The pressure surrounding Premiership footballers is immense these days. Clearly the financial rewards are enormous but this in turn creates demands that many players are not skilled to deal with.
The highs and lows of professional football are extreme. A player can be in demand one week and injured or bombed into the reserves the following week. The immediate need for success demanded by clubs and the ensuing media attention on and off the pitch clearly place enormous pressures on young shoulders.
The turbulent and transient nature of professional football means that very few players have an inner circle of people they can rely and trust upon. Those well meaning friends that do try to offer advice have no experience of dealing with the issues.
For years, sports psychology has been scorned by managers and coaches as a sign of weakness with some worried that people are messing with the minds of their players. However, all too often we hear phrases used such as ‘my heads gone’ or managers telling players to sort themselves out without giving the players the necessary skills to do so.
By working with Think Fitness, we ensure that players have a neutral base of support focused on giving them the following skills:
- Pressure management strategies
- Skill development through visualisation & imagery
- Injury management