Chapter 14

Question 1

7. What are simulations ? Illustrate with a sport example

Answer 1

• A strategy athletes can use when they want to ensure the transfer of athletic performance from practices to competitions. They manipulate and make many stimuli in the practice environment as similar as possible to the stimulus that will be encountered during a competition
• ex. A soccer player coming to practices in his special competition/game cleats. He also warms up for practice like he would at a competition or game and prepares himself mentally with his competition self-talk “quick feet, stay alert.” By manipulation these stimuli and integrating them into his practice environment, there an increased chance that he will be able to transfer abilities and athletic performance into competition environment

Question 2

8. List seven categories of cues that are useful for simulating competitive stimuli at practices

Answer 2

1. Cues from the physical environment
2. Cues from the behaviour of the coach
3. Cues from the behaviour of other athletes
4. Cues from the level of autonomic arousal or degree if anxiousness of the athlete
5. Proprioceptive cues from the muscles of the athlete
6. The athletes imagery as cues
7. The athletes self talk as cues

Question 3

10. Describe an example of how athletes might use imagery at practices to simulate aspects of s competition in order to increase the likelihood that practice will transfer to competition

Answer 3

• if it’s not possible to physically rearrange various aspects of the practice environment to stimulate competitive conditions, then an alternative is to capitalize on imagery at practices
• ex. Of this may be a gymnast imagining herself performing her competitive routines during a practice at her own gym. She imagined stepping into the grand competition stage. With the lights beating down and the eyes of the audience and the judges only in her. Each time she performs a different routine (floor,beam or bars), she thinks about the pressure she feels when she’s at competitions and she thinks “I’m competing this routine right now”. By performing under these simulated conditions, the odds are increased that has that she will be able to perform her routines under the real-life pressure from a competition environment.

Question 4

11. Pick a sport with which you are familiar: for that sport, describe a plausible “pressure game” that an athlete might play at practices in order to get used to performing under conditions of increased autonomic arousal.

Answer 4

• one way of simulating the arousal an athlete might feel in pressure packed competitions is to create a pressure situation at practice, often called a “pressure game”
• ex. Swimming, where the individuals who compete in 500 yard texts must swim four and a half laps in an Olympic sized pool. This type of commitment can easily tire a swimmer out, and can cause them to either reduce their stroke or to take breaks during their lap. So, a plausible “pressure game” would be for a coach stating that due every two second reduction in. Stroke time they owe her 50 cents and die every break they take, they owe her a dollar

Question 5

14. Describe the generalization strategy referee to as “ programming a few common stimuli “ illustrate it with a sport example involves imagery

Answer 5

• “programming a few common stimuli” is the referee to as the strategy for programming stimulus generalization. We deliberately bring desired athletic behaviour under the control of a few specific stimuli in practices, and to then take those stimuli to the competition. If athletic performance occurs to a specific stimulus in practice and if that stimulus can be introduced into a competition, then the likely hoof I’d stimulus generalization to the competitive environment is increased
• one way in which the athlete can utilize this strategy is by incorporating imagery at practices and competitions just before performing a skill can also provide common stimuli generalization from competition to practice.
• an example of this may perhaps be a basketball player who handles the ball and is able to dribble perfectly at practices, however when it comes to competitions, the player experiences many handling problems. He tends to let the balk get away down because he dribbles too Far away from himself and his hand tends to move to the side of the ball, instead of over top of the ball wheee he has better control. So, his coach asks him to imagine that “there is a magnet between your hand and the ball, so hold it close and steady the pull.” By imagining this magnet, the player can keep the ball closer to him and will brush Lear to a better control over the ball

Question 6

15. Describe the generalization strategy referred to as “vary many of the training conditions”. Give example

Answer 6

This strategy for programming generalization, adopted from the behaviour modification literature, involves conducting practices under a wide variety of conditions. The assumption is that athletic skills are brought under control of a greater variety of stimuli during training, then there is an increased probability of some of those stimuli being present during competition.
-ex. A soccer player that trains and practices in a variety of situations like outside, inside, cold weather, huge audience watching then no audience. By doing and frank for under a variety of conditions then any of these conditions occurs during a real-life soccer game, then the athlete is able more likely transfer his abilities from training to real-life