How Stress Hurts Athletic Performance

I am convinced stress can hurt your athletic performances! The reason is quite simple; the pressure of competition results in a negative form of stress and can have a bad influence on your final result. Everyone has a certain amount of stress and can even be healthy if there is no pressure to win. That is now just the problem when you are training for an important athletics game and you want to reach a good result. It is necessary to know how to deal with stress in your sport.

A good example is when you are training for the Olympic Games and you have the chance to win the golden medal or at least to reach a good result. You followed the right training schedule and almost everyone believes you will win by example the marathon. Everyone knows you are in a perfect condition because a few weeks ago no one could beat you and you reached the best world time of the year.

The day of the marathon is there and you didn't reach even a place in the top ten. How can this be declared? You followed the right schedule, the necessary tests were done and you were being able to win this marathon. Stress is an important factor and you can almost be sure that you didn't have this factor under control. The pressure to win was too high for you and you didn't win the golden medal. This is one of the most common examples how stress can hurt your athletic performances.

SIGNS OF STRESS AND THE EFFECT ON YOUR ATHLETIC PERFORMANCES

Mental stress can have a bad influence on your athletics performances and you need try to keep this under control. Some signs of mental stress are a raise of your heart rate and you will consume more oxygen as usual. There is a higher risk of injuries and your resistance will decrease which make you more reliable for infections. You are not concentrated and the chance of a good result is almost impossible if you can't keep your stress under control. It is almost impossible to live without stress during this special day of the year because you want to prove to your supporters that you are the best runner of that moment. Some healthy stress is necessary and can improve your performances if you can keep it under control. That is now just the big problem and the reason that stress often hurts athletics performances.

HOW TO KEEP STRESS UNDER CONTROL

There are some techniques to keep your stress under control:
* Relax exercises: these exercises are useful to relieve stress out of your body. Breathing exercises are important to reach this purpose. Deep-breathing is maybe the most important one. In combination with relax exercises for your muscles and yoga, you will reach the perfect relax therapy for your body and your mind.

* Stress inoculation training: a training in 3 phases which contains training for avoiding negative thoughts, developing positive energy and an application method with the purpose of practising the sport in low stress situations.

* Think about other things and try to set your competition out of your mind. It has no sense to make you nervous because you need to believe in yourself. Focus you on other things which might interest you.

DOES STRESS HURT ONLY ATHLETIC TOP PERFORMANCES?
Stress can hurt every athletic performance, no matter if you are a top sports performer or not. When I was younger and one of these who didn't have the talent o win a golden medal in the Olympic Games or an international championship, I also practised athletics in competition. My goal was always trying to run faster and to beat my personal records. However, I reached many good results; stress has often a bad influence on the results of my runs. It happened frequently that I was in good condition but I couldn't keep stress under control and didn't reach the result I was able to do. Many injuries were often the consequence and could be avoided with the right training for keeping stress under control.

IS STRESS IMAGINATION OR DOES IT REALLY HURT YOUR PERFORMANCES?

However, stress is not the only factor of a bad result in your race; I am convinced that if you can't keep stress under control it really hurt your athletic performances. How many times do we hear that athletes in good condition fail to win or even lose to reach the final they were able to reach? You will agree with me that this happens many times and stress is often the killer for avoiding to reach a good result. It often happens that these athletes reach one week later or in their next competition their best result.

Keeping stress under control, the right athletic training and mental preparation is the key to reach your best athletic performances. Don't give stress the chance to hurt your athletic performances and take the necessary precautions!