Psychological Skills Training for Snowboarding

Psychological skills training (PST) can be used for a number of different purposes whether related to sports, exercise, or just plain psychological counseling of one’s self. Depending upon your desired outcome from a PST program your script may help with your overall health and fitness, or to overcome situations in which you feel anxiety and pressure from. People’s lack of knowledge in PST is the main reason coaches don’t feel confident when teaching this skill set to their athletes or clients. They go about the approach to coaching in a particular setting by giving a concentration cue to a player as he/she is completing the exercise or taking the final shot or swing. What we forget to realize is the player/person isn’t going to be able to react to these cues if they haven’t practiced relaxation skills for that specific situation. Another reason why sport and exercise participants neglect PST is because of their misconception they do not have enough time to practice these PST skills to enhance their performance, little do they know it takes 10-20 minutes each day to improve these skills. Every sport, or exercise program requires a unique skill to accomplish the task or competition at hand. This is why I chose snowboarding because not only is it my new found passion, but it is a very individualized sport which requires incredible focus and relaxation. Without focus and relaxation a snowboarders routine may be affected during his/her freestyle run lowering your overall score and keeping you off the podium. Many of the elite snowboarders, including Shaun White are using PST training to prepare themselves for competitions. Most recently we’ve seen this in the 2011 Winter X games where we saw Shaun White go on to become the only 4 time repeat winner of Super pipe. Without proper mental visualization, relaxation and preparation he may not have been able to repeat this year given his age and the rising skill levels of his competitors.
Relaxation Script
Relaxation in