Mental Training During Coronavirus Isolation
posted on: March 15, 2020
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.
By this time, it is probable that the coronavirus (COVID-19) has disrupted your athletic activities in some capacity. College seasons and championships have been canceled. Tennis tournaments across the country have been suspended for several weeks. Pro sports are on hiatus until the situation improves. None of us know when these organized activities will resume. However, as athletes, the training must go on because you’re on a quest. A quest to be your best. In that spirit, this might be the perfect time to put some extra work into your mental skills.
Suggested Activities
Here are some suggestions for maximizing your training time over the next several weeks while at home during the coronavirus outbreak:
- Visualize daily – Visualization goes beyond just seeing. It’s about creating a very real experience for the brain. Recall some past performances or create future scenarios in which you perform well. Add in specific skills, plays, technique, etc., to take your learning to another level.
- Practice breath meditation – Meditation can help you be more present focused as well as less judgmental. Those are great skills for athletes. Focusing on your breath can also promote relaxation benefits that will aid you in performance. This is a big win.
- Do concentration grids – Concentration grids are another good exercise for being present focused that also helps train your eyes. See if you can improve your completion times over the course of a few weeks.
- Watch YouTube videos of your sport – Watching your sport can be a nice complement to visualization. Images of your favorite athletes can be used to visualize yourself performing as if you were that person. That’s a great way to perform at a new level.
- Practice on your own with purpose – Some sports lend themselves better to this suggestion than others. If you’re a tennis player, find a wall and hit against it. Other athletes can probably find some means for practicing skills on their own.
- Journal about your experiences – Recording in a journal how you experienced this time in history could be an enlightening exercise, as well as something you’ll appreciate looking back on in the future.
- Stay in touch with your coaches/trainers/family via video – It’s important that we stay socially connected somehow, so use video calling services to talk to your coaches and trainers. If you have family members who are in different locations and/or family members who are older, check in with them frequently. They’ll appreciate the connection during this time.
- Stretch and/or do yoga at home – We all say we want to stretch more, so now is the time to do it. There are lots of good online yoga channels available on YouTube as well.
- Take an online course – For our younger athletes, you are already in school and you’re probably taking classes online now. For adults, if you have some extra time, this could be the perfect time to sign up for that online class you’ve been thinking about for the last few years.
Not only will each of these suggested activities help you to improve, they are also a great way to pass the time while we are all in some level of coronavirus isolation. What else are you doing to take advantage of this extra time?
And before I wrap up this post, if you’re truly interested in working on your mental game, this is the perfect time to set up a free consultation to discuss your goals as an athlete. Simply email me at brian@performancextra.com and I will help you come up with a plan to improve your performances.
If one-on-one coaching isn’t your thing, then check out our online mental skills training program, the Great Competitor Formula. With some extra time on your hands, this could be an ideal time to dive in and do this work. Email me with questions.
About the Author
Dr. Brian Lomax founded PerformanceXtra™ in 2009 with a mission of helping athletes achieve their goals and their top performances more consistently through a progression of mental skills that enables them to focus on what is truly important.
Learn more about the author: https://performancextra.com/brian-lomax/
As always Brian your strategies are very helpful for athletes, businesses, and life in general. The show will go on only if we prepare for it, rehearse it, and embrace the challenges along the way. What’s next is always up to us even when we don’t know when on the calendar.