Stress and competitive sports go hand in hand. Pressure exists in all levels of sports, from the professionals down to the youngest athletes. Much of the pressure comes from the values of winning and losing, performing well and the politics of the environment. 

Being physically and mentally prepared is now more important than ever and should be consciously addressed by both coach and athlete. Being physically prepared requires training the body, but what about the mind? How do we prepare mentally?

One strategy is to understand arousal levels impact performance.

In 1908, psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson showed that an extremely high level of arousal (i.e., being excited or fired up) is not the goal. They found that there is an ideal level of excitement and that it varies greatly by the task.

For example, when a task is complex in nature with a high cognitive level, the arousal level needed is generally lower. When the task requires persistence, endurance or teamwork, it can be higher. 

"During a technical learning moment, less arousal is needed. Too much arousal will provide too much cognitive distraction or mental overload,” Yerkes and Dodson wrote over a century ago. Their principle holds true today.

When coaching a large group on basic, routine or familiar drills and movements, a higher excitement level should be used. Keeping the group moving, energized, and fired up is key in that environment.

For football and speed training drills, it’s about getting athletes fired up at the appropriate level for a particular drill. They can’t be overly excited, nor can they be disinterested and listless. There needs to be a balance.

The players need to rise to the occasion without being too hyped up.

First, we need to understand the personality of the individual athlete. The coach or trainer needs to be very aware of the athlete’s personality, and how fired up he or she normally is.

In many instances, the coach or trainer must be able to sense whether the athlete is too high or too low, even just moments before the athlete begins the drill. It is coaching by feeling the athlete’s emotions and moods at that time. It requires that the coach or trainer is very in tune with his athletes. 

The arousal level needed for shooting a free throw in basketball is lower than what is needed for a contested rebound or contested "dunk."  When making a tackle in football, the minimum required arousal level would be higher than needed when doing algebra.

If someone is too fired up, it’s hard to successfully work on algebra. An athlete needs to be more fired up to make a tackle than do algebra, but an athlete who is too excited might choke, make a mistake or miss the tackle.

Examples of this include a quarterback overthrowing the ball or a basketball player overshooting toward the hoop.

Coaches are not immune. During the championship game, coaches who are too excited can overreact or yell at players over an inconsequential mistake. This over-arousal may be caused by the coach being anxious about playing in a high-stakes game. Do you think that will affect the team and how they play? You bet it will. 

Conversely, an athlete playing a bad team might have a low arousal level that does not produce good play or form. The athlete’s focus level is too low because they know they can win easily. Coaches call this "playing down" to opponents. x;">A win may still happen, but the team or player did not play with enthusiasm and therefore had a bad game.

Coaching athletes for speed training requires the same approach, trying to guide athletes not to be overly excited nor lethargic.

Ultimately athletes will learn how to organize and control their excitement levels for the appropriate situations. But we as coaches have a great opportunity to help the athlete understand, learn and train themselves to have the right amount of energy to succeed at a specific task.

Be Well, Be Fast!

Visit www.kennethdtaylor.com for speed training books for athletes, parents, and coaches. Subscribe to "TheSpeedDr1" on YouTube for free speed training videos.

Kenneth D. Taylor is a SAQ pioneer and Sport Speed Expert who lives in Southern California and has trained well over 5,000 athletes over 20 years.  He holds a degree in Exercise Physiology and Sports Science.  He was a world-class track athlete and played in the NFL for the 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX team and the San Diego Chargers.