Athletes' pre-start states: how a coach can help a teenager handle the nerves
Before a start, even the most confident athlete's knees go weak with nerves. And in teenagers, with their hormonal and emotional instability, that state can either help or wipe out months of training.
Understanding the nature of pre-start states is a key skill for any coach working with the younger generation.
This article is a distillation of evidence-based methods from the book "Pre-start states in adolescent athletes", which will help you turn anxiety into energy.
Emotions play a key role in an athlete's behaviour, affecting both what they do and what they achieve. Anxiety is one of the personality traits that influences success in competition. A certain level of anxiety is natural and even necessary for an active person.
What is a pre-start state?
It is the body's emotional response to the activity ahead. It arises hours or even days before a competition. In teenagers it is especially pronounced because of the lability of the nervous system.
The main types of pre-start state:
- Competitive readiness: the ideal state. The athlete is composed, focused, confident and eager to start.
- Pre-start fever: arousal dominates. The athlete is excessively agitated, fidgety, unable to concentrate. The energy goes not into preparation but into nervous exhaustion.
- Pre-start apathy: inhibition dominates. The athlete is flat, indifferent, drowsy and without any desire to compete.
9 recommendations for coaches on reducing pre-start stress in athletes:
- Ensure a positive, supportive atmosphere in the team.
- Concentrate on the athletes' emotional state rather than your own.
- Be with the team both before and after the competition.
- Give every athlete a realistic assessment of what they did.
- Talk to every member of the team, including those who did not compete.
- Organise a shared activity for the whole team after the match or competition (dinner or a trip to the cinema, for example).
- Keep athletes apart from parents and friends immediately after the competition.
- Don't let team members get carried away with their success or sink into depression over a loss.
- Begin psychological preparation for the next event at the very next training session.
Various techniques are used to regulate pre-start arousal:
- a specific warm-up;
- self-massage;
- breathing exercises;
- autogenic training and other methods.
When regulating an emotional state, it is important to remember that this is not only a mental phenomenon but a state of the whole organism, involving changes at the level of organs and tissues.
A pre-start state is not an enemy but a resource. The coach's task is not to suppress it but to learn to manage it, directing the energy of the nerves into something productive.