| Summary: | Practitioners in a variety of sports seek unique ways to train athletes to better prepare them for
competition. In this position paper, we argue that inclusion of psycho-perceptual-motor skills, from the
fields of sport psychology and sport expertise, is crucial, but underutilized in the assessment and training
of athletes. First, a brief introduction is provided as to why psycho-perceptual-motor skill is vital for
training athletes. Second, examples are discussed relating to key concepts. These include the following:
assessment of expertise discriminators such as visual anticipation under pressure contexts, incorporation
of sports analytics and performance analysis to aid reflection upon previous experiences of good
anticipation and coping with pressure, use of qualitative and quantitative measures to understand
processes underlying performance and learning, as well as design of representative tasks for assessment
and training anticipation under pressure contexts. Third, some recommendations are made to
practitioners of sports teams to assist them in taking advantage of psycho-perceptual-motor skill to better
prepare athletes for competition. Collectively, we hope this paper stimulates collaboration between
practitioners of sports teams and scientists to create a greater focus upon integrated sport psychology
and sport expertise in the training of athletes.
|
|---|