Putting it all together: Mental Routine

After a short break, we've reached the end of the five-part series on mental skills: the Mental Routine. The mental routine is the plan you create to help you get ready for practice and performance. It can integrate the cardinal skills of relaxation, concentration, imagery and self-talk to provide instruction and reinforcement to help you get mentally and physically ready to perform at your best.

A mental routine is different than a superstition or a ritual! Superstitions and rituals control you. Thinking, "Oh no! I'm not wearing my lucky Smartwool socks! I can't race!" is different than "The night before my race, I lay out my favorite Smartwool socks so in the morning, I can wake up, and be ready to go. Even if I forget (which I won't) I know I'm ready to race well." Note the difference in the use of self-talk.

Mental routines can help prepare, regain focus deal with adversity and increase your performance consistency. They are helpful in controlling the effects of both positive and negative influences because they help increase self-awareness.

There are four times when mental routines are typically utilized:

Pre-performance: Incorporating a mental routine into the warm-up before practice or competition

Pre-execution: This is different than pre-performance in that it is done before a specific situation, for example the routine a diver might do right before dive off the board, or the routine a sprinter performs as the prepare to get into the blocks.

Between play: in between specific situations. For example the mental routine a baseball pitcher performs in between batters.

Post-execution: after the specific situation. For example, a mental routine might be used to help refocus a gymnast after she has fallen off the balance beam.

When considering putting a mental routine together, it's important to remember that practice makes perfect. Here you are combining the other skills (that you have already been practicing right!?) and thus this represents the advancement of putting it all together. Practicing on your own and with a sport psychology professional until the routine becomes automatic will help get the most from the skills.

Here are some examples of mental routines:

As a pre-performance mental routine, a runner practices an imagery script to help narrow their focus, get energized before they begin their warm-up for a 5K race. As they are warming up they are working through 3 specific positive self-talk cue words that help them to focus and relax. They tell themselves they are "Ready, relaxed," and "To have fun."

A soccer player is sitting on the bench in between plays. He has just missed a shot for a goal and feels frustration. In order to regain focus on the play and task at hand before he goes out for the next play, he utilizes the self-talk key words, "Review, Respond, Release Refocus," to help remind himself that he needs to review what happened briefly, respond by understanding how to move forward, release what happened and then refocus for the next play.

A diver stands at the top of the 10M platform. Before they move to execute the dive, they perform a pre-execution routine in which they close their eyes and physically mimic the movements of the dive--using imagery combined with the movement. This helps them understand what they will do and give them confidence. Immediately afterward they perform the dive.

When thinking of post-execution routines, utilizing attentional cues to help bring back your concentration and focus can be helpful. In the post about concentration, I spoke about how I used attentional cues to help keep me going up hard hills. If you think of the hill as the execution of a specific situation, as I come to the top of the hill, I might use an attentional cue to also help get me back on track. It's easy to dwell on how hard the hill was, and possibly think "Legs. burning. no. strength! How. much. further!?" But instead, I can always use an attentional cue as I work hills--every single hill I come across, I tell myself, "Keep pushing, push hard!" right at the crest of the hill to focus on moving forward, rather than the pain in my legs.

In each of these examples of mental routines, it's again important to note that they are practiced each and every time the situation occurs. Before each race, before each dive, in-between plays and upon each hill. The repetition makes the routine strong and sticky :).


So, here we are. The end of the mental skills series! I've introduced the four cardinal mental skills of relaxation, concentration, imagery and self-talk and now I've talked about how to begin to combine them into a routine throughout practice and competition.

I know that I have enjoyed writing about the skills and I hope that you have enjoyed reading and learning about them. Even though this is the end of the mental skills series, and it's kinda sad (okay maybe not that sad), it's also exciting because now you have new skills to think about and learn about that can help you perform at your best, possibly opening up many paths for your training.

As always, to learn even more about mental skills and how to integrate them into your physical training plans it is best to work with a sport psychology professional in your area.