Position Specific Development of Mental Skills in Women’s Volleyball

“Sport is 90 percent mental and the rest is psychological.”

German Olympic discus champion Robert Harting is still often quoted with this saying to emphasize the importance of sports psychology in elite sports. Everyone is also familiar with the statements made by sports journalists and experts who, in the wake of close medal or title decisions, simply use the phrase “it's all in the mind.” In doing so, they indirectly express their view that it is often not superior technical or athletic abilities that determine victory or defeat, but rather the current mental state of the athletes.

If you believe these statements, as a coach you inevitably have to ask yourself several questions: What is necessary for my athletes to improve mentally? Can I contribute something myself, or do my athletes need to see external experts?

As expected, there are no easy answers to these complex questions. Not only in volleyball, but also in other sports, targeted sports psychology training with the support of experts has so far focused primarily on the area of top-level sport and is largely devoted to learning stress and emotion regulation techniques.

As a coach, is there really nothing else I can do myself? This question has come to mind repeatedly in my 15-year professional career as a volleyball coach. Like me, many of my colleagues who work with a variety of different players on a daily basis will surely feel the same way. These players have only one thing in common: each of them has athletic as well as mental strengths and weaknesses!

In two seminar papers (2023 and 2024), the presenter addressed this knowledge gap and was able to create an evidence-based theoretical foundation in this field of research for the first time by deriving the position-specific “Volleyball-Specific Mental Competence Requirements Profile”. However, with the current theoretical knowledge about the different position-specific relevance of various mental skills, only the “know” (what is important) is taken into account for the time being, but not the “how” (how it is implemented).

The presenter's master thesis (2024) is dedicated to expanding the existing knowledge (know) and the associated transfer of the generated knowledge into practice (how). The exercise catalogue can represent an important extension of existing sports psychology training practice in volleyball.

This presentation deals with the two-year process of writing the master's thesis and demonstrates its practical benefits.

Objectives:

1. Participants will get a basic idea of the development of the ""Volleyball-Specific Mental Competence Requirements Profile""

2. Participants will see examples of exercise catalogue

3. Participants will be encouraged to consider practical applications for themselves