SES 3340: Exploring Psychological Influence on Sprinting Skills

This essay examines the psychological factors influencing sprinting performance, focusing on relaxation, imagery, goal-setting, self-talk, focus, sprint starts, and motivational videos. It highlights how these factors, such as relaxation techniques for managing anxiety and the use of imagery for performance enhancement, contribute to an athlete's success. The discussion covers the importance of goal setting in maintaining focus and motivation, the impact of self-talk on managing stress, and the role of focus and well-executed sprint starts in achieving superior performance. Furthermore, the essay emphasizes the value of motivational videos in building self-confidence and reinforcing positive performance outcomes, illustrating how these psychological skills can be utilized to improve athletic capabilities both on and off the track.

Psychological factors that influence sprinting 1
RELAXATION, IMAGERY, GOAL-SETTING, SELF-TALK, FOCUS WHEN RUNNING,
SPRINT STARTS, AND MOTIVATIONAL VIDEOS
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Psychological factors that influence sprinting 2
The deterministic model that shows the full extent of psychological factors that influence
the performance of the skill of sprinting
Introduction
Various psychological factors have the massive influence on athletes. These factors help
in preparing the athletes for competition by helping them to have the ability to concentrate as
well as make appropriate decisions as required by athlete governing body (McNerney &
Radvansky 2015, p. 1145). Majority of athletes uses skills of psychology for competition that
Challenge
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Impaired Skill
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are limited to different factors that comprise of relaxation, imagery, goal-setting, self-talk, focus
when running, sprint Starts, along with motivational Videos. Moreover, it is a common belief
that psychological factors play an essential function in the sport of sprinting (Battaglia et al.,
2015, p. 349). Therefore, this paper aims at examining and consolidating the intuitive link
between psychological factors on sprinting among athletes.
How psychological factors influence sprinting
Relaxation
The psychology factor f relaxation plays an essential role in the success of every athlete
during activity of sprinting. It helps in eliminating cases of anxiety among athletes. These cases
of anxiety among athletes can be expressible in different modes that include physical and
cognitive nature which are physiological. Besides, anxiety can be in the form of behavioral that
is observable actions (Corvino et al., 2017, p. 219). The relaxation factor of psychological factor
helps in boosting the success of athletes by eliminating physiological and visible effects of an
individual. For instance, the somatic model of relaxation helps in promoting the breathing of
athletes so that they are capable of having adequate breath or oxygen as required during
sprinting. The cognitive model helps in restructuring imagery of an individual to attain ideal self-
statement that helps in increasing their meditation to compete in every sporting activity.
Additionally, behavioral relaxation is perfect for boosting social skills of an individual to
efficiently train and adapt to the environment before or during the day of competition. Therefore,
intuitive link amid psychology along with sprinting seems eternal (Jaafar et al., 2015, p. 5).
Relaxation helps in boosting sufficient concentration of an individual during sprinting.
Relaxation remains to be prominent among athletes since sprinting stays to be the extraordinary

Psychological factors that influence sprinting 4
fast game that requires quality absence of oxygen digestion. While most competitors are the
attention on enhancing their dash speed, they frequently disregard the significance of relaxation
that continues to be essential factors in enhancing their performance.
Imagery
Imagery that goes in hand with physical training among athletes’ remains to be the best-
suited intervention ideal for improving strength performance during sprinting. The imagery in
sprinting revolves around different issues that include motor imagery such as environment,
emotions, learning, task, timing, along with perspectives among other factors (Wibowo 2017, p.
79). Imagery through cognitive remains to be prominent among athletes as it helps in improving
imaging performance plans that are always under execution by athletes to be successful.
Presence of motivational factors within the imagery of an athlete remains to be useful as it helps
most of the athletes during sprinting to stay focus on the goal of their involvement, thus reducing
cases of pressure that affect them that can then hinder them from performing adequately.
Moreover, imagery among athletes with physical training remains to be the best-suited
intervention for improving the firm performance during sprinting (Willwacher et al., 2016, p.
13). For instance, mental imagery among athletes helps in increasing prevention interventions
that may offer the valuable device essential in enhancing the functional recovery of athletes
during sprinting after short-term immobilization of muscle and alignment of anterior. Therefore,
imagery remains to be the dominant tool for psyche-up during sprinting.
Goal-setting
Psychological factor of goal setting helps most sprinters to learn so that they improve
their performance to the next level. It allows athletes to focus on taking one step at a time and

Psychological factors that influence sprinting 5
learn how to raise their game through the set of practical goals. Besides, the configuration of
goals during sprinting remains to be the mental training technique applicable by runners to
increase their commitment towards achieving the personal target Vlahovich et al., 2017, p. 11).
The idea of having short or long-term goal tend to be an essential factor in encouraging people to
work harder, stay more focused on the task, as well as to overcome setbacks more easily. Goal
setting is essential in sprinting as it helps athletes to remain focuses, enhance their persistence,
and mobilize effort in proportion to the demands of the sport (Hidayat & Budiman 2014, p. 12).
It also helps in encouraging the athletes to develop strategies essential for achieving their goals
during sprinting.
Self-talk
Self-talk has the significant impact on the performance of athletes involved in different
sprinting events on the track. For instance, people that shout at athletes can make them fear their
competitors as they can be praising other competitors before sprinting starts. Besides, cases of
self-talk do happen throughout the daily activities of lives of people involved in sprinting. What
people say to themselves during sporting activities have a bearing on how they react to their
environment along with stressful situations (Hidayat & Budiman 2014, p. 1). There are different
types of self-talk that affect involvement of people in various sporting activities such as sprinting
some of these include the concentration talks that help in psyching up athletes to sprint past their
competitors (Lewinaki et al., 2015, p. 68). The other type is the trigger auto skill execution that
helps in reducing stress among athletes making them to sprinting faster and become winners in
any sporting event.
Focus when running

Psychological factors that influence sprinting 6
Focus when running remains to be the essential factor that influences the performance of
an individual when they sprint. For instance, modifying the few words in verbal instruction can
help in improving the athlete performance of individual since it helps them to concentrate on
competing and winning a race (Reina et al., 2017, p. 13). Improving focus when running such as
using verbal instruction by different coaches remains to be a standard technique used by different
coaches towards the delivery of critical information to athletes during sprinting and in testing and
training contexts. Focus when running help most sprinters to concentrate on breaking their
records that can help them to get recognition in different stages of the competition (Lockie et al.,
2012, p. 449). The use of verbal instruction plays a vital part in ensuring that every athlete works
to become victorious in every sprinting event that they register to do in the sport.
Sprint Starts
Cases of well-executed sprint start that requires sprinter to aim at rapid acceleration from
the stationary set position remain to be one of the deciding variables of superior in run occasions.
Nonetheless, dynamic procedure of dash begin transcendently relies upon begin piece situating
and in addition the body focal point of gravity in the position set during the sporting event
(Liposek et al., 2018, p. 87). Ideal sprint starts such as block clearance time along with force
impulse on the front together with rear starting block wit take-off velocity and acceleration help
in improving the performance of athletes during sprinting (Jaafar et al., 2015, p. 7). Sprinting is a
sport done for the extended duration making the influence of fatigue towards concentration can
remain to be detrimental to the process of making decision and performance of an individual
hence sprint start help in eliminating such negative impacts on athletes during sprinting.
Motivational Videos

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Motivation videos remain to be essential sources of providing self-confidence to
individuals to understand previous accomplishments. The use of such videos makes athletes
learn and learn that sprinting at high speed is always possible and they can make it just like their
competitors (Inal et al., 2012, p. 1101). Additional, videos that deal with highlighting of
performance help in enhancing the confidence among athletes to sprint than their competitors.
The videos also present concrete examples that deal with previous performance accomplishment
by improving self-confidence among athletes (Haugen et al., 2018, p. 104). These videos help
athletes to understand the rules of the game and know how they can be successful.
Conclusion
It is evident from the discussion that psychological factors help in boosting the capacities
of an individual during sprinting to developing high forces within a short duration as needed
during sprinting. All these factors illustrated on this paperwork help in improving the
performance of athletes during sprinting. The explanation has shed some light on how
psychological factors influence sprinting by showing some necessary mental skills that athlete
can utilize to increase their psychological proficiencies both on and off the sprinting track. Al
psychological factors can have the positive influence on athletes during sprinting sport.
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Psychological factors that influence sprinting 8
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