Much focus has, rightly, been giving to what happens in training sessions. Which methods to use and how to improve the training itself. However, athletes on all levels have experienced having an off day because of something in their personal lives. Therefore, this will focus on how athletes use behavioral and cognitive techniques outside of training sessions to improve performance.

Applied behavior analysis

One of these techniques is the applied behavior analysis (ABA for short). ABA is based on behaviorist views of conditioning and reinforcement and its goal is to create good habits and develop skills and decrease harmful habits. To create these habits following steps can be taken:

1. Using rewards for positive reinforcement

It’s important to note that a reward is not necessarily a material thing. One could certainly be rewarded by cooking a nice meal or having a snack, but for most athletes doing this regularly would be counterproductive for performance. Instead, it is recommendable to reward oneself with quality time with family or loved ones or doing an exciting hobby. The easiest way to do this would be by setting clear achievable goals. The joy of being able to run at a certain pace, lift a certain amount of weight or perform a new technique correctly will for many be rewarding and motivating.

2. Giving yourself consistent feedback.

This is about being persistent in the rewards you give yourself. This will both allow you to create long lasting habits and increase performance if done correctly. This also comes back to realistic achievable goal setting. If you create a training regimen that from session to session allows you to work towards a larger goal while achieving smaller ones this will create the consistent feedback and hopefully also give you a feeling of accomplishment which will make it easier to keep up the motivation for continuing. If you on the other hand want to master a complex movement the movement can be broken into steps and mastered allowing for a sense of accomplishment after mastering each minor step.

3. Giving yourself a time out when performing poorly.

This is not meant to punish yourself for a bad training session, but to increase your focus and decrease the habituation of poor workout habits. So, if you can feel yourself loosing focus during training it can be helpful to remove yourself from the situation by taking a small break and return a few minutes later. This can help in lessening the chance of creating returning situations where training is completed on ‘auto-pilot’. For most, if not all, it is important to maintain proper technique and progress, which is much harder without focus.

To summarize these behavioral principles and make them applicable some of the most important things is to be realistic about your own performance. Set achievable goals that will help you in making overall progress. Be mindful of your training, remember to reward yourself for a job well done, and most important of all you should remember to enjoy the process and what you do.

For more information about applied behavioral analysis in sports you can read the following articles:

Fields, M. P. (n.d.). A Literature Review: Applied Behavior Analysis and Performance; the Pa. Missouri State University. Retrieved from https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/ 

Martin, G., & Tkachuk, G. A. (2000). Behavioral sport psychology (BSP): A behavior analytic approach to improving sports performance. In Special Topics in Behavior Analysis. Retrieved from https://pressbooks.pub/