ABSTRACT
Concentration is our ability to apply deliberate mental effort and can make a huge difference in sport. Reducing distractions is the best strategy as every time an athlete’s concentration is interrupted, and they have to switch focus, it comes at neurobiological cost, making them feel tired and mentally depleted. An athlete needs to use different types of attention based on the sport they do, the variant of it and their specific role. Some of the differences will be in the length of time the sport takes place over, some in the amount of stop-start they have, others on whether they are alone when competing, against someone else or within a whole team. The athletes with an external focus style prefer to focus on their sport for specific periods of time and relax outside of those moments so they reduce their opportunities for negative or unhelpful thinking to take hold which will increase their nerves.
