Recently I've been playing around with techniques and strategies to prepare myself for competition and deal with stress and pressure better and I wanted to share what I've found and hear what others do. I have noticed that a lot of the better players seem to perform closer to their practice game than others. I've always felt I performed around 40-50% of my practice game, but I've never really done anything about it other than focusing on a tighter technique.
Obviously, better technique will play a large part, but I've begun looking at how anxiety and stress physically manifest itself in my game. The main thing is tension in my arms, hands and the rest of the body which leads to flinching and twitching as I hit the ball. Little movements that reduce my accuracy, particularily on shots with power. Shallow breathing when stressed and nervous will result in poor decision making. Put these things together and you get flubbed shots and goofy decisions.
The first thing I came across is something called centering. Some of it seems a bit goofy, but the main things that work are being mindful of you breathing and releasing tension in your muscles. Here is a link that explains it more.
http://ift.tt/2cnlF5q
Muscle Relaxation http://ift.tt/28UtXuU
I've also started doing some bicep and triceps stretches before playing which also loosens up the muscles.
Finally the only thing I've been focusing on during a match is keeping still and freezing until the ball falls into a pocket (or misses).
The focus on reduction of movement and flinching has helped a lot. I haven't had opportunity for many matches recently, but if I have played poorly I've been able to turn my game around. And I've been playing much closer to what I would consider my relaxed practice game.
I've been doing centering and muscle relaxation stuff over the last couple weeks and I've been playing well every day so far. Too soon for me to conclusively say it works, but things are looking good for the moment.
I'm interested in anyones thoughts, if you've tried anything like this or if you have any other ideas or suggestions to maximize playing potential during match play.
Stretching, Centering and Other Strategies
Obviously, better technique will play a large part, but I've begun looking at how anxiety and stress physically manifest itself in my game. The main thing is tension in my arms, hands and the rest of the body which leads to flinching and twitching as I hit the ball. Little movements that reduce my accuracy, particularily on shots with power. Shallow breathing when stressed and nervous will result in poor decision making. Put these things together and you get flubbed shots and goofy decisions.
The first thing I came across is something called centering. Some of it seems a bit goofy, but the main things that work are being mindful of you breathing and releasing tension in your muscles. Here is a link that explains it more.
http://ift.tt/2cnlF5q
Muscle Relaxation http://ift.tt/28UtXuU
I've also started doing some bicep and triceps stretches before playing which also loosens up the muscles.
Finally the only thing I've been focusing on during a match is keeping still and freezing until the ball falls into a pocket (or misses).
The focus on reduction of movement and flinching has helped a lot. I haven't had opportunity for many matches recently, but if I have played poorly I've been able to turn my game around. And I've been playing much closer to what I would consider my relaxed practice game.
I've been doing centering and muscle relaxation stuff over the last couple weeks and I've been playing well every day so far. Too soon for me to conclusively say it works, but things are looking good for the moment.
I'm interested in anyones thoughts, if you've tried anything like this or if you have any other ideas or suggestions to maximize playing potential during match play.
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