Читать книгу Coach’s role in building athletes’ psychological resilience. Theoretical foundations and applied methods - - Страница 2

Sport is a multicomponent, complex system in which an athlete’s physical, technical, tactical, and psychophysiological readiness constitute an integral structure ensuring success in competitive activity. In the last decades, significant progress has been achieved in the knowledge of factors of sporting achievements. While earlier approaches were primarily concerned with the role of physical parameters and motor skills, recent studies have established that psychophysiological readiness – encompassing stress tolerance, self-regulation, and cognitive management – is equally significant for high-level performance.

A meta-analysis conducted by Kalén A. [1] investigates the role of cognitive functions in sports performance. The study examines domain-general and domain-specific cognitive skills, including working memory, attentional focus, and cognitive control. The authors conclude that an athlete’s achievement is not merely dependent on physical training and motor skills but also on cognitive features such as rapid decision-making, strategic thinking, and emotional state regulation. Significantly, athletes with highly advanced cognitive functions show greater performance on complex tactical tasks and under high psychophysiological stress.

The study by Merlin [2] explores the effects of controlled breathing techniques on the psychophysiological state of young swimmers. The experiment proved that slow, controlled breathing not only enhances subjective perceptions of sporting performance but also accelerates recovery processes, reduces anxiety levels, and increases feelings of control over the situation. The authors note that the systematic integration of breathing techniques into training guarantees stress resilience, improved self-regulation, and greater cognitive control efficiency, which ultimately leads to enhanced competitive performance.

The study by Murdoch [3] examines athletes’ reflection strategies on stressful situations and their impact on psychological resilience. The research compares two approaches: self-distanced reflection, where the athlete reflects on the situation as a third party, and self-immersed reflection, where there is strong emotional engagement with the experience. The findings indicate that self-distanced reflection is more effective in grasping the source of stress and reducing its impact on subsequent performances, whereas self-immersed reflection can heighten anxiety and lead to loss of self-confidence.

These findings stress that psychological toughness in sports people – for instance, self-control, coping with stress, and control of thinking – is equal in value to physical fitness. These qualities enable swimmers to manage competitive stress, remain focused, and fulfill their potential in the hostile climates of sport.

Generally, the psychological resilience of an athlete can be defined as a set of personal and cognitive characteristics that allow them to adapt to stressful situations, perform under extreme pressure, regulate their emotional states, and successfully cope with anxiety during competitions. This is most apparent in sports like swimming, where the level of mental toughness a competitor possesses will determine how effectively he or she will be able to manage high levels of physical exertion, exacting time limits, and emotional stress involved in competitive performance. Compared to team sports, where the task is capable of rearrangement and distribution of workload between members of the team, swimming is a sport where one swimmer has to take responsibility for the result of his or her performance. Absence of teammates, inability to set strategy while in competition, and limitation of external cues (sensory deprivation) make certain conditions for the swimmer in which there are high demands of self-control and emotional regulation.

Here, the role of the coach is significant, exercising a huge influence on shaping the psychological hardiness of a swimmer. His work involves not only training process organization, but also challenging pedagogical and psychological missions to shape the ideal psycho-emotional climate, firm motivation of the athlete, and the mechanism of self-regulation. Through a pedagogical process of targeted interventions, the coach fosters the swimmer’s adaptation to competitive stress, their volitional qualities, and their capacity to successfully control emotional states while performing under high psychophysiological loads.

The emotional engagement of the coach, communication, and support level during training and competition have a significant impact on the swimmer’s anxiety, self-confidence, and mobilization ability in critical situations.

However, in practice, the psychological elements of swimming training tend to be overlooked. Despite the popularity of sports psychology, the majority of coaches remain interested primarily in traditional means of physical and technical training, not complementing them with modern stress management and emotional control techniques. The absence can result in negative consequences such as pre-race tension, distraction during the critical moments, lack of motivation, and, ultimately, loss of sporting performance.

Thus, there is a necessity for the development of methodological guidelines that enable coaches to integrate psychological preparation into the training process, adapting existing scientific methods to certain competitive swimming requirements.

The relevance of this methodological guide is determined by the need for a systematic analysis of the coach’s role in shaping swimmers’ psychological resilience, as well as the development of effective methodological tools that enhance athletes’ stress resistance. In spite of the increasing volume of work on the cognitive, emotional, and social factors of sports performance, this factor is not yet fully explored in the sport of swimming, requiring additional theoretical consideration and experimental validation of psychological training processes for the development of stress resistance, self-regulation, and stress adaptation for competition. Not only must the main determinants of swimmers’ psychological preparedness be identified but also the most effective pedagogical conditions for fostering resistance to stress, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion.

The novelty of this methodological guide lies in its targeted focus on a comprehensive examination of the coach’s role in shaping swimmers’ psychological resilience, a topic that has previously been studied mainly within the framework of general sports psychology, without considering the specific nature of swimming. Unlike classic research, which highlights the technical and physiological bases of swim training, this book is dedicated to the pedagogical and psychological processes that underlie an athlete’s adaptation to stressful conditions, acquisition of skills for emotional regulation, and adequate performance under conditions of competitive pressure. The given methodological advice is meant to be applied practically in the course of training and to introduce psycho-pedagogical technologies into the system of swim training.

The goal of this methodological guide is to develop and justify effective approaches to building psychological resilience in swimmers through coaching activities, as well as to implement modern pedagogical and psychological technologies into the sports training process. It is necessary to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the coach’s role in developing stress resistance in swimmers, determine optimal coaching methods, and propose practical recommendations for their implementation in the training process.

To achieve this goal, the following objectives were formulated:

• conduct an analysis of theoretical approaches to the study of psychological resilience in sports and identify its specific characteristics in swimming;

• identify the key psychological factors affecting swimmers’ stress resistance levels;

• examine the impact of coaching style and interaction models on the formation of athletes’ psychological resilience;

• develop recommendations for the integration of psychological training methods into the training process;

• evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methods and determine their applicability across various age and qualification groups of athletes;

• develop a practical coaching model that includes a system of exercises, diagnostic methods, and psychological training strategies, enabling the targeted development of swimmers’ stress resilience in both training and competitive settings.

This methodological guide has been developed based on a comprehensive approach, incorporating theoretical analysis, pedagogical design, empirical research, and practical testing of the proposed methods. The applied research made it possible to determine effective means of coaching that can contribute to the development of psychological resilience among swimmers and adapt them to different age and qualification groups of sportsmen.

Theoretical analysis and synthesis techniques were used to systematize scientific knowledge in sports psychology, pedagogy, and swimming physiology. This made it possible to identify prevailing means of forming resistance to stress, their practical significance, and their transformation based on the swimming training process needs. The comparative analysis method was applied to study various coaching models and assess their effectiveness in psychological training. Traditional and modern stress resilience development methods were analyzed, and their features were examined in the context of both individual and team sports.

The pedagogical design method allowed for the development of a system of methodological recommendations, including training exercises, coach-athlete interaction strategies, and psychological training integration algorithms in the training process. This approach ensured the practical applicability of the guide in various training conditions.

Observation method was used to explore emotional state and behavior of swimmers in stressful situations during training and competitions. Emphasis was placed on assessing pre-competition anxiety, responses to failure among athletes, and self-regulation strategies employed by swimmers under increased psychological pressure.

The modeling method was applied to develop practical exercises aimed at forming self-regulation skills, anxiety management, and concentration improvement. The developed models include simulation training, psychological testing, and cognitive strategy integration methods into the athlete preparation process.

The outcomes obtained have practical significance, as they can be used by coaches, sports psychologists, and sports preparation specialists to maximize training programs and implement psychological techniques that promote the development of swimmers’ stress resilience. The recommended methodological recommendations will enable coaches to introduce psychological training systematically into the process of training, develop communication with athletes, and create conditions for developing their emotional stability, self-confidence, and self-regulation abilities in the conditions of high competitive tension.

This study consists of three chapters, each of which is dedicated to a specific aspect of psychological resilience development in swimmers and the role of the coach in developing it.

The first chapter examines the theoretical foundations of psychological resilience in sports. It analyzes key concepts of stress resistance, cognitive-behavioral approaches to stress management, and self-regulation models under high competitive pressure. Special focus is directed at the specificity of swimming as a sport, which requires special demands upon the emotional well-being of the sportsmen. The chapter delineates important psychological determinants impacting the resistance of swimmers to stress like personality, experience in competitions, parameters of the process of training, and environmental parameters.

The second chapter explores modern coaching methods aimed at developing psychological resilience in swimmers. Various stress management methods are explored, including cognitive-behavioral therapy, visualization, mindfulness, breathing, and meditative methods. The emotional intelligence of the coach and how it influences the emotional states of athletes is also examined. Particular emphasis is placed on methods for developing self-confidence, enhancing resistance to stress during hard training, and resisting competitive pressure.

The third chapter presents applied methods and practical tools for fostering psychological resilience in swimmers. It addresses diagnostic methods for assessing the emotional state of athletes, methods for measuring anxiety and stress coping capacity, and individualized psychological conditioning programs. Methods of enhancing athletes’ motivation are described, along with training exercises and suggestions for applying them in practice.

Thus, this study presents a systematic coaching model aimed at developing swimmers’ stress resilience. The proposed methods can be adapted to different levels of athlete preparation and applied within both individual and team-based training approaches.