Athletes’ Use of Mental Skills During Sport Injury Rehabilitation

Arvinen-Barrow, M., Clement, D., Hamson-Utley, J. J., Zakrajsek, R. A., Sae-Mi, L., Kamphoff, C., & Martin, S. B. (2015). Athletes’ Use of Mental Skills During Sport Injury Rehabilitation. Journal Of Sport Rehabilitation, 24(2), 189-197.

by Rachel Webb

The article, Athletes Use of Mental Skills During Injury Rehabilitation has a very significant impact because it focused not on coming up with something new in the sport psychology world, but addressing the field of sports and athletes to find what has been working for them. Specifically it looks at different sports and how these athletes are using mental skills throughout injury rehabilitation (Arvinen-Barrow, Clement, Hamson-Utley, Zakrajsek, Sae-Mi, Kamphoff, & Martin, 2015). The authors focused on how many athletes across cultures of the United States, UK, and Finland populations use mental skills during injury rehabilitation, who taught them these skills, which ones they specifically used, and ultimately if they felt that it increased their recovery speed. It was unfortunate to find that only 27.6% of the 1,283 athletes actually used these skills (specifically imagery, goal setting, and self-talk) and of those athletes the majority were US athletes (Arvinen-barrow, et al 2015). It was also acknowledged that sport psychology consultants that contributed to the teaching of mental skills were less than 3%, allowing this study to show we not only need more access to sport psychologist across cultures. Through this study it is support that not only do we need more consultants in the field given that mental skills are underutilized by injured athletes. Athletic trainers should also be trained more proficiently on the effectiveness of mental skills associated with rehabilitation, since currently these are the individuals with the most access to athletes during this crucial period.

On May 30, 2016