Under Pressure: Why Athletes Choke | Hacker News Reader

Under Pressure: Why Athletes Choke

theguardian.com

9 pointsanarbadalov10 comments

None of this is all that surprising, but it's a good read and i'll probably pick up the book from which it's excerpted. As an amateur boxer who's sparred thousands of rounds in the gym, i'm almost always disappointed in my inability to perform as well in actual fights or even in other gyms. Part of it is fear of the unknown or fear of embarrassing myself, but my tendency to overthink everything hasn't helped.

This, grabbed from the article, is right on:

“When you’re in the flow and you’re not thinking about it, you just bowl and you just trust your skills.” Of that day at Lord’s, Boswell said: “I just didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust my action and I didn’t trust my skill set, and then when it was put under high pressure, it failed.”

When athletes are anxious, they overthink, and focus attention on the technical execution of the skill – those aspects of the movement that have generally become automated. It has been called “paralysis by analysis”: the mental effort actually inhibits performance. This explains why Boswell, a 26-year-old in his seventh season as a professional cricketer, suddenly found himself unable to bowl straight.

When we are choking the prefrontal cortex takes over what would normally be 2nd nature subconscious actions and tries to execute them 'manually'

This also reduces the brain's capacity to analyze the current game state and make abstract moment to moment decisions.

Sometimes I'll do badass stuff in Rocket League, and my wife will ask "Did you mean to do that?" and the answer is "yes, but I wasn't thinking about it" But if a shot is particularly unfamiliar and the pressure high enough, I'll think about it, and flub.

I can appreciate that from the perspective of rolling kayaks or shooting trap. Rolling a kayak back up when underwater in bad conditions, I've twice had that sensation of thinking about particular technical steps instead of executing the maneuver as a whole and failed miserably when it would have been really, really great to not be swimming. In trap, the pressure of the last shot or two when a score is tied, I can observe my brain saying things like 'remember to lead it', 'remember not to overthink it', etc., it's somewhat humorous to watch the sabotage in action.

Yeah, i would not do well under those conditions. At least with boxing, at an amateur level, that kind of precision isn't vital. There's room to make mistakes — you can miss a punch or get pushed around for a round and pull yourself together. The problem is when the accumulation of mistakes drains you of all your confidence and you're left focusing on things that you know should be second nature. That thought spiral can be funny and absurd in retrospect, but in the moment is dreadful.

I've always wanted to go get some training in boxing, but I admit I'm always worried about losing teeth or getting cauliflower ear or something like that. Dumb, but there it is. :D

It's never too late! And you only get cauliflower ear from wrestling — never met a single boxer who had it or lost a tooth, at least not from boxing. It's the best workout you can get, even if you're just shadowboxing, hitting the bag, jumping rope. No need to spar or have any contact if you don't want either; I'd say 70% of the people at any gym i've trained at never entered the ring. But make sure you get proper instruction when you start, otherwise you won't get any of the benefits.

> As an amateur boxer who's sparred thousands of rounds in the gym, i'm almost always disappointed in my inability to perform as well in actual fights or even in other gyms.

A friend of mine was in professional skiing at one point, and he tells a similar story. There'd be guys he could easily beat in practice, but somehow on competition day it was impossible. It was like they were some sort of monster on the day, while the rest of the people they trained with found issues reproducing their form from practice.

I've felt this a tiny bit myself. When I was towards the end of my days at uni, I suddenly stopped giving a damn about losing the football, I just played without fear for a bit. Makes a world of difference, but it's also inexplicable how you get in that zone.

At a friends place he played me a youtube video from a regular mountain bike "influencer" (not something I'd normally watch). The subject for the day was a top female mountain biker giving some tips. He did a first run prior to any tips, and managed to demonstrate a mountaineer bike influencer doesn't need to know much about riding mountain bike fast. Then she gave him a few tips and he was a smidgen faster, but I though that was maybe just the practice.

Then she said he was over thinking it (perfectly understandable to me, given the mountain biking accidents I've seen), and put a headset on him and turned up the volume. That run was much better. Not only faster, it was visibly smoother.

Also recommend the book Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams (same author as the guardian article).

It's more geared towards the Average Joe and coping with daily stress. One line that stuck with me is: "your mind has a mind of its own", as he tries to emphasise that your thoughts are just that - mere thougths, and not reality. With practice, one can learn how to distinguish between thoughts and reality and become more grounded in life.

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