponents with the many demands (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport places on a performer and, specifically, be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure.”
When we reframe mental toughness as “emotional coping” we get a more accurate description of what we are trying to create in athletes. Once it is reframed that way, it is also extremely easy to see that forcing athletes to do physically demanding tasks cannot and will not develop mental toughness. We can however, develop it through careful preparation and cultivation of athletes’ mental and emotional states, and educating them about effective coping mechanisms. How do we teach these skills? A good place to start would be with self-talk.
How Do We Start Training Mental Toughness?
In one study by James Hardy about self talk the researcher’s’ goal was to “(a) to generate quantitative data on the content of athletes’ self-talk and (b) to examine differences in the use of self-talk in general as well as the functions of self-talk in practice and competition settings” (905). In Hardy’s previous research, and other sport literature it has shown that positive self-talk is more favorable to performance; with some of the results being more drastic:
…tennis players make use of observable self-talk approximately once every three points. Moreover, although match winners did not differ from match losers on their use of positive self-talk, match winners used significantly less (observable) negative self-talk during matches than their match-losing counterparts. In a subsequent study, match winners did not differ from match losers on the observable self-talk they generated, but did differ on how they responded to their self-talk. It was found that match losers were more likely to lose a point after the use of negative self-talk than match winners… (Hardy, Hall & Hardy, 206)
These are extremely important finding for individual sport athletes. If self-talk, is used and employed by most players, then we must teach our athletes effective ways to frame the nature time, place, and structure of their self-talk, to draw out better performances. While not all athletes are alike, we as coaches, can allow athletes the framework to experiment with different kinds of self-talk and create coherent context for them to use self-talk skills during competition, practice, and life.
The next big skill to educate athletes on is getting excited. We all know that feeling the night before and moments leading up to a big race, a big interview, or whatever the case may be. How do we react to the stresses of a challenge? With nervousness, or excitement? One widely-cited example of the relationship between excitement and performance is a study post 2016 Olympics that found that pre-race nervousness creates an increased risk of injury. Another widely viewied study is what is known as the “get excited” study. It found that reframing nervousness as excitement leads to an increase in performance. Jesse Singal has applied this to Olympic athletes suggesting that effective self-talk that creates excitement can enhance performance.
The reasons for getting excited are cited in the article “Why Olympic Athletes Shouldn’t Try to Calm Down Before a Big Moment”; by interpreting research on excitement. Singal shows through various research reviews that stress is an unavoidable physiological response, but if an athlete is able to harness that response to their benefit, they will perform better. Signal’s recommendations for reframing anxiety into excitement, and getting the best performance is to “See it … Own it … Use it”, or, in other terms, recognize the stress, reframe that stress as a positive feeling of excitement, and use the physiological response to create a better performance. If we can educate our athletes on the skills of self-talk, and reframing anxiety as excitement, we are in a good place to foster mental toughness, or “emotional coping”.
Identifying Athletes
A big part of effectively training mental toughness is identifying your athletes. Henk Kraaijenhof simplifies athletes into three categories: benders, breakers, and blossomers. He has detailed these three archetypes in numerous blog posts, as well as talks he has given. He tells us benders are athletes who generally perform as expected at major races, breakers are the ones who consistently underperform at big meets or stressful situations, and blossomers are the ones who consistently turn in the best performances of the year in the biggest meets, and highest stress situations. Henk Kraaijenhof’s research into these three athlete types seems to confirm Singal’s findings, in his article “Who Cracks??” Coach Kraaijenhof tells us:
“So if fear is a factor, is the “blossomer” fearless then? No, almost the opposite! While we might think or observe that the “blossomer” is relaxed, psycho-physiological equipment measurement to quantify the stress responses, shows the opposite. So even if from the outside they look calm or relaxed, measurements tell a different story!”
It is not the lack of fear or stress that sets them apart, it is the way they perceive the pressure!
“Blossomers” somehow learned to welcome and swim in the waves of adrenaline, whereas the “breakers” avoid and fear the sea of adrenaline and tend to drown in it”. (Kraaijenhof)
Identify the athletes you work with that can’t cope with pressure, and spend time with them educating them on how to manage, reframe, and own their stress, through self-talk and other methods. Once you can effectively identify these athletes, you can hone in on what they need mentally to be a successful athlete.
Managing Stress
Effectively owning, and reframing stress is an amazing skill, but prolonged stress or excitement still has a detrimental effect on the body such as: chronic fatigue syndrome; high levels of cortisol, an overactive parasympathetic nervous system, insomnia, difficulty eating, and other effects that are not conducive to high levels of training. With collegiate athletes managing very different loads athletically, academically, and personally we must be aware of their stress levels, and be careful to not place too much strain on the athletes physically and mentally.
Stress is stress, and it can pile up fast; between exams, hard workouts, and unexpected life changes in their personal lives, we coaches must be in tune with our athletes to understand their allostatic load, and help them effectively navigate the stresses of collegiate athletics. Understanding individual athletes and having a communicative relationship with them will help stress be recognized early, and a plan put in place for getting through the stressful period of time, however long it may be.
One of the most helpful and proven tips for managing stress are routines. By automatizing a routine every day, it has shown you can effectively remove stress from the clutter of daily life. Even something as simple as making your bed has been shown to greatly increase productivity and lower overall stress levels, and get a better night’s sleep. (National Sleep Foundation, 18) (Mudallal).
Rhetorical Self-Talk: An Audience of One
Many collegiate and professional athletes are coached on how to do an interview and deal with the public, given the nature of their profession. The Ancient craft of rhetoric had to do with speaking to a large audience, but we oftentimes miss what Jean Nienkamp refers to as “internal rhetoric”. To train athletes to self-talk effectively, they must have a basic knowledge of rhetoric, or as Aristotle puts it, “being able to see the available means of persuasion“. If they can successfully persuade themselves that they are capable, they will have the ability to fare better in competition, and during times of adversity. Internal rhetoric has been defined and touched on by rhetoricians throughout the ages, but has never caught on, or been studied to its full potential; even though it is employed by many professions, especially the professions whose “purpose is guiding the internal rhetoric of others, including those of coaches” (Nienkamp, 18). As coaches, we must understand the role of internal rhetoric and how it pertains to athletic performance.
Nienkamp attempts to bridge the gap, and open up the discussion to make sense of internal rhetoric, as it pertains to self-consciousness and self-image. She tells us, “What the theory of internal rhetoric adds to this concept of the rhetorical self is the dynamics of that self as a product of internal rhetoric continuously in process” (Nienkamp, 21). Look back to the tennis and self-talk study described earlier; using a rhetorical lens, we are now able to see that the nature of their self-talk is what helped to speak things into existence. The internal rhetoric process employed by each competitor created a product, and depending on the internal rhetoric methods used either a positive or negative outcome. “The ways that we consciously talk to ourselves…are often deliberately cultivated to affect our actions, attitudes, and beliefs in culturally and personally acceptable ways” (Nienkamp, 18). When framed that way, it is easy to see how self-talk can improve performance if done correctly.
Nienkamp proposes that internal rhetorics are the basis for self-consciousness, morality, and self-image. Applying that to coaching and attempting to further the conversation I propose this; if coaches are able to guide the self-rhetoric of collegiate athletes, they can not only guide athletes to be capable of coping better with emotional stressors, but they can also orient athletes to their place in the world and how to behave ethically as an adult, and function under the stresses of society. Our goal as coaches of young adults should be to put collegiate athletes in situations and role expectations that add to their ability to navigate life after athletics successfully.
This does not mean that we expect our athletes always to be positive, never be held accountable, or never do anything that they fail at. It means that as a coach, one must give athletes autonomy but provide the framework to traverse the formative college years into adulthood. Coaches must allow athletes to fail, succeed, and everywhere in between; and in doing so, stand behind them and hold them accountable for their actions. By holding athletes accountable to their sense of self, and educating athletes on rhetoric and effective ways to speak to themselves, coaches are able to create an athlete with a strong sense of intrinsic confidence, competence, and self-image.
Coaches must ask themselves, what is better: to help educate, cultivate, and give direction to a young adult, and equip them with the skills to handle adversity; or to force athletes to do physical tasks until they puke, while berating and verbally abusing them until they break? When put in those terms, the choice should be easy, yet like described earlier, it is an extremely common problem in collegiate athletics (Ridpath, Litman). Many coaches truly believe that having an older man screaming in the face of a young adult will add to their sense of self and accomplishment with no adverse effects. That is incorrect, and there is no place in collegiate athletics for it; instead physical tasks related to sport, and education on how to utilize internal rhetoric will lead the athletes to a lasting place of arete, put them in a good place to start their career, and emotionally cope with whatever life has in store for them.
Concluding Thoughts
Mental toughness does exist, and it can in fact be trained, but the training must be based on current literature, not on unproven physically demanding tasks. Coaches must stop putting athletes through physically demanding tasks to foster mental toughness, because it does not work. What does work is creating a positive framework of communication, competence, excitement to compete, and giving an athlete context in which they are able to effectively manage their place on the Performance/Arousal scale. Self-talk and other methods to keep the athlete self-driven, focused, and positive about the task at hand are some proven methods to foster effective “emotional coping” and draw out an athlete’s optimum performances.
About Justin Fawley
Works Cited
Hardy, James, Craig R. Hall, and Lew Hardy. “Quantifying Athlete Self-talk.” Journal of Sports Sciences 23.9 (2005): 905-17. Web.
Jones, Graham, Sheldon Hanton, and Declan Connaughton. “A Framework of Mental Toughness in the Worlds Best Performers.” The Sport Psychologist 21.2 (2007): 243-64. Web.
Kraaijenhof, Henk. “Who Cracks??” Helping the Best to Get Better! N.p., 20 Jan. 2013. Web. 5 Apr. 2017.
Litman, Laken. “Notre Dame’s New Strength Program: ‘Every Day You Anticipate Somebody Puking’.” Indianapolis Star. N.p., 31 Mar. 2017. Web. 2 Apr. 2017.
Mouhtaropoulos, Dean. “Why Olympic Athletes Shouldn’t Try to Calm Down Before a Big Moment.” Science of Us. N.p., 4 Aug. 2016. Web. 5 Apr. 2017.
Mudallal, Zainab. “People Who Make Their Beds In The Morning Are Happier And More Productive.” Elite Daily. N.p., 25 Aug. 2015. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.
National Sleep Foundation. “NSF Bedroom Poll Report.” (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.
Nienkamp, Jean. “Internal Rhetoric.” Culture, Rhetoric, and the Vicissitudes of Life. Ed. Michael Carrithers. New York: Berghahn, 2012. N. pag. Print.
Ridpath, B. David. “Oregon’s Treatment of Athletes Is Unacceptable But Sadly It Is More Common Than People Realize.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 20 Jan. 2017. Web. 26 Jan. 2017.
Studd, George. “6 Steps to a Positive & Successful Mindset.” Exceed Nutrition. N.p., 16 July 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.
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