Do you or your son or daughter perform well in practice but have difficulty translating it to the ring?
We see it all the time. Here are 3 common reasons why
The Nerves Of Competition
The nerves of the competition itself tend to be the most common reason for an athlete having issues translating their good performance in practice to the Ring (or Cage). But why would someone who performs well in practice have nerves before a competition? For one thing, practice is a very different environment than the hostile landscape of opponents, crowds, and expectations. For most athletes, it takes more to earn fight-day confidence than merely showing up to practice and performing well in front of your friends and coaches. Most need to feel like they’ve gone the extra mile in developing themselves as individuals in order to feel deserving of letting things flow in the fight.
Stage Fright
Performing in front of large groups of people bothers a lot of people whether it’s Muay Thai, wrestling, Kickboxing, MMA, or public speaking. Regular team practices will be hard-pressed in terms of time to address factors like referees, boo’s from opposing fans, and the volume of the arena. If performing in front of large groups is impeding an athlete’s performance, they must try to find a way to rehearse their skills under such conditions ahead of time.
Fear Of Injury
The fear of getting injured is always there but is worse for some than others especially if they’ve been hurt in the past. Another problem is –
the more afraid you are of getting hurt the more likely it is to happen.
Read that again……
How We Can Help
Our Sports Performance Sessions are designed not only to address the general and specific needs of the athlete from the standpoint of a technical aspect and conditioning but psychological fortitude as well.
Game-Day Confidence
The old-school mantra “The more you hurt in the gym, the less you’ll hurt in the fight” is still alive and well. In this case, do the work to earn your fight-day confidence. One of the big impacts of fight training is that the sometimes records speak for themselves. With rare cases of natural ability set aside, the overwhelming majority of athletes must earn their progress workout by workout, inch by inch. All those little wins, records, and milestones quickly add up to a whopping boost of confidence and a desire to test oneself in the arena, or ring.
Rehearsing the Fight
A noisy arena and hostile crowd in combination with high expectations can be difficult to address in team practice but is built right into the process of our Muay Thai Kickboxing classes. Performing in front of a group cheering you on is the natural state of affairs in this gym. The noise, cheers, and spotlight do a good job of recreating what it’s like to perform in front of a crowd – because you’re doing just that! In short, you get used to being put on the spot while maintaining your focus and composure. You also get a taste of what it feels like to be successful in front of an audience which not only helps you overcome stage fright but makes you excited to get in the ring! Being excited about competition has an enormous impact on translating practice into performance.
Building your base
Getting hurt is the worst and you can never eliminate the likelihood of injury entirely. But you can do A LOT to decrease that likelihood by building your body in the gym. In our Muay Thai Kickboxing gym, you can expect your athlete to build lean functional muscle, lose fat, improve balance and coordination, support joint function, and recover faster all of which dramatically decreases the likelihood of season-ending injury. Our progressive approach to Muay Thai training addresses the fear factor of injury as well. As the athlete makes progress and sees what their bodies are capable of doing and recovering from, the less afraid they will be of getting injured.
So What’s The Next Step
Every Athlete has started the same way – Come try it!! Through a no-obligation training session where we can get to know them, determine their starting point, and answer all of your questions on scheduling and pricing! (and you’ll learn something too!)
