The coronavirus also affects athletes emotionally, physically, socially and mentally.

We want
to help athletes and coaches to deal with this sudden and previously unknown situation as
effectively as possible. FACE COVID is an English acronym that is created by Dr Russ
Harris, and we have transferred it to a sport environment.

F: Focus: Focus on what's in your control and pay attention to what you can control

In this present situation, many things are beyond our control and influence, and we can only
control our attitude, efforts and actions. Try to direct your attention to what you can handle!
Think about your actual performance and goals as an athlete and try to answer the following
questions:

- What do you have no influence/control over in this present situation (e.g. when do I go
to training; when will be a competition)?
- What can you influence/control in this present situation (e.g. quality of daily training;
quality of sleeping and eating)

Sport psychological related concepts:

attitude: a relatively stable opinion towards a person, object or activity, containing a cognitive
element (perceptions and beliefs) and an emotional element (positive or negative feelings).

coping: the process of managing external or internal demands that are perceived as taxing or
exceeding a person's resource.

coping strategy: cognitive and/or behavioral technique athletes employ to deal with problems
or to feel better emotionally so that they can perform effectively in demanding situations.

focus: the ability to devote your full attention to the task at hand, tuning out distractions. This
ability is, in many ways, one of the single most critical factors determining your athletic
success.

A: Acceptance: Recognise and try to accept your thoughts and feelings

It is a completely normal and natural human and athletic reaction if you occasionally feel that:
- it 's like travelling on an emotional roller coaster
- you experience fear, anxiety, frustration or anger
- you are exhausted physically or emotionally
- if you feel you don't want to train today
 - if you feel less motivated sometimes
- if you are angry or miss competitions
- if you have any doubts about your sport career
Emotions are constantly changing, but let's try to recognise them and accept their presence!
Think over the questions below!
- What makes your days happier?
- What makes you sad?
- What gives you strength and power for your workouts?

Laugh! Humour is almost always there to help us in difficult situations, as laughing not only
put you out of difficult moments and helps us deal with them, but also strengthens our
psychological immune system. At the same time, be aware that this is only true to a certain
extent; all this must not turn into a trivialisation or denial of the situation.

Sport psychological related concepts:

anxiety: a negative emotional state characterized by nervousness, worry, and apprehension

and associated with activation or arousal of the body.

cognitive anxiety: anxiety’s thought component (e.g., worry, negative thoughts and
apprehension)

somatic anxiety: the degree of physical activation perceived (e.g. “butterflies in the stomach”
fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, and headache

emotion management: collection of strategies that decrease emotional distress and enhance
positive feelings of well-being. These include social support, relaxation, positive thinking, and
positive reinterpretation.

C: Come back into your body- Improve your physical awareness

One of the most important "working tool" for an athlete is his or her own body. In the present
situation, this is a very important resource, as our muscles are always available; muscle
memory can be developed. You have the strongest influence and control on your actions.
While implementing your workout plan, you can learn a lot of new things about your own
body and muscle functioning, from which you can benefit a lot later.
 - When and what muscles turn on? How do different exercises/movements affect you?

If you want, you can make a video about the exercises or the simulation, then watch and
analyse the video and search for possibilities of development! Ask your coach for help on
this!

Beside muscle functioning, technical "muscle memory" also requires some "maintenance". If
you have the opportunity, watch previous competitions, observe yourself from the outside
perspective and mentally rehearse the effective execution in your head!

Sport psychological related concepts:

mental training: refers to systematic and consistent practice of mental or psychological skills
for the purpose of enhancing performance, increasing enjoyment, or achieving greater sport
and physical activity self-satisfaction.

mental toughness: an athlete’s ability to focus, ability to rebound from failure, ability to cope
with pressure, determination to persist in the face of adversity, and mental resilience

muscle memory: the ability to repeat a specific muscular movement with improved efficiency
and accuracy that is acquired through practice and repetition

E: Engage in what you're doing- Mindfulness

Try to develop a daily routine, which is especially important to feel as mentally as safe as
possible and strengthen your sense of control!
- try to arrange the different programs - always at the same time - as much as possible
- dress as if you were coming for a training/workout
- try to chat with your teammates after training, as usual
- pay attention to the rhythm and routine of eating and sleeping
Feel free to ask your coach or your parents to help in developing your daily routine!
Mental and physical recovery should be part of your routine! You can hold "cheating day"
like in a diet because if you put too much pressure on yourself on daily planning, it can
increase anxiety, especially if you can not always meet your plans!

Colour-based breathing
Like the functioning of your muscles, the awareness of your breathing can do a lot to help you
stay in the present moment as many times as possible (it not only improves concentration but
can also provide balance and awareness).

Here is a "tried and tested" breathing technique that you can practice:

Choose two colours!

One of the colours should represent fatigue, stress, everything you want to get rid of.

Your colour: .................................................. ..................

While the other colour should be associated with feelings of strength and freshness.

Your colour: ............................................ .......................

Start paying attention to your breathing

Put one of your hands on your abdomen, try to breathe with abdominal breathing by "pushing
up your abdomen". Be sure to inhale the air on your nose and then blow it out by mouth

Finally, try to breathe in 12 sec based sections (6 sec inhale and 6 sec exhale)

Breathe in and out colours!

Imagine inhaling the colour of freshness/calmness and flooding your body with this beautiful
colour, then let the colour of fatigue/stress blow out of your body, visualise as it is leaving
through your mouth. Repeat it four or five times, or as many times as you like.

Sport psychological related concepts:

flow: an optimal psychological state involving total absorption in an activity that can occur
when athletes are both mentally and physically prepared; enables best performance.

mindfulness: the nonjudgmental focus of one’s attention on the sensory experience that
occurs in the present moment (e.g. while performing a skill)

self-talk: steady stream of thoughts and internal dialogue that has a significant impact on
mood, emotions, and performance.
sensory awareness: process of becoming more aware of one’s internal and external sensory
experiences while performing, such as body position, footwork, timing, flow of movement,
change of direction, and preparatory movements.

recovery: an inter-individual and intra-individual multi-level (e.g. psychological,

physiological, social) process in time for the re-establishment of performance abilities

relaxation: a psychological strategy used by sports performers to help manage or reduce

stress-related emotions and physical symptoms during high pressurized situations

C: Commitment and committed action

An important cornerstone of your athletic coping is your commitment to the sport and attitude
to the sport.

Remember the "why"!

You finally got the chance to review your sport carrier! Collect all your medals, memories,
photos, from the beginning to the present day! You may not remember everything, but try to
gather what you were most proud of the certain year and what you learned then about
yourself, your sport, and competitions.
You can start from the first years (you can try to remember on your previous coaches,
teammates, and training locations, this will help a lot in recalling memories), or from your
latest memories back in time.
Of course, in a given year, more things could have happened to you that are worth
remembering, try to summarise them.
Of course, everyone can have a bad season, that's natural, but we can learn a lot about
ourselves through each difficulty. Summarise what you have experienced about yourself, how
you have changed over time.
You can be also proud of your development (e.g. learnt a new throwing technique) and
important sport-related event (e.g. selected into the junior national team) not just your results
(e.g. won the national championship)
Lessons can be everything you have learned in a given year, whether technical or tactical
elements, but you can also write down your important stages in your physical and mental
development (e.g. I have started to use relaxation techniques, I have developed a competition
routine…). It is also important to mention moments that weren't so positive (failures, poorly
managed competitions) and what you learned from them. You can use the attached file to take
notes (you just need to print it out), or you can create your timeline. You can also illustrate
your timeline with pictures, drawings and souvenirs from different competitions!
And what are the benefits of this exercise? It makes you aware of what kind of athlete you
have become, what you have achieved and how much you have learned, developed
Sport psychological related concepts:

sport commitment: tendency to take an active role in events e.g., encouraging persistence
after mistakes, skill-specific feedback and reinforcement
athletic identity: a psychological construct, that refers to a role-based, self-related perception
of how people view themselves in relation to their role as an athlete

My results:

Year What I am proud of: What I have learned:

O: Opening up

Try to maintain virtual communication! Humans are basically social beings (athletes are
also), but now everyone is mainly on -girl and on -boy. Keep in touch with your
teammates and coach!
Be creative: if you have good ideas for spending time or creative training tips, upload them to
motivate yourself and others!

Here are some tips for online team-building (ask/post the questions and share the answers)

- What would you take with you? You wake up on a deserted island tomorrow morning.
There is no usual comfort around you (internet, pizza-order). You can only take seven
things with you - what would that be?
- Team "boot-list": What else do you want to experience together? Without criticism,
everyone post 2-3 ideas and make a final list of them by joint decision.
- "Face" yourself: Find a photo that best describes your everyday life - add comments;
or find a favourite picture of being athlete (or a photo from your childhood as an
athlete) and give a title.

Sport psychological related concepts:

Communication: act of expressing or transmitting ideas, information, knowledge, thoughts,
and feelings, as well as understanding what is expressed by others.

Empathetic listening: process of hearing what others say with the intent of deeply and
completely understanding their perspective.

Team building: strategies associated with increased cohesiveness, such as ensuring role
clarity and acceptance, establishing team performance goals, and improving athlete–athlete
and coach–athlete communication.

V: Values

In addition to the commitment to the sport, commitment to ourselves is also significant. What
are your most important values in the current situation? What kind of athlete would you like
to be now? How do you want to relate to yourself and others?

These values can be: love, respect, patience, humour, courage, honesty, care, openness,
kindness, perseverance, and so on.

In order to improve yourself, it is worth to answer the following questions:

- How can you take advantage of staying at home?

- What skills can you develop now, and what new skills can you acquire?
- What have you never had time for?
- What new habits can you develop or can you try new things?

Sport psychological related concepts:

Goals: is the desire to attain a specific standard of proficiency on a task, usually within a
specified time.

Goal setting: process of establishing a standard of accomplishment.

Self-evaluation: process of measuring success based on comparison of an athlete’s own

performance over time; focused on learning and self-improvement

Need for self-actualization: an internal motivation to develop one's own talents and abilities
to the full.
Values: a life direction, an internal compass which guides us throughtout life

I: Identify resources

Recognition and awareness of our external and internal resources (e.g. strengths) can not only
help maintain our self-confidence, but can also provide strength in difficult moments.

Answer the following questions:

- What resources and strengths do you have as an athlete: technical, tactical, mental
and physical?
- What resources do you have in your environment; who can you rely on, and who
can you help and how?
- What did you learn from your parents and coaches (or teammates)?
- Have you ever received any feedback or recognition that meant the world to
you?
- How did these feedbacks help?
- How did you thank them?

Sport psychological related concepts:

self-awareness: an understanding of the self, especially of personal strengths and weaknesses

self-confidence: an athlete's realistic belief about achieving success; based on performance

history and preparation

D (Disinfect & distance) Take care of yourself and others!

Keep your distance and watch movies together online. Here is a useful little game for
watching movies together!

Sportfilm BINGO

Description and rules: Choose together a sport-related film, and watch the movie at the same
time. Any time you hear or see an event/sentence/moment (similarity is enough), that is listed
in the table of BINGO, cross it. If you have drawn all of the squares in a row (horizontally or
vertically) or diagonally across your cards, you have won - then shout BINGO online! The
first wins!

The
The coach "You cannot judges/opponent “You have the
“This is all in
motivates the understand s cheat the ability; you can
your head.”
athlete/s this." match/competiti do it!”
on.
“You have to
The future
"You don't want The family perform at
girlfriend/ The athlete get
that hard motivates the 110% / I
boyfriend of the injured
enough." athlete performed at
athlete appears
110%!”

The failed
Deep emotional
Parents taunt The athlete skip athlete
Fans appear acoustic music
and demotivate the training successfully
begin
return

The athlete
The athlete The coach The athlete Teammates makes a huge
stands up humiliate the freak out on his excommunicate sacrifice
against his/her athletes coach the athlete because of the
teammates training/competi
tions

Created by Dr. Noémi Gyömbér, qualified sport psychologist

Krisztina Kovács, qualified sport psychologist

Sources of definitions:

Burton, D., & Raedeke, T. D. (2008). Sport psychology for coaches. Human Kinetics

Smith, L. H., & Kays, T. M. (2010). Sports psychology for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.

Weinberg, R. S., & Gould, D. (2018). Foundations of sport and exercise psychology. Human Kinetics.