Effects on performance
In sports and games an athletes performance can be influenced by many factors both physical and psychological, what makes the difference if all athletes are in their peak physical condition, many believe that the difference is psychological factors. These factors can be such things as stress, anxiety and arousal. These 3 psychological areas can have both positive and negative effects on an athletes performance.
Arousal
Arousal is the condition that an athlete or indeed person is at, at any set time, as arousal can be anywhere between low arousal and high arousal.
Arousal refers to the intensity of motivation at a given time (Weinberg & Gould, 2003) and the state of alertness and anticipation prior to a situation that prepares the body for action.
Anxiety
Anxiety is an emotional state, which is a form of fear or apprehension that occurs when the body is preparing for a situation that it perceives as threatening (Woods, 1998). A personal situation of mine would be in the past I would feel anxious before team selection in a football game, as I was worried that I would be a substitute and feel inadequate (see appendix 1).
Anxiety can be broken down into various parts: • State anxiety o Cognitive state anxiety o Somatic state anxiety • Trait anxiety
State anxiety
State anxiety is describe as the changing mood state (Weinberg & Gould, 2003) and refers to the bodies changing condition when different situations arise. State anxiety is broken down further in to two more parts, cognitive state and somatic state anxiety. Cognitive state anxiety is the amount that an athlete worries or has negative thoughts where as somatic state anxiety is the persons perceived change in physical activation. An example of cognitive state anxiety would be when I am about to perform a new task or learned skill like in whoops ball I thought that I would
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