We often hear that consistency is the key to becoming the best athlete we can be, whether it’s our Muay Thai training, lifting, or nutrition; we know that consistency gets the results we are after. The same is true for mental preparation before a fight; regardless of what level your fight fighting.
Sometimes we see fighters crack under the pressure of competing at a higher level. These experiences are just as valuable as performing our best because we can start to think about what areas we need to work on to achieve our best performance.
Another reason why fighters under perform at higher levels is because they believe they have to change everything, be perfect and do more to meet the demands of competing at a higher level.
However, to get to a high level, as an athlete you will have been doing something right to even get to perform at a higher level.
Yes, you may need to make some physical and technical changes but mental preparation stays the same. Obviously, if you’ve never used mental preparation you may want to consider it.
Most athletes will have already started to develop their own personal mental preparation without actually being aware of it or calling it ‘mental preparation’.
If you want to create your own mental preparation plan:
- Think about all your past fights, think about what you did before each one (win or lose, high performance and under performance). Think (or even write/type on your phone) what worked for you; what did you do and how did it positively impact you?
For example, in shadowing boxing before a fight focusing on your performance and what you want to do in the ring or visualizing your best performance before getting into the ring.
Mental preparation is not something elaborate or complex; the simpler the better.
Remember there is a reason why you made it to performing at an elite level, the key is consistency and that can start with consistency in your mental preparation.
If you are interested in sport psych sessions email: lenakessler0@gmail.com
