MENTAL PREPARATION
THERE is a lot said about training the body but possibly not enough about training the mind. You only had to look at recent sporting events to see how important psychological preparation is in sport. The perfect example was the UEFA Euro 2016 match between England and Iceland – the England players looked terrified while Iceland played with abandon and that, ultimately, was the difference. But what has that got to do with athletics?
England’s players were criticised for not caring enough but nobody seems to have suggested that they cared too much. The problem wasn’t that it didn’t matter to them but that it mattered too much. As a result, rather than being able to relax and do what comes naturally to them during a domestic season, they seemed to forget how to play. They were thinking too much and were unable to execute the simplest of tasks, the tasks they execute all winter without thinking became alien to them.