Which sport is hardest (mentally)?
I recently got to spend a week at Club La Santa in Lanzarote. It is probably the place I am happiest on earth; sunshine, clean Air, almost every sport you can imagine and a total focus on health, improvement and wellbeing. Oh and 3 Olympic swimming pools where you rarely have to share a lane and wifi that is not always good enough to be tempted to do any work! Totally in my element.
Being surrounded by so many athletes and sports (they claim there are 80 classes a day) means it is easy to compare and I love a bit of athlete watching trying to figure out who does which sport. We can sometimes tell by their body – but what about the brain – who is suited to what? It got me reflecting on which sport is hardest. It is a question I’m often asked by journalists who wonder if the sport they cover is the mentally hardest? I don’t know if anyone has tried to research this but of course the answer I would give is (as so often), it depends. It depends on whether someone is naturally gifted in that sport, whether we have personality traits that match the key functions of the sport and whether it is a team or individual sport. It will also depend on how easy someone finds it to access the ABC of motivation in that sport; Does it give you autonomy? Will it create a strong feeling of belonging? How quickly or effectively are you likely to feel competent? When those are missing it will feel far tougher psychologically.
So, putting aside the ‘it depends’, from working with athletes in 27 sports (so far) the three sports I feel are really mentally really tough…
Cycling. Cycling at an amateur level is a route for solitude and escape. It is also a great way to make friends and build a sense of belonging. And as cyclists we get attacked so much in society (there seems to be a daily twitter and/or mumsnet thread complaining about us) and have physical risks from drivers that it is does tend to help us feel connected. But for those who get good and join a team you go from looking out for yourself to protecting, enhancing and supporting others. Your entire goal and processes change. And that must be hard to get your head around. Even worse for female riders is that they get paid less, have stressful employment conditions and often struggle to get the equipment or nutrition they need to do well. So you go pro, have a ton of excitement with it, and find it was easier to perform well when you are amateur.
Golf. Yes – this surprises me too. I used to have an incredible snobbery about whether golf really counted as a sport. I was soon proved wrong when I spent time on the course with golfers and realised I would genuinely rather spend 4 hours running than four hours on a golf course with all that time to focus on my own thoughts and only occasional breaks to attempt to hit a ball perfectly. All that time to focus on what might go wrong, what you have just messed up and knowing when you got back to the club house someone would ask you your score. I realised that, when you care about how you do, golf can be really mentally tough as the physical impact of making a mistake tends to be felt really strongly within the body. You mess up and your threat system triggers, sending adrenaline and cortisol round your body which gives you a nauseous tummy, raises your heart and breathing rate, dulls your senses and tightens your back and shoulder muscles. This can happen in any sport (and real life too) but in golf it have a strong physical impact as the tension causes your swing to tighten and all that deliberate and precise practice becomes impossible to access and you shoot the ball off in the wrong direction.
Tennis. The psychological difficulties with Tennis come from a number of elements. Firstly, you have the same issue as above with golf; the back and shoulder tension from the feeling of threat has a powerful negative impact on your serve and shots. Then add to this the fact you are face to face with your opponent. There are not that many sports where we do have to physically stand face to face with our competitor. And in tennis we don’t get to play our own game; we are responding to that person in front of us, so there is no moment to switch off and relax. As soon as you lose focus the point is lost. Add to this a sport with a strong culture of ranking and points. Every junior tennis player I work with knows exactly where they are ranked, how many UTR points they have, and exactly who they ‘should’ be able to beat. This adds a ton of pressure which triggers that threat response – and makes it much harder to play well.
Coaches & Athletes – what do you think? Which elements of your sport can make it really mentally tough?
PS: I’m totally not paid my Club La Santa to say nice things – but if they are ever looking for a Sport Psychologist in residence (is this a thing?) my CV will be heading their way!
I think you are right about golf because you have so much time to think about what you are about to do, for better or (usually) for worse, whereas so many other sports are instinctive, rapid reaction ones where that thinking time is greatly reduced or non-existent. Plus, at the professional level, one bad shot can completely negate 70 good ones and ruin your chances of winning.
I would also add cricket, particularly batting. Again, one mistake and your race is over; sometimes you get out to a good ball that you could do nothing about, regardless of ability; and then you may have to spend hours or days watching helplessly on as your team mates proceed to succeed when you failed. Add that to large amounts of time spent touring away from home and there are some clear reasons why suicide/depression levels seem to be particularly high in cricketers relative to other sports.