flow state
Abr 21 2019
Going with the flow to optimize performance

For too long has Sport Psychology driven its efforts towards anxiety, stress, depression, anger, fear, etc. All these variables have been heavily studied. However – and in sync with the WHO’s health definition – well-being is not just the absence of illness but the presence of wellness.

In this sense, if we wish to peak performance we need to manipulate not only the negative factors but also the positive ones. Researchers have asked themselves which cognitive variables characterize an optimal mind state, one that allows for a picture-perfect competition. The most established theory is the one postulated by Csikszentmihalyi, who called it: the state of flow.

State of flow: the mental state that leads to success

Csikszentmihalyi (1990) described «flow» as a mental state in which mind and body are fully intertwined. We are completely absorbed by the activity that’s being performed and we pay no mind to anything else. The environment, our inner discourse or any negative experience ceases to exist.

It can occur with any particular activity; its common theme is that it’s a «precursor to joy and it’s associated with other experiences such as fun and enjoyment.» (Jackson, 2000). A state of flow can lead to positive affect which, consequently, brings happiness.

Csikszentmihalyi described 9 dimensions in the state of flow:

  • Balance between skill and challenge. Both skill and challenge must be at high levels; otherwise it will result in apathy regardless of being balanced. If the challenge outweighs perceived skill, anxiety may appear. If skill is perceived to be higher than the challenge, the individual may relax way too much or even feel bored.
  • Merging of action and awareness: this is basically becoming so involved and engaged that you become one with the activity at hand, losing notion of everything else. The movements feel effortless.
  • Clear goals and unambiguous feedback: when in a state of flow, goal-setting and feedback serve each other in a continuous cycle that energizes and directs one’s actions. The feeling is that the course of action becomes crystal clear in the athlete’s mind.
  • Total concentration on the task at hand: often our minds navigate through many different thought processes while performing any activity. To attain optimal performance, it’s paramount that we remain laser-focused on every aspect regarding the task. When in flow, this concentration occurs unconsciously.
  • Sense of control: athletes experience a complete sense of control over their actions. This doesn’t mean that everything they’re doing is perfect. It’s more like a general notion that they will ultimately succeed, being able to perform without fear of failure (Jackson, 2000)
  • Loss of self-conscience: as previously mentioned, athletes lose track of internal dialogue revolving around negativity, self-doubt, inadequacy or what-have-you.
  • Transcendence of time: you know how they say that time flies when you’re having a good time? Well, same happens with the state of flow. You’re so consumed in the activity that perception of time becomes a blur and what felt like 5 minutes was actually an hour.
  • Autotelic experience: Csikszentmihalyi coined this term by uniting two Greek words: auto (self) and telos (goal). What he refers to is an activity that is done because it provides its own reward: enjoyment.

How to reach the state of flow

state of flow

In relation to sport, flow has been described as a major enhancer for performance since it’s deeply related to high intrinsic motivation, absence of negative self-talk and total focus on the activity at hand. As we’ve seen in previous posts, these are main ingredients for success in sports.

However, reaching the state of flow is something that comes naturally to certain individuals (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) but may take some time for others. The key is to discover what variables predict its appearance and how we can create situations where flow can show up naturally.

1. Work on intrinsic motivation

Murcia, Gimeno & Coll (2006) studied the relationship between motivation and states of flow using the Self-Determination Theory (Ryan and Deci, 2000) as a theoretical framework. They replicated findings from other studies that related intrinsic motivation with the presence of state of flow: ergo, internal motivation can predict states of flow in athletes.

2. The role of athlete engagement and needs satisfaction

Going back to Self-Determination Theory, the premise is that humans have basic psychological needs for autonomy (perception of self-directedness), competence (ability to succeed in one’s sport), and relatedness (sense of belonging with teammates and coaches alike), which must be satisfied to experience optimal well-being, i.e., engagement, flow, …

Hodge, Lansdale & Jackson (2009) defined athlete engagement as «an enduring, relatively stable sport experience, which refers to generalized positive affect and cognitions about one’s sport as a whole». For further understanding of this concept, engagement can be considered an effective method to prevent burnout in athletes.

Both these concepts work together in an interesting fashion. Firstly, needs satisfaction predicts athlete engagement and both needs satisfaction and athlete engagement predict dispositional flow (Hodge, Lonsdale & Jackson, 2009). So, in order to facilitate the appearance of flow we must begin to impulse our sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness in order to increase engagement in our sport.

3. Create opportunity

Last but not least, we must put yourself in situations where states of flow can arise spontaneously.

  • According to the flow characteristics we’ve just learned, we know that the task must be challenging enough that you have to bring your A-game.
  • We also know that clear goals and objective feedback are a «must»; give the workout a proper purpose! Don’t just write down a few movements in whatever rep scheme and let it rip with no further reasoning.
  • Know your why! Keep in mind that intrinsic motivation is key when developing states of flow. Josh Bridges said it best: «(the daily grind) if you don’t continue to enjoy it and have fun with it, you’re gonna go away really quickly».
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow. New York: Harper and Row.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow. New York: Basic.
Hodge, K., Lonsdale, C., & Jackson, S. A. (2009). Athlete engagement in elite sport: An exploratory investigation of antecedents and consequences. The Sport Psychologist, 23(2), 186-202.
Jackson, S. A. (2000). Joy, fun, and flow state in sport. Emotions in sport, 135-155.
Murcia, J. A. M., Gimeno, E. C., & Coll, D. G. C. (2006). Motivación autodeterminada y flujo disposicional en el deporte. Anales de Psicología, 22(2), 310-317.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68.
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self confidence
Abr 5 2019
Lack of self-confidence and its effect on performance

I’ve been inspired by two particular situations prior to writing this article. Firstly, a usual reader asked me to write something about how to manage fear and insecurity in athletes. After that, I read a story on Instagram about how insecurity can affect personal relationships.

So, in honor of the circumstances, I’m taking up the challenge. First and foremost, I’ll start the best way I know: defining insecurity. But this is no psycho-babble, so I need a construct that has a solid scientific base. And so it is, that insecurity is nothing but a lack of self-confidence.

How can we define self-confidence?

It seems pretty straight-forward but the reality of the situation is that it’s stirred up quite a commotion in the scientific community. Given its conceptual similarities to self-esteem or self-concept, there is no universal definition for self-confidence.

Bandura (1977) defined it based on perception of self-efficacy. He considered that self-efficacy – the perception we have of our capability to execute a course of action that will lead us to a given outcome – measures self-confidence in relation to specific tasks (not seen as a global construct).

Vealey (1986), on the other hand, conceptualized self-confidence in relation to sport as “the belief individuals have regarding their ability to be successful in sport”. This model is highly appealing to me since it includes a measure for “trait sport confidence” – applied to sports in general – and “state sport confidence” – applied to specific sport situations (Lenney, 1992).

Let’s see it through an example: as a coach, we ask two of our athletes to perform a 15” box jump. First, we ask if they feel fit to complete the task.

  • Athlete A, showing an elevated state sport confidence for this particular task, confirms she can do it. Her self-confidence leads her to performing the box jump with no issue.
  • Athlete B, has a decent trait sport confidence but does not have the state sport confidence in her ability for box jumps because she hasn’t done them since she gave birth to her first son. Her lack of self-confidence paralyzes her and she doesn’t even give it a go.

As we can see, Vealey’s model gives us more information. Now we know that the movement at hand isn’t the only thing that matters, but also past experiences of success or failure when understanding where lack of self-confidence stems from.

Self-confidence and its effect on performance in sport

self confidence

Since it’s one of the most influential psychological variables when it comes to performance, it’s been studied in numerous sports: soccer (Catala et. al, 2016; Gonzalez-Campos et. al, 2017), gymnasts (Leon-Prados et. al, 2011), handball (Ortin-Montero et. al, 2013), triathlon (Sanchez et al, 2012), among many others.

The common thread is that higher levels of self-confidence have a modulating effect over states of anxiety, making performance easier (Sanchez et. al, 2012; Ortin-Montero et. al, 2013; Gonzalez-Campos et. al, 2017). In conjunction with other variables such as an elevated intrinsic motivation (Catala et. al, 2016) and optimism (Ortin-Montero et. al, 2013) it can lead to a more favorable emotional state prior to competition.

How to work on fears and insecurity in CrossFit

Our regular crossfitters will show fear and insecurity quite often. However, once we understand how the brain works, we learn which buttons we need to push to effectively cope with any circumstance. Our brain is an active agent in the sense that it processes past, present and future information at lightning speed in order to mold our behavior. It’s important that we give it interesting data.

We’ve seen that self-confidence is highly dependent on past success. So, it comes down to this: if I’ve done it once, why not twice? The brain will bring up experiences stored in our long-term memory to heighten our self-confidence. So, logically, what we need is to be successful.

If you’re scared of any overhead movements, simplify it. You can do that by either lowering the weight or changing the implement (instead of an Olympic bar, use the dumbbell or even a medball). If you’re scared of handstands, start with pike pushups. That way you’ll get used to being in an inverted position. Get confident with smaller gestures and slowly progress from there.

As a matter of fact, I’ll tell you that the biggest secret to this sport is mastering the technique. Being afraid to a certain extent may be convenient because you’ll necessarily be working a lot more on technique at lower instensity which will build a more solid foundation.

“Fear is a friend who’s misunderstood” (as John Mayer would say). Self-confidence will always be there to say: hey, we got this. Stop thinking so much about what fear is taking from you and think more about what self-confidence can give you.

Bandura, A. (1977).
Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological
review, 84(2), 191.
Carretero, C.
M., Murcia, J. A. M., Coll, D. G. C., & Gimeno, E. M. C. (2013).
Motivación, dirección de la autoconfianza y flow en judokas de alto
nivel. European Journal of Human Movement, (31), 1-16.
González Campos,
G., Valdivia-Moral, P., Cachón Zagalaz, J., Zurita Ortega, F., & Romero, O.
(2017). Influencia del control del estrés en el rendimiento deportivo: la
autoconfianza, la ansiedad y la concentración en deportistas. RETOS.
Nuevas Tendencias en Educación Física, Deporte y Recreación, (32).
Lenney, E. (1977). Women's
self-confidence in achievement settings. Psychological
Bulletin, 84(1), 1-13.
León-Prados, J.
A., García, I. F., & Lluch, Á. C. (2011). Ansiedad estado y autoconfianza
precompetitiva en gimnastas.(Precompetitive anxiety state and self-confidence
in gymnasts). RICYDE. Revista Internacional de Ciencias del Deporte.
doi: 10.5232/ricyde, 7(23), 76-91.
Mesón-DOI, P.
C., Puente, C. P., Furlong, L. V., Arias, N. J., & Serrano, Á. F. (2017).
La motivación como variable influyente en la ansiedad y autoconfianza de los
deportistas. Informació Psicològica, (112), 14-28.
Ortín-Montero,
F. J., De-la-Vega, R., & Gosálvez-Botella, J. (2013). Optimismo,
ansiedad-estado y autoconfianza en jóvenes jugadores de balonmano. Anales de psicología, 29(3), 637-641.
Sánchez, J. C.
J., Gómez, R. P., Dueñas, K. G. N., & Gómez-Millán, M. R. B. (2012).
Ansiedad y autoconfianza precompetitiva en triatletas. Revista
iberoamericana de psicología del ejercicio y el deporte, 7(1),
113-124.
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autoconfianza
Abr 5 2019
Cómo afecta la inseguridad en el CrossFit

Se han juntado dos rías en la construcción de este post. En primer lugar, una lectora habitual me instó a escribir algo sobre el abordaje de los miedos e inseguridades de un atleta. Después, leí un story en el Instagram de Anabel Ávila sobre la inseguridad y cómo afectaba a las relaciones personales.

Por ambas circunstancias, me encuentro ahora aquí redactando este post. Como es lógico y habitual en mi estilo de redacción, hay que empezar definiendo la inseguridad. Pero como esto no es psicología barata ni pseudo-coaching, tengo que encontrar un constructo que tenga base científica. Y resulta que la “inseguridad” no es más que la falta de autoconfianza.

¿Cómo definimos la autoconfianza?

Una de las grandes dificultades a la hora de conceptualizar la autoconfianza es que existe mucho solapamiento con respecto a la autoestima o el autoconcepto y aún sigue sin aparecer una definición consensuada para la autoconfianza.

Bandura (1977) definió la autoconfianza a partir de la percepción de autoeficacia. Entendiendo, así, que la autoeficacia – la percepción de nuestra capacidad para ejecutar una serie de acciones que nos lleven al resultado deseado – mide la autoconfianza en relación a tareas específicas (y no como un constructo global).

Vealey (1986), por otro lado, conceptualizó la autoconfianza en relación a la práctica deportiva como “la creencia o el grado de certeza que los individuos poseen acerca de su habilidad para tener éxito en el deporte”. Este modelo me gusta más pues incluye una medida de “rasgo de confianza deportiva” – en términos generales – y otra de “estado de confianza deportiva” – aplicada a situaciones deportivas específicas – (Lenney, 1992)

Un ejemplo: como coach, pedimos a dos de nuestros atletas que realicen un salto a un cajón de 40 cm. Preguntamos a ambos si se ven capacitados para lograr el objetivo.

  • El atleta A, haciendo gala de un estado de confianza deportiva elevado para el salto al cajón, confirma su capacidad para lograrlo. Su autoconfianza le empuja a realizar el salto sin problemas.
  • El atleta B, cuya confianza deportiva en general es buena, no tiene confianza en su capacidad para el salto al cajón (estado de confianza deportiva) porque es un movimiento que no practica desde el parto de su primer hijo. La falta de autoconfianza le paraliza y se acerca al cajón pero sus pies no despegan del suelo.

Como vemos, esta interpretación nos aporta más información. Sabemos que no sólo depende del movimiento en cuestión, sino en la historia pasada de éxitos o fracasos deportivos para entender de dónde viene la falta de autoconfianza.

El estudio de la autoconfianza y su efecto sobre el rendimiento deportivo

autoconfianza

Al ser una de las variables psicológicas que más influencia ejerce sobre el rendimiento deportivo, se ha estudiado en muchas disciplinas deportivas: fútbol (Catalá et.al, 2016; González-Campos et. al, 2017), gimnasia (León-Prados et. al, 2011), balonmano (Ortín-Montero et. al, 2013), triatlón (Sánchez et. al, 2012) entre otros tantos.

La nota dominante, es que mayores niveles de autoconfianza un efecto modulador sobre los estados de ansiedad, facilitando el rendimiento (Sánchez et. al, 2012; Ortín-Montero et. al, 2013; González-Campos et. al, 2017). En acción conjunta con variables como una elevada motivación intrínseca (Catalá et. al, 2016) y optimismo (Ortín-Montero et. al, 2013) augura un estado afectivo previo a la competición más favorable.

¿Cómo trabajar los miedos en el CrossFit?

Nuestros crossfiteros de a pie van a mostrar miedo e inseguridad en innumerables ocasiones. Pero, una vez que entendemos cómo funciona la cabeza, sabemos qué botones tenemos que apretar para afrontar cualquier circunstancia. Nuestro cerebro es un agente muy activo en tanto que procesa la información pasada, presente y futura para moldear el comportamiento. Es importante que le demos los datos que nos interesan.

Hemos visto que la autoconfianza va a depender de historias pasadas de éxito.  Es tan sencillo como que: si lo he hecho una vez, ¿por qué no dos? El cerebro recurrirá a esa huella de memoria para potenciar el autoconfianza. Así que, lógicamente, lo que necesitamos son experiencias de éxito.

Si te dan miedo los movimientos overhead, simplifica el movimiento. Ya sea bajando el peso o cambiando el implemento (en vez de barra olímpica, practicar con dumbbells o incluso pelotas medicinales). Si te da miedo hacer el pino, empieza con flexiones en pica. Así te acostumbras a estar en posición invertida. Gana confianza con pequeños gestos y ¡vas progresando desde ahí!

De hecho, a los miedosos os diré que el gran secreto de este deporte es machacar la técnica. Tenerle miedo o respeto es – hasta cierto punto – conveniente porque, por narices, vais a dedicarle más tiempo a pulir la mecánica de los movimientos y esto asentará patrones mucho más estables.

El miedo no es tu enemigo, está ahí para advertirte de un peligro (real o no) pero tienes la autoconfianza para que le diga: tranquilo, que podemos con esto. Deja de pensar tanto en lo que pierdes por el miedo y piensa en lo que ganas con la autoconfianza.

Bandura, A. (1977).
Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological
review, 84(2), 191.
Carretero, C.
M., Murcia, J. A. M., Coll, D. G. C., & Gimeno, E. M. C. (2013).
Motivación, dirección de la autoconfianza y flow en judokas de alto
nivel. European Journal of Human Movement, (31), 1-16.
González Campos,
G., Valdivia-Moral, P., Cachón Zagalaz, J., Zurita Ortega, F., & Romero, O.
(2017). Influencia del control del estrés en el rendimiento deportivo: la
autoconfianza, la ansiedad y la concentración en deportistas. RETOS.
Nuevas Tendencias en Educación Física, Deporte y Recreación, (32).
Lenney, E. (1977). Women's
self-confidence in achievement settings. Psychological
Bulletin, 84(1), 1-13.
León-Prados, J.
A., García, I. F., & Lluch, Á. C. (2011). Ansiedad estado y autoconfianza
precompetitiva en gimnastas.(Precompetitive anxiety state and self-confidence
in gymnasts). RICYDE. Revista Internacional de Ciencias del Deporte.
doi: 10.5232/ricyde, 7(23), 76-91.
Mesón-DOI, P.
C., Puente, C. P., Furlong, L. V., Arias, N. J., & Serrano, Á. F. (2017).
La motivación como variable influyente en la ansiedad y autoconfianza de los
deportistas. Informació Psicològica, (112), 14-28.
Ortín-Montero,
F. J., De-la-Vega, R., & Gosálvez-Botella, J. (2013). Optimismo,
ansiedad-estado y autoconfianza en jóvenes jugadores de balonmano. Anales de psicología, 29(3), 637-641.
Sánchez, J. C.
J., Gómez, R. P., Dueñas, K. G. N., & Gómez-Millán, M. R. B. (2012).
Ansiedad y autoconfianza precompetitiva en triatletas. Revista
iberoamericana de psicología del ejercicio y el deporte, 7(1),
113-124.
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