| Session | Content | Rationale/Advice from |
| 1 | Personal Introductions | Lead and supporting researcher introduce themselves to the group, provide a background and focus on building a rapport. |
| Purpose of the PST | Highlight the importance of psychological characteristics in rowing, concepts of psychological well-being and mental toughness introduced. | |
| Logbook | Athletes were asked to record their physical and psychological preparations, progress, general thoughts and concerns in a personal logbook. They were advised to keep this up to date and granted the freedom to complete this however they wished. This practise has been found to increase athlete’s sense of self-awareness | |
| Assessment 1―Rowers received a link to the online survey (October 14th 2014) | ||
| 2 | Feedback from the squad’s first psychometric assessment | As a squad, from the psychological constructs assessed, confidence was particularly low. This is understandable due to the nascent nature of the squad and lack of success to date. Placing this into context, the Lead Researcher discussed the importance of formulating task-oriented goals, which focus on mastery; rather than ego-oriented goals driven by success, encouraging athletes to aspire to perform better than their previous each time. |
| Technique 1: Self-Talk | This session outlined how self-talk is nothing more than internal dialogue/thoughts (Bunker, Williams & Zinnser, 1993). Following this, the lead discussed the implications of negative self-talk on athletic performance, drawing upon real life examples from professional practise and asked athletes to become more aware of their thoughts during practise and performance, whilst monitoring which thoughts hinder and which seem to facilitate their performance. | |
| Technique 2: Thought-stopping | This is an inhibition strategy whereby athletes use a verbal or nonverbal cue to acknowledge and suspend unhelpful thoughts (Zinsser et al., 2010). The disruption of the thought has been found to increase the athlete’s sense of self-awareness - however rowers were made aware of the detrimental effects which may arise when they focus on what “not” to think (i.e., hyper accessibility). | |
| Technique 3: Thought Control | To avoid “hyper accessibility” (Wegner & Erber, 1992) athletes were informed not to consciously try to diminish the thought, but to demonstrate an awareness and observe it passing through their consciousness. Athletes were advised to incorporate idiosyncratic positive, supportive thoughts, daily | |
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| Technique 4: Concentration Skills & Focus | The rowers were introduced to the “here and now principal”, importance of “controlling their eyes and ears” and effective ways to do this (e.g., performance rituals). They were asked to consider what performance rituals they currently engage with to help get “in the zone”. |
| Assessment 2 | ||
| 3 | Feedback from the squad’s second psychometric assessment | Confidence had improved but it was still relatively low, visualisation was still quite low at this point too. Feedback and session content was geared towards enhancing confidence in preparation for the rowers upcoming race. |
| Building self-confidence - Awareness of “U” | According to Goldstein (1998) confidence is the product of hard work. Psychological skills and a positive outlook must be accompanied by consistent effort and dedication to training. The “no deposit, no return” formula was discussed with the athletes. | |
| Technique 5: Expect success and Positive imagery | This session touched upon the importance of expecting success after doing all you can to perform to your best and introduced athletes to coping and mastery imagery (including ways in which they can be implemented and the importance of ample practise and individual reflection). Imagery works well for some athletes, and not so well for others, therefore athletes were advised to practise different techniques at different times (days before a race versus just before the race), to decipher “what works best”. | |
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| Individual sessions to reiterate the information covered and address personal issues and concerns | |
| Assessment 3 | ||
| 4 | Psychometric scores | The athletes received the squads results over the three assessments, the findings were interpreted by the lead researcher. |
| Debrief of the session | Athletes were fully debriefed of the nature of the research and questions were welcomed. | |