What: Jimmy is a freshman baseball player he has high hopes of making the varsity team, but to achieve this he must improve his batting average. Jimmy is a good athlete but he doesn’t concentrate well, and to be a good hitter jimmy needs to focus on the pitch. Part of Jimmy’s problem is that he hasn’t played baseball as long as some of the other boys but hopefully with some extra work he will improve. As Jimmy’s coach I will help him to concentrate, and to become a better baseball player.
So what: Jimmy’s problem is that he is inexperienced and so he is having trouble picking up the pitches, and so he is not hitting at an acceptable average. This could be due to a few problems not the least of which being that he is not ready for the varsity level due to his lack of experience. As reported by Starks and Ericsson (2003) and others say that experience is gained over a ten year period or 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. Jimmy’s concentration problems at the plate may be the result of a lack of training in how to properly focus on the ball. Jimmy will need to set goals for him to have a chance to achieve what he wants.
Now what: My goal is to give Jimmy his best shot to make the team, so I will implement various principals to maximize his time before the season. First is Psychoneuromuscular theory or muscle memory is something he can do at any time, it is just imagining the act of hitting the ball in his free time, and swinging. Simply imagining the task well can build confidence that he can do it in real life, and it may build muscle memory. Second I will work with him on the Quit eye method this is done with equipment that tracks the eye’s gaze. By wearing this during training he can learn if he’s distracted or if he’s tracking the ball, and with practice track the ball for a longer time period. If Jimmy can train himself to focus on the ball for a longer time his chances of hitting it will greatly improve.
Jimmy needs clear goals, he needs a long term goal and several short term goals that as he progresses he will climb. Goals should be like a ladder complete one to get to another, when all of the small ones are put together Jimmy should be at the top which is his final goal. He needs to write his goals down so that he can always refer to them. Most of all these goals need to need to be his, as a coach I can help make certain they are good goals, but he needs the goals to be his. These goals will drive him to put in the extra work to gain the experience he will need. Weinberg (2002) wrote social support plays a role in goal attainment coaches and instructors that show a genuine concern for participants provide goal support.
Conclusion: Jimmy needs to improve his focus to become a better baseball player. By working on several focus training methods he will gain valuable experience, and improve his skill set. By setting goals Jimmy will be able to incrementally progress to being a better baseball player. With all of the training methods set up if Jimmy works hard he should be able to improve, However he will still be at a disadvantage due to his lack of experience.
Gill, D. L., & Williams, L. (2008) Psychological Dynamics of Sport and Exercise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Weinberg, R. (2002) Goal setting in sport and exercise: Research to practice. In J.L. Van Raalte &B.W. Brewer (Eds.) Exploring sport and exercise psychology (2nd ed., pp25-48). Washington D.C.