BLOG 4

Training Week 1^st- 7^th April 2014-05-12

Hi X, this week we be starting a new skill which I feel will be very beneficial towards athletes like yourself who suffer from somatic anxiety, such as when you get nervous ‘butterflies’ in your stomach before competing. This week’s skill is called Progressive Muscular Relaxation (PMR) which has been proven to be a very helpful skill to develop. It involves tensing specific muscles of the body and then relaxing them to create a feeling of tension and then relaxation. It is a progressive skill which eventually leads to total muscular relaxation. I feel that you will find this skill very beneficial and I would like to see you continuing with it after this week’s programme.

You should find a quiet place during your week of training, lie down so that you are comfortable and then slowly tense and relax each muscle groups of your body. Tightening each muscle for between 4-6 seconds, when the muscle is relaxed it returns to a more relaxed state than it was before tightening. You should complete this skill for these parts of the body X, preferably in this order as well:

•   Feet
•   Legs
•      Thighs
•    Buttocks
•    Stomach
•    Back
•   Neck
•    Shoulders
•    Arms
•          Hands
•   Jaw
•         Face
•        Eyes

This skill is used by athletes to help with the removal of stress related reactions, to create a physical state which entitles receptivity towards mental imagery and finally to set a level of physical and mental arousal prior to warming up for a competitive situation. This skill has been proven to have a long term effect on sport especially on reducing anxiety whilst at the same time improving concentration. Through practicing PMR athletes have been able to control their breathing better and also implement shorter. A lot of athletes can experience over arousal which means that they can be overly stressed, overly motivated and also overly anxious which can have negative effects on their performance. PMR can help reduce the levels of anxiety to a level which is more suitable for participation.

This week X I would like you to attempt the Progressive Muscular Relaxation skill to see whether it decreases your levels of stress and anxiety before competing in a netball game. Throughout this week, every day up until your match I would like you to lie down somewhere comfortable and quiet, maybe with some relaxing or motivating music on in the background and complete a full body relaxation in the order which I listed above. I would like you to continue the exercise for 20 minutes each day in order to cleanse the body of stress and to hopefully gain full relaxation, by the end of the week in time for the match you should have started to become good at this skill and use it before you go on court which will make you feel a lot more confident as you will hopefully be less anxious about the match. I hope this week goes well and let me know how you get on!

I have just been speaking to X about her programme this week. She explained how she did enjoy this week’s skill of progressive muscular relaxation and how she felt very calm going onto court at the match because she had been completing the exercises everyday ensuring that she was relaxed as she could be. She told me how she felt so much better after she had completed the exercise and how she felt more confidence about her performance this week. X mentioned that this exercises was quite time consuming but once she realised that it work very well she thought it was worth the time for the outcome it gave her. She told me how she would be using this skill again and she would like to start developing it, as well breathing techniques. She said that during her training that week that when she was doing the relaxation technique that listening to music made it more motivating to complete and kept her focused. I am pleased that this has been another successful week for X and I hope she has found something she can develop.