ABSTRACT
This chapter provides coaches with following information on choking under pressure in sport, so they can help their athletes to prevent this from occurring in pressurised situations: a definition of choking under pressure in sport, physical and psychological feelings associated with choking, theoretical explanations of why athletes choke and how to prevent choking under pressure. Choking is when an athlete performs worse than would be expected in an important competition. It may be more prevalent among individual sport athletes than team sport athletes. Beilock and Gray argued that choking normally occurs across short periods of time, from a soccer player hitting a very poor penalty to a hockey player performing poorly for an 80-minute match. Coaches can help athletes not to choke by providing choking prevention training, which may include developing a pre-performance routine, pressure acclimatisation training, movement acclimatisation training, encouraging an athlete to be more compassionate towards themself, reframing pressure, and engaging in secondary task strategies.
