How to perform with pressure
Many of us will have had times where we’ve experienced some level of pressure, but had to perform regardless. Looking back over my career, there are plenty of times where I felt an increased pressure to perform—a memorable example for me is the World Championships final in the 4x100m. Here, we had a good opportunity to win a medal (which is something I really wanted to achieve personally), with the heightened awareness that comes with knowing that three other athletes’ dreams depend on me delivering a good performance when it matters.
Recently I’ve been looking at performance under pressure from a different perspective as it influences how I set up my coaching of the Australian Men’s 4x100m relay team. I seek to create situations that put the athletes under pressure, such that when they experience pressure in real competition, they are confident they can perform to the best of their abilities.
Earlier this summer I wrote a piece about preparing for pressure at the World Cup. More recently I was fortunate to be a minor author on a paper published in Sports Medicine, titled Performance Under Pressure in Sport: A Position Statement from Exercise and Sports Science Australia (ESSA). The main purpose of the paper was to discuss how coaches and support staff can design psychologically informed training environments to support athletes to be able to perform when experiencing pressure, and outline key strategies that can be used to support performance under pressure. Let’s take a closer look at what the author group wrote in the paper.
Defining pressure vs. stress
Pressure is commonly defined as “any factor, or combination of factors, that increases the importance of performing well on a particular occasion” (taken from a 1984 paper from Roy Baumeister). These factors often include rewards or punishment, the presence of people who we feel may evaluate us (e.g., spectators or competitors), an increased task difficulty, reduced time or chances to carry out a task, expectations and goals, and perceived external expectations. Going back to my example from the World Championships final, the sense of increased pressure came from many of these factors; the potential of a reward (in terms of a medal), my own goals, the presence of a large number of spectators in the stadium (and knowing others will have been watching on TV), and the perceived expectations of my teammates and coaches. The existence of these factors is not, in and of themselves, all that is required to exert pressure; the athlete has to be both aware of the importance of performing well, and motivated to do so.
Importantly, pressure (and the experience of pressure) is not the same thing as stress and performance anxiety, although these terms are often used interchangeably. Stress tends to occur in response to a stressor, which can relate to performance, but also other aspects such as relationships or wellbeing. Some stressors can also be a source of pressure, but not all are. The experience of stress following exposure to a stressor is mediated by a process called “appraising”, whereby an athlete determines the significance of a stressor, and whether they have the resources to adequately cope. If the athlete determines they cannot adequately cope with the stressor, then they may experience performance anxiety. Pressure can lead to increased performance anxiety, but only where the athlete perceives they do not have the resources to adequately respond to pressure. That said, performance anxiety does not automatically harm performance; where athletes appraise the situation and feel they have a level of perceived control and self-efficacy, they can interpret its symptoms as facilitative, and experience a challenge (as opposed to threat) state when performing with pressure.
Athletes can generally respond to pressure in one of two ways; pressure either enhances their performance (a facilitative response), or harms it (a debilitative response). The terms commonly applied to these aspects are choking, where the athlete experiences a large, acute decrease in performance, or clutch, where an athlete utilises pressure to enhance their performance and achieve their goals. There are different theories as to why pressure can enhance or harm performance. In some models, the increased performance anxiety experienced might distract the athletes’ attention, harming their performance, or cause them to place more attention internally on their movement, which in turn leads to a reduction in the automatic nature of skilled movement, harming performance (a process termed “reinvestment” in the research).
Supporting performance under pressure
So what can we do to support athletes’ performance when they are experiencing pressure? Some of this comes from how we design training sessions and the overall training process. Implicitly learned skills are more robust to pressure; here, skills are acquired without a step-by-step process, which makes future reinvestment, the foundation of choking, less likely. An example of implicit learning is the use of analogies. The use of training environments that are representative of the physical and psychological demands of competition also help, in particular where they prioritise skilled performance delivered in the way it is in competition. Coaches can also manipulate the training environment in a way to deliberately invoke a stress-related response. One way to do this is to extend the reach of consequences—for example, ranking the performances of athletes on objective times post-session, or having a mini-forfeit for losing a simulated competition. These techniques provide athletes with the opportunity to either learn, develop, or practice coping strategies. The evidence for these strategies as a means of enhancing performance is well established, and so their use is therefore recommended. However, the risk with pressure training is that, if it is inappropriately implemented, it can harm athlete wellbeing. There needs to be sufficient support on offer to the athlete to build the skills required to tolerate pressure, and pressure training should not be used as a punishment—this paper has some good, practical guidelines.
Outside of the training program and session design, there are a number of psychological strategies that can be used to support performance under pressure. These include both cognitive-behavioural and acceptance and commitment approaches. Put simplistically, cognitive-behavioural approaches focus on developing the skills of the athlete to utilise behavioural techniques to control their performance anxiety; for example, slow, deep breathing. In contrast, acceptance and commitment approaches encourage athletes to accept and experience, as opposed to control and avoid, the unpleasant feelings and thoughts that arise from the perception of pressure. Other techniques include pre-performance routines (a set process of thoughts and/or actions that the athlete goes through prior to performance), implicit attentional strategies (for example, counting backwards from 100) which draw attention away from conscious motor processing, psychological skills training (which includes aspects such as goal setting, imagery, self-talk, etc.), and mindfulness-based approaches, where the athlete focuses on experiencing the present moment without judgement. All of these approaches have been demonstrated to be effective in supporting performance in the presence of pressure, often at meta-analysis level.
Bringing it together
Pulling this all together, it’s clear that being able to perform whilst experiencing pressure is an important part of elite sports performance. To support this, the paper closes with some recommendations on how the organisation, performance team, and researchers can support the athlete. Those most relevant to coaches and athletes are:
- Adopt a systems-led approach – ensure that all the key messages from the performance team are delivered in a cohesive manner.
- Utilise appropriately credentialled practitioners – in Australia, this would include a registered psychologist with endorsement in sport and exercise psychology.
- Manage organisational stressors – this includes stressors placed on the performance team, who may negatively affect athletes with their own stress.
- Implement pressure training appropriately – using appropriately scheduled, gradual, context-specific training that is well communicated, monitored, and evaluated.
- Utilise applicable evidence-based strategies to support athletes.
- Implement effective post-performance debriefs to assess how the athlete performed under pressure, and what future changes may be required.
If we can do this, then we can better support our athletes to deliver their best performance when it matters—something that is crucial for all of us.
