Topic

IMPORTANCE OF SPORTS PSYCHOLOGISTS IN INDIA

AND
INFLUENCE OF INJURY IN ATHLETES

Submitted By
SHAMIL BIN ASHRAF
 INTRODUCTION

Sports is a very entertaining and also rivalry thing among the audience. We love it and feel it. Most
of the people will like any of the sports item. We enjoyed to see it. As like this the participants or
the players also enjoyed it. They will get profit for playing, but more than that they are playing to
fulfill their passion and satisfaction. Athletes, as well as supporters, can experience many
emotions, including joy, sadness, anger, fear, anxiety, shame or guilt, and pride. They feel some
feelings and emotions before the match until its over.
Indian sports field are very high level in this era, not for every sports item but also most of the
areas are encouraged and India have included in top listed countries. Mainly in cricket, football,
hockey, badminton, tennis, chess, athletics, etc… Now a days more sports items are coming front
and India is taking its own steps in it.
As we mentioned before, athlete’s emotion is very important in sports. If the can’t control it it will
affect their performance, and also if they didn’t have any type of emotion of motive it will also
results. Like our body strength and fitness we should care our mental strength too. It is more
important and most of the people are not aware about it. For that a “Sport Psychologists” exist.
World heavy weight champion boxer Muhammad Ali says that “Champions aren’t made in the
gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them- a desire, a dream, a
vision”. By this word we can understand the power of mind in an athlete. How the mind plays a
major role in success and failure. What is the importance of sports psychologist.
To strengthen the concept the words of Mahatma Gandhi (Politician) and Alex Karras (Football
player) should help. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable
will” (Mahatma Gandhi). “Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles” (Alex Karras).

Sports Psychology

Sport psychology is a proficiency that uses psychological knowledge and skills to address optimal
performance and well-being of athletes, developmental and social aspects of sports participation,
and systemic issues associated with sports settings and organizations. APA recognizes sport
psychology as a proficiency acquired after a doctoral degree in one of the primary areas of
psychology and licensure as a psychologist. This proficiency does not include those who have
earned a doctoral degree in sport psychology but are not licensed psychologists.
Sport Psychology interventions are designed to assist athletes and other sports participants (e.g.,
coaches, administrators, parents) from a wide array of settings, levels of competition and ages,
ranging from recreational youth participants to professional and Olympic athletes to master’s
level performers.

Skills and Procedures Utilized

Many strategies and procedures are used to address problems faced by athletes and other sports
participants. Some of the principal areas include:
• Cognitive and behavioral skills training for performance enhancement. Goal setting;
imagery and performance planning; concentration and attention control strategies;
development of self-confidence, self-esteem and competence in sports; cognitive-
behavioral self-regulation techniques; emotion management, sportsmanship and leadership
skills.
• Counseling and clinical interventions. Athletic motivation; eating disorders and weight
management; substance abuse; grief, depression, loss and suicide; over-training and
burnout; sexual identity issues; aggression and violence; athletic injury and rehabilitation;
career transitions and identity crises.
• Consultation and training. Team building; sports organization consultation; systems
interventions with parents and families involved in youth sports participation; education of
coaches regarding motivation, interpersonal and leadership skills and talent development;
education of coaches and administrators regarding early identification and prevention of
psychological difficulties.

Effect of Injury

In modern world, Sports injury is a common concern among athletes. Many researches have been
done to find out the predictors and risk factors for injury occurrence in sports. There has been a
growling that psychological factors, especially stress and anxiety play a major role in determining
the frequency, severity and extent injury. A study stated that high risk of an injury is a consequence
not only because of physical or environmental problems but also due to psychosocial or personality
constellation with in the individual. In order to prevent injuries in sports, it is important for athletes
and trainers, to identify the psychological factors that causes athletic injury.
Andersen MB and Williams JM proposed a model [7] to understand the relationship between
psychological variables and injury occurrence. The model suggested that when an athlete faces a
potentially stressful athletic situation or environment, there is a resultant stress response to that
environment. The body always responses to potentially injurious situation. Body responses by the
following processes- cognitive appraisal of the demands, resources and consequences followed by
physiologic and attentional changes in the body. The Anderson and William’s model highlighted
the effect of anxiety, depression, anger, total negative mood state and competitive anxiety on
frequency and severity of injury. It can be interpreted by the model that there has been an increase
in the frequency and severity of injuries due to these factors [7].
A stressful situation always generate a stress response that will be influenced by the interplay
between various psychosocial factors and are divided into three categories:
• Personality factors or psychosocial factors for example, anxiety, Type-A behaviour and
attentional style
• History of stressors for example, life event stress, hassle
• Coping strategies for example, social support, acceptance and positive reappraisal
The stressful nature of sport and the competitive environment predispose an athlete to an injury.
Life stress is found to be an important antecedent of injury occurrence in athletes [8,9]. In
competition, both anxiety and stress are associated with performance of an athlete and identified
as key predictors of injury and responsible for discontinuation of sport participation. There is lack
of such reviews regarding the psychological variables which contribute to a sport injury of elite
athletes.

Conclusion

Stress and anxiety were the two major psychological variables or predictors of injury in athletes
of different sports. They are interconnected with injury. These two psychological problems leads
to injury of a sportsman and also when a person get injured he/she will faces stress or anxiety after
it.
 References

Andersen MB, Williams JM. A model of stress and athletic injury: Prediction and prevention. J
Sport Exerc Psychol. 1988;10:294-306.
Grossbard JR, Smith RE, Smoll FL, Cumming SP. Competitive anxiety in young athletes:
Differentiating somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption. Anxiety, Stress Coping.
2009;22(2):153-66.
Kleinert J. An approach to sport injury trait anxiety: Scale construction and structure analysis. Euro
J Sport Sci. 2002;2(3):01-02.
Sport Psychology. (n.d.). https://www.apa.org. https://www.apa.org/ed/graduate/specialize/sports.
Uitenbroek DG. Sports, exercise, and other causes of injuries: Results of a population survey. Res
Quart Exerc Sport. 1996;67:380-85.