The Importance Of Concentration And Focusing Of Attention In Sport

One of the many factors that influence the performance of any sport is
concentration What’s more, this process has acquired crucial importance over the years to achieve great sporting successes. We talk about winning championships, medals and world records; Athletes who have managed to reach the top of any sport have managed to direct their attention exclusively to the task ignoring any external distraction.

This enormous importance of focusing on athletes has not gone unnoticed by sports psychologists, who have tried to know in depth the different psychological and contextual aspects that influence concentration n in order to try to improve sports performance.

Concentration and sports performance: cause and effect

That said, I believe that we must insist that concentration is a process that proportionally improves sporting performance, and therefore
maximizes the chances of success within any discipline The more concentration you have on any task, the better you will perform it, and therefore, the better results you will obtain.

Concentration concept

A good definition of concentration can be the following: it is
the ability of a person to centralize their attention in a sustained and constant manner for a prolonged period of time, in an activity or task, ignoring external situations or circumstances.

Concentration, then, is mainly a form of selective attention that allows us to process the information that interests us, ignoring the rest of the external factors or circumstances that surround us. The exact concept is
focusing of attention; focusing all our senses on the task at hand.

Some examples of focusing attention

To try to graphically explain the concept of focusing attention, we can use a series of illustrative examples. For example, the footballer who focuses on what he controls; in his ability to get ahead of the opponent with an accurate dribble, or in correctly kicking the ball so that that shot ends in a goal. Or we could also think of the tennis player who focuses his attention on hitting the ball well, or his anticipation of the rival tennis player’s hit to reach the ball and be able to make a good hit.

Furthermore, focused attention is commonly assigned a
sports jargon; phrases like “I played the entire game very focused”, “I lost my concentration and I couldn’t get it back again”, “after the first mistake I lost my concentration”, the latter is very common in footballers. In short, recurring phrases in the sports world that They are a clear example that concentration is an aspect that plays a decisive role in sports competition.

Lack of concentration

Concentration is essential in sport, and its deficiency in any individual who practices a sporting discipline can cost him many mistakes. That is why
Lack of concentration is considered one of the biggest problems in sports and

To try to mitigate the harmful effects of lack of concentration in sport, coaches use a series of strategies. Although motivation and activation can be very positive elements for the athlete when it comes to maintaining adequate concentration and therefore good performance, technical professionals in the world of sports have detected that
The presence of sports psychologists can help avoid errors due to lack of concentration

sports psychologists

In sports like soccer,
Many sports psychologists specifically work on consolidating behavioral patterns that make it easier for the player to remain in the game with all his senses throughout the match. It may seem like an easy task, however, to make the footballer understand that to maintain concentration he must ignore factors such as the referee’s performance, the field conditions, the weather conditions and ultimately several factors that he cannot control, that evade him. from his task and distract him, it is really complicated.

A widely used strategy is visualization or mental rehearsal, a task that mainly consists of the athlete mentally reproducing each step to be performed during the activity, feeling those sensations so characteristic when in competition.

When the athlete reaches maximum concentration, he enters what experts call a state of flow, in which the individual is so immersed in what he is doing that he maintains his attention without a hint of being disturbed by any situation or circumstance.

Don’t focus solely on concentration

Maximum concentration is reproduced naturally and automatically, without the need to focus our attention on concentration itself, that is, that task that has become automatic must be executed in a way that does not require focusing attention on each of the steps or elements that make up the task, but you must focus on what is going to happen and let it happen.

To conclude, it must be clarified that
Every type of sport has its methodology and progress Without a doubt, one of the most relevant factors when it comes to improving in any discipline is concentration. Consequently, knowledge of various strategies that allow us to enhance this aptitude will allow any athlete to achieve better records and results.