Francesc Porta: "The athlete must balance body and mind".

We interviewed psychologist, sports coach and former competitive athlete Francesc Porta.

If there is one thing that characterizes sport, it is that, although its most recognizable facet is based on movement, it is far from being limited to the purely mechanical. High-performance athletes become known among other things because they are not machines that execute instructions: both individually and as a group, behind them there is a psychological facet that structures their behavior and that even makes tournaments and competitions have their own narrative, that tell inspiring stories.

One of the implications of this is that to compete well it is essential to take into account these psychological variables and to know how to manage them.. Therefore, on this occasion we talk to an expert on the subject: the psychologist Francesc Porta.

Interview with Francesc Porta: how to manage pressure in high-performance sports

Francesc Porta Nuñez is a sports psychologist and sports coach with experience both as a behavioral science professional and as a professional competitive athlete. He currently works helping both individual athletes and sports clubs and federations. In this interview he talks to us about stress management and psychological pressure in the context of high performance sport.

Having competed in several sports, did training in psychology change your perspective on the kind of challenge it is to be an athlete?

Without a doubt, it is very different to practice sport for fun as a hobby than to prepare for a competition.

When you start competing you need to systematically develop resources and strategies that allow you to face the competition with confidence. Many athletes develop them innately but the important thing is to know if they are the right ones and if they help you to improve your performance.

In my case, psychology helped me to be more aware of this process and to enjoy competing. Later, as a trainer and sports coach, it became clear to me that what differentiated athletes with the same physical and technical-tactical level was the psychological aspect.

Do we tend to underestimate the importance of knowing how to manage the psychological aspect when practicing sports?

Less and less, but it is true that the athlete, in general, is very pragmatic and the simple fact that the psychological variables are not tangible means that they are not given the importance they have. I think that nowadays the sports world is aware of the importance of the mental aspect, but not so much of how it can be trained to integrate it into sports planning.

Is the pressure suffered by an athlete dedicated to an individual sport of a different type to that suffered by those who participate in team sports?

Yes, in team sports the interpersonal variables (leadership, communication, cohesion...) influence the athlete's performance as much or more than the intrapersonal ones (self-confidence, activation, concentration...). In addition, among other aspects, the competition structure and the environment in which the athlete lives is different.

Therefore, the preparation must be adapted to each circumstance with the aim of facilitating the positive activation necessary to face this pressure with guarantees.

And what aspects of the pressure felt by athletes do you think are not found in the pressure felt, for example, by those who work in an office?

The main differences are that the athlete must balance body and mind so that his technical gestures are coordinated and extremely precise in a given time. In other words, the athlete simultaneously stresses both the cognitive system (thought and emotions) and the physiological system (body) under pressure for a short period of time.

In other activities, the pressure is asynchronous and the cognitive system is mostly stressed. Sport is the only activity where the mind-body pressure is synchronous and intense. For this reason, in order to flow in competition, the athlete must train the mastery and automation of his resources.

What are some of the strategies and techniques that you consider most important when it comes to dealing with pressure in high-performance sport?

We have to start from the premise that each person manages competitive pressure differently and what works for one athlete does not necessarily work for another. The important thing is to establish a system of continuous improvement so that the athlete applies what gives him/her return and performance.

The techniques that I train the most with my athletes are: pre-competitive protocols where we introduce psychological elements of interest, diaphragmatic breathing and Jacobson's relaxation technique with the aim of regulating positive cognitive activation, visualization with virtual reality, self-evaluations and sensation records, rationalization of irrational thoughts and self-instructions among others.

And as general guidelines and tips to manage concentration well in sport, what do you think is the most important?

From my point of view, the training of the attentional focuses is the guideline that facilitates more concentration in the athlete. Getting them to concentrate exclusively on the technical execution of the movement and on everything they can control, facilitates attentional capacity and avoids lack of concentration.

I have worked with teams that, by integrating the work of the attentional focuses in training, have substantially improved the percentage of throws. When the athlete knows what, when and where to focus on, performance improves.