PZ & Sports Psychology
Competitive sport today places enormous pressure on athletes and often demands them to perform to the very highest quality at the top level. Extensive research has been rapidly expanding in the field of sports psychology, which is demonstrated by a growing number of professional sports teams employing qualified psychologists to work closely with their team members. ProZone assists sports psychologists for current clients in several ways:
- Set targets and goals by setting benchmarks based around previous results and performances
- Introduce work ethic and performance goals based on previous performances
- Produce player and team motivational videos to emulate previous success and motivate players for important matches
Examples where ProZone has assisted:
Case Study 1
A player's successful pass rate percentage had dropped significantly. When using the ProZone system to analyse performance, it was identified that after the player had an unsuccessful pass he tried to redeem this by trying to make an extremely difficult pass, which was often also unsuccessful. When this was highlighted to the player via the sports psychologist using ProZone, the problem was able to be rectified, leading to a dramatically improved pass rate percentage in subsequent games.
Case Study 2
A coach had noticed performance had dropped significantly in a player coming back from a serious knee injury. ProZone revealed the player's fitness capacities were back to normal and the problem was not fitness-related. On further examination of the tactical analysis it was clear that the player's tackles, interceptions and blocks had significantly dropped as well as the player's average position, showing a less defensive position than pre-injury. The sports psychologist put this down to fear of injury re-occurrence.
In collaboration with the sports psychologist the ProZone consultant prepared a motivational video. The first part displayed recent games where it could be seen the player had backed out of tackles and important interceptions. The second part displayed all the positive tackles, blocks and interceptions the player had made prior to the knee injury to reinforce the point that the player had previously made top quality tackles which had not resulted in injury.