Over the years I have found there are two types of players. The first trains amazing but when they play a match, it doesn’t translate. The other trains so-so but turns it on in a match. Today I want to talk about the former – those players that train well but can’t perform in a match.
Train to perform
One of my beliefs is that players are a reflection of their training habits and environments. So, if a player is training well and creating the right habits but not getting results, we need to look at the environment they train in.
Playing a match is uncomfortable
When you are 5 all in the third set, 30 all on serve, chances are you feel nervous and tense. You might also feel vulnerable or scared that you’ll lose or do something dumb. You are probably also at courts you don’t know, maybe in a foreign county with a foreign climate. So, most of the time, a match environment is an uncomfortable environment.
The training environment however is usually not uncomfortable. If you miss a ball, you just hit another one. If you lose a game or match, it doesn’t really count. And if you train with the same people at the same venue all the time, you probably feel super comfortable.
Thing is, if you only feel uncomfortable in a match, not in training, it’s hard to do well because you haven’t trained to perform in that situation.
So as coaches, it’s important to try and create that discomfort in training.
Of course it’s unlikely to be quite the same, but you can get close.
Make pressure comfortable
For instance, I might call a ball out when it’s clearly in and see how the player deals with it. I might only give them one serve in match play and their opponent two. I might set a reward for the player that achieves a certain outcome or feed them really challenging balls. There are lots of ways to create pressure and make your players more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
And when you do this, you help your players perform. Because what translates to performance is the ability to make good decisions and solve problems with nerves, under pressure and through stress. And so, if you make your players uncomfortable, that’s when growth will occur.
Regards,
Marc Sophoulis