As the final approaches, some Brazilian footballers have shown their emotional fragility. Curious, when you know the importance of mental preparation in high performance sport.
The Brazilians have not cracked! On Friday evening, the Seleção players won 2 goals to 1 against Colombia in the quarter-final of the 2014 World Cup which takes place at home. No more tears and scenes of anguish, the players in the Auriverde jersey showed a more conquering image than in previous meetings. Therefore, a question arises: does this renewed morale explain the reasons for this success on the lawn of the Estádio Castelão de Fortaleza?
Perhaps, because today, for top athletes, preparing mentally to be at the top psychically is as important as physical preparation. “We see that Brazil has just called on a psychologist who has integrated the medical staff”, confides the Dr. Jean-Christophe Seznec (1), psychiatrist and sports doctor in Paris (Ie), contacted by why actor.
Its mission: to overcome the emotional failures that we have seen in some Canarinha players, and restore their confidence.
“At this level, athletes no longer belong to each other. They all belong to the coach, the public, and the country. For an athlete, it is hard to exist in the face of this demand, and the influence of the political and public environment that is the author of them, ”underlines Dr Seznec.
A fact that football coaches have integrated well, they who recently confided in a British study that psychic qualities are as important as physical skills to reach the heights.
The brain and its emotions: “a muscle like any other that must be prepared”
In addition, this specialist in sports psychopathology explains that the mental preparation of top athletes is all the more important since “many of them are kids. For some, in the France team, they are 21 years old. Neymar, the Brazilian star, has just celebrated his 22 years. In addition, professional sport makes you extremely immature. These athletes have become multimillionaire stars with all the temptations that come with it. But in a competition of this importance they have enormous responsibilities with, in addition, all the cameras on them. These are the expectations of an entire country. ”
Faced with so much at stake, it is better to prepare yourself mentally. An unprepared athlete can miss out on their competition.
Indeed, sports psychiatrists tirelessly repeat to the athletes they follow that the human being is made of three components: a body, a machine for making thoughts, and a machine for making emotions.
“If no one helps them professionalize their relationship with their thoughts and emotions, they can outsmart. The qualities of a human being are like dynamite. Using it well is great, using it badly can do damage. So it works. The brain and our emotions are muscles like any other that must be trained, ”explains Jean-Christophe Seznec.
Listen to Dr Jean-Christophe Seznec, psychiatrist and sports doctor in Paris : ” It is a displacement of the wars of yesteryear. If your team wins, you are glorified. If you lose, you are tagged for life. Watch the France team of 82 today. “
Mental preparation: a long-term job
And this mental preparation must be serious. “It’s a long-term job,” says, for his part, Jonathan rougier, psychologist and mental trainer for athletes at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital (63). For example, “integrating a psychologist in the middle of an ordeal sounds a bit like amateurism and it can even disrupt a collective. “
This specialist in sports psychology specifies that this work should normally begin one year before the event. With tools that start to show their effectiveness after at least six months. In addition, he specifies that there is also essential work to be done on the organization of the team. By also making a mental preparation with the coach, the supervisors and not only on the athlete.
A point of view joined by the psychiatrist Jean-Christophe Seznec who emphasizes, however, that this work is more difficult to set up during a football World Cup. “Barely a few weeks ago, we did not yet know exactly who was going to be selected for the French football team,” he recalls.
But when mental preparation starts, “they are taught to be based on the means to get there and not the result. And also on their own values. The goal: not to be distracted by all the toxic thoughts that pressure can generate, ”he adds.
This specialist explained to the microphone of why actor that many mental trainers use for example the technique of the Person-Centered Approach (PCA). Developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers, this verbal therapy is based on the premise that everyone holds the keys to their well-being. And that inner work can lead to the release of one’s potential.
Listen to Jonathan Rougier, psychologist at Clermont University Hospital: “ It takes 1 year to familiarize yourself with the tools. For example, the “pro” sportsman must learn, thanks to the concentration, to coordinate several relevant information between them.. “
Different therapies depending on the sport and the athlete
Finally, all these professionals in the mental preparation of high-level athletes insist on the fact that there are as many ways to prepare athletes as there are athletes. With individuals who have very different problems from each other.
So, some will need to be calm before a match or fight, while others will need a lot of intensity before the sporting event. The worst thing, according to Jonathan Rougier, is to want to stick what has worked on oneself or on an athlete to all the other athletes. “Often, the athlete succeeds when he appropriates his own system of mental preparation,” he says.
In team sports for example, mental trainers work much more on collective identity. The fact that the athlete is aware of this collective identity brings him a lot of resources.
Conversely, in individual sports, the athletes who shine are often those who are convinced that by working hard they will succeed. Those who have short careers with ephemeral successes are generally those who had little self-confidence, specifies this specialist.
The pyramid of powers in cycling
Finally, this mental preparation is now integrated into all high-level sports. It is also done among the cyclists of the Tour de France 2014 which begins this Saturday in Leeds (England). Important work for these athletes who are sometimes faced with an upheaval in the “pyramid of powers” within their team.
“Cycling is a particular sport where the manager of the team can be deprived of power in favor of the leader. The latter sometimes takes such an influence on his teammates that he can even decide to exclude his manager if he is unhappy. And in this, he will often be followed by other cyclists, ”explains Dr Jean-Christophe Seznec.
This operation can have a positive effect, of course taking some pressure off the shoulders of the other cyclists in the team. But very often, it is the perverse effect that emerges. It can be characterized by an implosion on the part of the leader who can crack because of too much pressure. Proof of this is that even the most psychologically strong athletes need to be helped mentally.
“You have to watch it very closely and when there is a drift, reorganize the hierarchy of powers within the team. By creating a spirit of cohesion where everyone stays in their place. That’s how we get there, ”says Dr Jean-Christophe Seznec.
(1) Author of the book “I stop fighting with my body”, published by puf
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