Spring sports are just around the corner and student athletes everywhere are gearing up for the season. Walled Lake Central offers a wide variety of spring sports including baseball, lacrosse, golf, track and field, and softball as well as a few other spring season girls sports such as soccer, water polo and tennis.
Alongside the start of the new seasons also comes the start and finish of spring sports tryouts, which can be a particularly stressful time for most athletes. In fact, most student athletes report being stressed during tryouts and at the beginning of the season. However, coaches and trainers everywhere say that stress is normal and that it allows many athletes to perform to the best of their abilities in games and practice.
Despite the pressure of making a team and filling a position, the likely most stressful aspect of tryouts is the fear of being cut and the repercussions it may have on a young athlete. The humiliation and disappointment that players face after being turned away from a sport often serves as a deterrent for athletes trying out in the future.
According to Ray and Wiese-Bjornstal, two experts in the field of Sports medicine, most athletes experience biological and physiological stress which holds a series of side effects unfavorable to athletes. These symptoms include muscle tension, increased heart rate, indigestion, stomach spasms, pain and headaches. However the most detrimental to an athlete's performance in a high stakes situation such as tryouts are the cognitive effects on the player, which include frustration, worries, distortion, exaggeration, unrealistic performance expectations, self-defeating statements and self handicapping. This relation between the mind of an athlete and their physical performance shows the intense amount of pressure these players undergo in stressful situations. Such drastic effects often result from the athletes fear of failure or disappointment and if gone untreated or alleviated can eventually progress into certain forms of anxiety.
Whether you are a participant in this years Walled Lake Central spring athletics or a fan of one of the teams, the end of the spring tryout season is coming to a close and with it presents a unique opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of extracurricular activities.
March 28, 2017 in Sports.