Jordan Betz

Blog Submission
Competitive Anxiety
Pregame jitters are something many athletes experience before a big game.
These jitters may be referred to as precompetitive anxiety and have the power to
greatly affect an athletes motor and mental abilities. Such anxiety is thought to be
multifaceted as it is relatable to both somatic, as well as cognitive mechanisms of the
individual. Through extensive research by Mahoney and Avener (1977), anxiety was
thought to be capable of being classified as either debilitating or facilitating in regards to
athletic performance. In a sense, anxiety could be channeled to help or hinder
performance among athletes. In fact, U.S. Olympic hopefuls were interviewed post
tryouts. It was found that many of those who made the Olympic gymnastics team chose
to channel feelings of anxiety in a positive manner. To support, numerous studies have
suggested:
[T]he way athletes view their anxiety symptoms prior to competition can have a
significant effect on their performance. Those athletes who interpret their anxiety
symptoms as facilitative are more likely to perform better then athletes who
interpret anxiety symptoms as debilitating.
(Varzaneh, Saemi, Shafinia, Zarghami, & Ghamari, 2011).
Most athletes can recall a period in which their parents, coaches, and they
themselves demanded physical perfection through extensive training with the hopes of
performing at an elite level. The question arises, was this enough? According to many
sports psychologists today, the answer would be no. Today, many sports psychologists
share the belief that not only do coaches need men tal skills, but also players, in order
to obtain their goals (Varzaneh et al., 2011). Mental skills are thought to lead to
increased efficiency and higher success rates during performance, as well as a
heightened self-esteem and better concentration (Varzaneh et al., 2011). Exploration in
the relationship among psychological skills and competitive anxiety have shown,
performers who reported a greater usage of relaxation, imagery, goal setting, and selftalk strategies experienced lower levels of anxiety and interpreted symptoms as more
beneficial to their performance than the controls (Varzaneh et al., 2011).
The study being reviewed, Relationship between Mental Skills and Anxiety
Interpretation in Female Volleyball Players consisted of an experiment in which one
hundred and twenty female volleyball players ranging from ages 18 to 25 completed two
questionnaires, specially designed to evaluate anxiety and mental skills. Each
participant had two to five years playing experience at numerous university volleyball
competitions. Results from the study depicted the subscale of goal setting to be
selected by the bulk of players; however the least subscale to be selected was fear
control (Varzaneh, 2011). According to the study (Varzaneh, 2011), coaches have the
opportunity to utilize subscales such as self-confidence, goal setting, imagery, and

stress reaction in order to aid athletes in interoperating self-confidence anxiety as

facilitative.

Resources:
Mahoney M.J., & Avener M. (1977). Psychology of the elite athlete: An explanatory
study. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1, 181-199.
Varzaneh, A.G., Saemi, E., Shafinia, P., Zarghami, M., & Ghamari, A. (2011).
Relationship between mental skills and anxiety interpretation in female volleyball
players . Studies in Physical Culture & Tourism, 18(1), 19-24.