| dc.description.abstract | Introduction: The margin between losing and winning has never been smaller. Athletes are looking for ways to get an edge on their competitors and they are more open to work on their psychological skills (Williams & Krane, 2015). PST refers to “ the systematic and consistent practice of mental or psychological skills for the purpose of enhancing performance, increasing enjoyment or achieving greater sport and physical activity self-satisfaction” (Weinberg & Gould, 2019, p. 248).
Research questions: To what extent do Norwegian athletics coaches focus on psychological skills training in everyday workouts? Which psychological skills and techniques are emphasized?
Method: In the current study a qualitative research method was used, conducting semi-structured interviews and analysing the data using a reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021b). Seven coaches in athletics, four women and three men, and represented different levels of experience as coach, all of them also had experience as an athletics athlete.
Result: The result of the analysis is four overreaching themes describing how coaches in Norwegian athletics focus on psychological skills training: (1) Facilitating for psychological skills through the structure of the workout (2) Communication as a tool in psychological skills training. (3) The coaches’ challenges associated with psychological skills training. (4) Improvements and possible changes to make
Conclusion: Based on the results the current study it seems likely that Norwegian athletics coaches do not have any focus on PST and limited focus on psychological skills in their athletics every day. Mostly they focused on the coach-athlete relationship, and they reported that they indirectly work on motivation | en_US |
