Mental Training for performance in Shooting Sports
Why Mental Training Matters in Sport Shooting.
Shooting well isn't just about physical ability and your shooting skills. It's also about how you think and feel.
You might explore this on your own or work with a sport psychologist or mental coach. As a sport psychologist, I look to support athlete’s mental development so they can use their thinking in more helpful ways.
Throughout my career, I’ve worked with athletes in many sports. I love applying psychological training to closed-skill sports, like shooting, but also golf, archery, and other activities requiring the repeating of skill to a high level. I’ve seen athletes in these sports make huge performance gains from mental training.
In this blog, we will take a look at why having a mental training programme is important and how you can enhance your shooting performance.
Shooting as a sport is psychologically intense because it requires a lot of focus and control in your mind. The perception of how a shooter thinks and feels can affect their performance outcomes.
Being able to focus, having awareness of emotions, and making helpful performance choices are vital for shooting well.
Key Factors of Mental Training.
Focus: To be better at shooting, you need to treat focus both as a skill and a resource.
It’s something that can be trained but can also be depleted. I see many shooters trying to maintain unsustainable levels of attention during a match. It’s not necessary or a good use of this finite resource.
Learning to direct attention is a skill that the very best shooters develop.
Handling stress and emotions: When you’re doing something important to you then you should expect to feel something right? Rather than being something to avoid it’s important to normalise these feelings.
So many performers try to ignore and bury their emotions. The inevitable outcome is that the unwanted stuff only gets stronger and the thing they try to suppress is the thing that uses the most energy!
Use your thoughts and emotions to remind yourself where your attention needs to be.
Picture your performance in your mind: Part of training your mind is to imagine different shooting situations. This gets shooters ready for all sorts of challenges, minimises surprises, and can be used to build confidence.
Setting goals: Goals can make or break self-belief and evidence of progress.
It’s easy to focus on the end goal of winning a medal. It’s harder to spend time planning how to get there but it is time very well spent.
Process, performance and outcome goals are all essential aspects of planning for future success.
Routine, Routine, Routine: I’m obsessed with routine: pre-competition routines, competition day routines, pre and post-shot etc.
There are so many things that can happen in competition outside of your control so put your energy into the things that you can control. Routines breed certainty and confidence whilst reducing unpredictability.
Develop yours, test them, refine them and count on them!
Putting Mental Training into Practice.
How much of the above are you working on in your mental game right now? If you gained an extra target a round or if your mental game increased your consistency of skill delivery in your chosen discipline what difference would it make to you?
There is no magic dust. Nobody else can do the work for you; however, I aim to make it easier by with my $7 sport psychology email course.
Remember, in sport shooting, once you have started to develop your technical skill, the challenge is often as much in your mind as in technical improvement.