Athlete Assessment

Athlete Assessment

Over the next 6 weeks I am going to be monitoring the progress of an athlete and also to see if their overall performance improves by them receiving the psychological skills training programme. I will give them advice and provide them with information on each skill they will learn.

Athlete Profile:

• Athlete X
• Aged 18
• Full time student at college
• Netball Player/College Standard/Played for County
• Trains once a week
• Competes once a week

The athlete who I am monitoring is undergoing a number of pressures and psychological demands which are affecting her play. Firstly she is a full time student at college, studying both a BTEC and also her AS levels. Because of this she is faced with a very large sum of coursework with repetitive deadlines for her to hit. Sometimes this can be difficult for her as at times she may need to hit a deadline the day of training or the day after, meaning that she panics a lot. Another pressure which she has is her exams for her A2. Athlete X is the vice-captain of her college netball team, who in addition are quite successful. Being vice-captain can be quite pressurising for athlete X as she needs to make sure she sets a good example to her team mates and also be available at all practises and matches. Athlete X is currently applying for university which is increasing the pressure on her as she is worried she will not get the grades. Whilst playing netball athlete X decreases in motivation especially if her team is losing. Before she competes in a game athlete X can become very anxious of how her performance will be and the effects it will have on the game. The concentration of athlete X is quite poor. The performance demands of netball is that it is a fast, high pace sport meaning that you always have to be on the ball.  Netball is a very fast dynamic sport meaning that the athlete must have high physical and mental fitness. There are the pressures of social and team cohesion, getting along with other team members and making successful game on court. There is the pressure of balancing training/competing with coursework for college, this can be very stressful for the athlete and can be tiring. The athlete must be motivated in order to improve and stay positive whether they are winning/losing or their training isn't going well.  The pressure of staying focused is important as with a lot of distraction the player may lose track of the ball and with negative distractions such as family issues and college work it may decrease their overall performance, it's important that they stay focused and positive. 

Before we go ahead with the psychological skills training programme I asked athlete X to complete several assessments in order for me to gain a more accurate idea about her. These included a performance profile wheel, sports competition anxiety test (SCAT) and also a SWOT analysis. Her results in the performance profile wheel were interesting:

Belief- 5/10                                                                 

Focus- 4/10

Mental toughness- 3/10

Concentration- 5/10

Confidence- 7/10

Self-control- 4/10

Awareness- 7/10

Motivation- 4/10

Self-belief- 4/10

Strength- 6/10

Overall I feel as though these results are quite poor and low scored, I feel as though athlete X will benefit greatly from this psychological skills training programme. Looking at the results I would like for athlete X to increase their concentration and also their anxiety. I am looking forward to introducing athlete X to new skills which will hopefully increase these scores. You can see that athlete X took the SCAT test which is based on measuring the level of anxiety someone has. As you can see athlete X has a very high level of anxiety which by doing the skills programme I would like to try and reduce. Below athlete X has completed the Athletic Coping Skills which measures their psychological skills.From the results I can see that all aspects of the results were low, especially all the ones which relate to anxiety, yet again (peaking under pressure.)  

SWOT ANALYSIS 

Strengths 

-Leadership, positive outlook, sense of humor, organised, enjoys participating, committed 

Weaknesses 

-lacks concentration, no self confidence, anxiety is high, coping with losing

Opportunities 

-help available from sports psychologists, family and friends, teachers, time

Threats

-pressure with college, pressure with netball, coursework, part time job, A2 exams

Overall I feel as though athlete X could benefit greatly from this programme as a few areas need to be improved. Over the next 6 weeks I will be guiding athlete X through the programme suggesting skills to learn and asking her to return feedback of how well it effected her overall performance in training and competitive play at netball.