Sports Psychology

The book I read to research this post was Sports Psychology: A Students Guide by Matt Jarvis which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. The difference between a sportsman at the top of his profession & someone who is merely good at a sport is the one at the top can change up a gear at the crucial times. In the 60's when russian & east german athletes were doing really well, although they are still quite secretive about it because it was the cold war, sports psychology was quite prominent in their training. It was later on that the rest of the world started to catch up. To become a registered sports psychology you need either a 1st degree in psychology followed by a masters degree in sports psychology or a 1st degree in sports studies followed by a masters degree in sports psychology. There are 2 major types of sports motivation 1 is extrinsic where you do the sport for external recognition ie money or a reward, 2 is intrinsic where the acheivement in itself is reward enough. Often if someone is intrinsic a big payout will demotivate them. In some sports like weight lifting anger is essential to doing well in the sport. In other sports like snooker it's more important to stay calm & relaxed. I remember John McEnroe the famous tennis player played his best often after he'd been arguing with the umpire. Another factor is often if someone is doing badly in a match he will improve his game to avoid humiliation. Using imagery is important in sports psychology & athletes will often visualize themselves winning or coping with a situation differently.