The Use of Concentration Routines in Competition

Today, it is evident to anyone the importance of psychological variables in performance and sports experience That a team considered “small” eliminates a “big” team by coming back from the tie at the latter’s home is difficult to explain from a technical or physical point of view. That a team goes from flirting with relegation to winning the League, 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 based on concentration routines

What is concentration in the sports field?

Concentration is the psychological variable that implies ability to maintain attention on a specific stimulus In sport, it is vitally important to ensure that all our skills and knowledge are available to us at the necessary time. 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 an assigned number and has to run for a handkerchief when a moderator sings said number, competing with the participant with the same number of the rival team). The tenths of a second it takes us to recognize our number can make the difference between getting the point for our team or not, in a similar way to the tenths it takes us to notice where an unmarked teammate is 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 each person’s imagination, for example, dividing the field into three parts and setting different rules in each third of it (only play with the first touch in the first, do not return the ball to whoever has passed it in the second, etc.). In this way we train the muscle of concentration, getting it ready for when we need it at its maximum potential in games

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

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 stocking, putting on the right stocking, dribbling the ball and shooting a free throw).

The underlying functioning is that of association of stimuli, and therefore it is worth highlighting the importance of systematicity in the training of 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 up being associated with that state, being able to use it in the moments when it is most difficult for us to concentrate voluntarily during the competition, in a similar way to when a smell reminds us of a person or the song we have on our alarm clock ends up causing us rejection by itself if we hear it at any time of the day. The most famous examples of routines in elite sports would be those of the tennis player Rafa Nadal, before serving, or that of the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, before taking free kicks.

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

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