Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

Indeed, players often shorten their pre-performance routines in adverse circumstances
(e.g., under unfavourable weather conditions), Unfortunately, the converse is true for
superstitions. Thus they tend to grow longer over time as performers “chain together”
more and more illogical links between behaviour and outcome. A second criterion which
may be used to distinguish between routines and rituals concerns the technical role of
each behavioural step followed. To explain, whereas each part of a routine should have a
rational basis, the components of a superstitious ritual may not be justifiable objectively.
Despite these neat conceptual distinctions, the pre-shot routines of many athletes are
often invested with magical thinking and superstitious qualities,

Critical thinking questions
Do you think that athletes really understand the difference between routines and
rituals? What do you think of the idea that it does not really matter that athletes are
superstitious—as long as it makes them feel mentally prepared for competition?

A second problem with routines is that they need to be reviewed and revised regularly in
order to avoid the danger of automation. To explain, if athletes maintain the same pre-
performance routines indefinitely, their minds may begin to wander as a consequence of
tuning out. Clearly, an important challenge for applied sport psychologists is to help
athletes to attain an appropriate level of conscious control over their actions before skill-
execution.

“Trigger words” as cues to concentrate

During the 2002 Wimbledon ladies’ singles tennis final between the Williams sisters,
Serena Williams (who defeated Venus 7–6, 6–3) was observed by millions of viewers to
be reading something as she sat down during the change-overs between games.
Afterwards, she explained that she had been reading notes that she had written to herself
as trigger words or instructional cues to remind her to “hit in front” or “stay low”
(R.Williams, 2002b, p. 6) (see Figure 4.6).
For similar reasons, many sport performers talk to themselves either silently or out
loud when they compete—usually in an effort to motivate themselves. This covert self-
talk may involve praise (e.g., ‘Well done! That’s good”), criticism (“You idiot—that’s a
stupid mistake”) and/or instruction (“Swing slowly”). Accordingly, self-talk may be
positive, negative or neutral. As a cognitive self-regulatory strategy, self-talk may
enhance concentration skills (Williams and Leffingwell, 2002). In particular, Landin and
Herbert (1999) discovered that tennis players who had been trained to use instructional
cues or trigger words (such as “split, turn”) attributed their improved performance to
enhanced concentration on court. More recently, a survey of the nature and uses of self-
talk in athletes was conducted by Hardy, Gammage and Hall (2001). One of the findings
reported in this study was thatathletes used it for such mastery reasons as staying
“focused” (p. 315).

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