The Mind and Brain in Exercise

1. The Mind and Brain in Exercise Sport Psychology

2. Introduction • Mind and brain have been cited by Olympic weightlifting coaches as having the best potential to contribute to future athletic performance success • Sport psychology intents to solving some practical, practical problems for athletic performance like how much “psyching up” is appropriated

3. Background • In 1898, Triplett found that cyclists had faster race times when in the presence of other cyclists. • Floyd Allport coined the term “social facilitation” for the first time in 1924. Norman Triplett (1861-1931) Floyd Allport (1890-1978)

4. Coleman Griffith set first lab dedicated to systematic study of sport psychology at U of Illinois in 1925, and wrote several books on sport psychology Coleman Griffith (1893 - 1966)

5. The Scope of Sport Psychology • Cognitive Sport Psychology • Social Sport Psychology • Personality • Exercise Psychology • Experimental Sport Psychology

6. Cognitive Sport Psychology • This area includes learning and skill acquisition and topics such as attention • Is an area that overlaps and provides interaction with researchers in motor learning

7. Social Sport Psychology • Concerned with issues like social facilitation, competition, and theories of leadership. • How long-distance runner competing alone • What competitive situations produce leaders in some individuals and not in others • What is the role of sport and competition in motor development

8. Personality • Are often considered important in exercise include anxiety, motivational level, aggression, motivation, and extroversion versus introversion

9. Exercise Psychology • Exercise psychology can be defined as the study of psychological issues and theories related to exercise. • Exercise psychology is a sub-discipline within the field of psychology and is typically grouped with sport psychology • As an interdisciplinary subject, exercise psychology draws on several different scientific fields, ranging from psychology to physiology to neuroscience. • Major topics of study are the relationship between exercise and mental health (e.g., stress, affect, self-esteem), interventions that promote physical activity, exploring exercise patterns in different populations (e.g., the elderly, the obese), theories of behavior change, and problems associated with exercise (e.g., injury, eating disorders, exercise addiction)

10. Experimental Sport Psychology • Link to psychophysiology • Concerned with the psychological control body function during physiological activity • Tremor during archery • Imagery involves the process of focussing on a motor skill without physically performing that activity

11. mental imagery (where players picture themselves performing particular skills and actions during a game) can be used. Imagery self-hypnosis has been found to be useful as it allows players to narrow their attention and remove distractions.

12. Clinical Sport Psychology • Work directly with athletes as individuals or in groups. • Assist athletes to relax used various techniques (meditation, imagery, biofeedback etc…) for relaxation and stress management • Used goal setting to promote motivation • To help manage pain

13. The dimensions of sport psychology Cognitive sport psychology Psychometric sport psychology Sport Psychology Clinic sport psychology Experimental sport psychology Social sport psychology Exercise sport psychology Personality Theory

14. An Athletic Personality • The mental health model of psychological well-being regards the human mind on the model of a physical organism • Signs of stress may be cognitive, emotional, physical, or behavioral.

15. Signs of stress • Cognitive symptoms of stress/tension • Memory problems • Inability to concentrate • Poor judgment • Seeing only the negative • Anxious or racing thoughts • Constant worrying • Emotional symptoms of stress/tension • Moodiness • Irritability or short temper • Agitation, inability to relax • Feeling overwhelmed • Sense of loneliness and isolation • Depression or general unhappiness

16. Physical symptoms stress/tension • Aches and pains • Diarrhea or constipation • Nausea, dizziness • Chest pain, rapid heartbeat • Loss of sex drive • Frequent colds • Behavioral symptoms stress/tension • Eating more or less • Sleeping too much or too little • Isolating oneself from others • Procrastinating or neglecting responsibilities • Using alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs to relax • Nervous habits (e.g. nail biting, pacing)

17. An Athletic Personality • Different type of sports have different personalities (team vs. individual) • Attacking players are often emotionally unstable and extroversion than defensive players • A model is that interaction between an athlete’s personality and the environment in which the athlete is involved - interactional approach

18. Profile mood states • The Profile of Mood States (POMS) is a psychological rating scale used to assess transient, distinct mood states • tension-anxiety • depression-dejection • anger-hostility • fatigue-inertia • vigor-activity • confusion-bewilderment Population average

19. Mind Over Matter: Relaxation and Exercise Science • Brain capable of exerting powerful effects over the body • Brain organizes and executes muscle contraction • In many situations relaxation is just as important • Sport psychologists have developed techniques to recognize when relaxation may be important • Implement relaxation training to improve performance

20. Psyching Up: the Inverted-U • A technique to produce their best effort • Stirring speech in the locker room at halftime. • Football coach castrated a bull before the game against U of Texas. What a hell American football have DONE to me

21. The Optimal Level of Arousal • Yerkes – Dodson (1908) law asserts that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases. • The process is often illustrated graphically as a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal.

22. Arousal level for performers required upon • Own personality • The nature of the task • A=low-key boxer • B=baseball/basketball • C=golf/bowling • Anxiety occurs when arousal level get too high

23. Anxiety (also called angst or worry) is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components • Trait anxiety: have a feature of their personality in which they are normally anxiety • State anxiety: a measure of how anxious a person feels at a particular time • High-trait anxiety players have to be calmed down and Low-trait anxiety players have to be activated or ”psych up”

24. Controlling Stress • One technique to control stress and enhance relaxation – Biofeedback • Biofeedback is the process through which individuals control their own • Instrument (e.g. EMG) provides information (visual, auditory, or other sense) to recognize the level of tension

25. Electromyography (EMG) • Electromyography (EMG) is a technique for evaluating and recording the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles. • EMG is performed using an instrument called an electromyograph, to produce a record called an electromyogram. • An electromyograph detects the electrical potential generated by muscle cells when these cells are electrically or neurologically activated. • The signals can be analyzed to detect medical abnormalities, activation level, recruitment order or to analyze the biomechanics of human or animal movement

26. Psyching Up • Fatigue may require additional motivation • To prevent lose focus, concentration in case of physical fatigue • Reaction inhibition – a psychologic reluctance to work, and it is one of the reasons why rest intervals are important. • Elite performers learn to shoot between heart beat or/and adapt breathing pattern.

29. Electroencephalograph (EEG) • Another form of biofeedback training uses brainwave rhythms • Increase elite archer low frequency activity on the right side of the brain, shooting scores deteriorated • Indicating relaxation and biofeedback training can be used to improve motor performance

30. Brain wave of Archery

31. The Pschophysiology of Exercise • Pain sensitivity decreases with brief periods of exercise • Gate theory of pain • Larger sensory nerve fibers can reduce the pain impulses carried by smaller sensory fibers • Periaqueductal gray (PAG) stimulation causes the release of chemicals called enkephalins to reduce the amount of sensory input along these pain pathways • Exercise may be a pain reliever or euphoric source

32. Gate Theory of Pain

33. Exercise Addiction • Has been described as clinical disorder in which performers is addicted to habitual exercise. • More likely in runner who train long distance than in recreational runner. • Syndrome similar to anorexia nervosa or bulimia developing other compulsive disorders. • “Peak” experiences may occurs. • 70% experienced runners may experience a runner’s high (Sachs, 1984). • Can not be predicted, but it occurs after running 20 to 30 min at a comfortable pace.

34. Application of Clinical Sport Psychology • Basic and clinical psychology develop of procedures to treat performers various mental, emotional, cognitive, and psychologic problems related to motor performance

35. Imagery • Imagery involves the use of visualization procedures to imagine physical performance, usually in absence of physical movement, also termed mental rehearsal or mental practice

36. Explanation of Mental Imagery • An example of phenomenon to mechanism. Unstanding the basis of imagery may lead to new leaps in our ability to apply imagery

37. Psychoneuromuscular theory • Use of imagery duplicateds the motor pattern in the brain • Also called the theory of muscle memory, repeated mental practice allows the performer to continue to activate the same brain systems involved in movement • Symbolic learning theory • Assumes that improvement from mental rehearsal is due to the idea of thinking about the task rather than thinking about activating the proper muscles in the proper sequence • Arousal/activation theory • Immediately prior to competition, an individual may be able to improve performance by thinking about it and thus reaching the right level of motivation on the inverted-U arousal curve. • Bioinformational/information • Uses our knowledge of information processing and motor learning to generate a pattern of movement • May involve the activation of long-term memory

38. Other Sport Psychology Coaching “Tools” • Familiarization • Individual may perform better when the surroundings are familiar • Measuring dimension of basketball court and the height of the hoop above the floor • Take team to common fast food restaurant Hoosiers, 1986

39. The Use of Rituals • Listening to Frank Sinatra singing before pitched • This ritual allows performers to become focused on their task and eliminate distractions and to put themselves in a mental state where they believe success will occur

40. Exercise Adherence • Successful and long term participation in regular exercise program base on a number of factors • Situation Factors Affecting Exercise Adherence & Motivation • Time • Money • Energy • Role Conflict • Social Support • Exercising With Others • Facilities • Climate • Physical Discomfort • Personal Factors Affecting Exercise Adherence & Motivation • Awareness of Personality • Goal Setting • Imagery • Arousal Regulation and Concentration

41. Determinants • A variable may be helpful in predicting the value of another variable (e.g. living across street from a low-cost fitness center may be considered to be a determinant for exercise behavior) • Given the importance of increasing exercise participation rates, there is a clear need to predict what physiologic, psychologic, cultural, socieconomic, and environmental determinants.

42. Sport Psychology in Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation • Psychologic factors affecting the etiology of athletic injury which involves stress • Use progressive relaxation and imagery to reduce stress during practice • 52% injury reduction in swimming team • 33% injury reduction in football team • Relaxation techniques can serve as a usefuk intervention for injury prevention and performance improvement

43. Staleness • Too much training can be physically stressful and result in a degradation in performance • During intense overtraining athletes may manifest the staleness syndrome • Mood change • Sleep disorder • Loss of appetite • Mental depression • The quality of athletic performance reaches a plateau or may actually get worse • Endurance athletes are especially prone to suffer from staleness

44. Identifying Staleness • Morning heart rate • Changes in muscle characteristics • Certain biochemical measures

45. Biomarkers

46. Workload v.s. Level of Fitness

47. Periodization

48. POMS 季前 季中 季後

49. Conclusion • Sport psychology is considered an authentic and integral subdiscipline of exercise science • An authentic division of American Psychology Association • Several others share their researchers finding • American College of Sport Medicine (ACSM) • North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (NASPSPA) • American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (AAHPEDRD) • American Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AAASP)

50. Discussion • If you are a sport psychologist, what kind of mental problem in athletic training may interesting the most for you. • What is your best strategy to cope with peer stress in your high competitive work place? Do you think “social facilitation” may worked on you? • You could portraying a possible P.O.M.S. diagram for a given sport (your selection), in the occasion of prior and during a competition?