Pre-Performance Routines Improve Consistent Focus

Everyone who's heard of the sport of water polo knows its reputation.
 
Water polo is one of the most physically and mentally demanding sports. If you've played the game, you know how much information competes for your attention. The game is very dynamic with multiple variables and situations happening at once as the flow of play happens. Your attention operates at internal and external levels, which increases the potential for distractions. Reflecting and previewing potential shifts in attention required to execute tasks at hand is an important part of mental training.
 
Is it easier to notice when your focus is on—or off?
This is an interesting discussion and starting point for players looking to track progress in their performance. Focus is always a hot topic for coaches' game plans and player development. Few athletes take part in systematic practices targeted to their understanding of focus, and there can be many reasons for that. Consider sharing this discussion with your coaches, teammates, or water polo friends. Competing with the right focus is as important as understanding when your focus is on as well as when you need to refocus when we become stuck on the distractions.
 
When do you typically notice it?
Usually athletes will take a retroactive approach to noticing they weren't focused correctly. Unfortunately, hoping they were focused in the right way during the right moments equate to being too late to adjust for consistent, high-level play. It isn't too late to learn from those games, but it's too late to go back in time and fix. If you're finding a pattern in the way, you hope a miracle happens—and wishing you'd been focused for your games and later discovering you aren't, then perhaps it's time to make an adjustment and take a more intentional approach.
 
How do you know you are preparing or competing with the right focus?
Sometimes you simply can just identify with a feeling of being focused in the right way. It's helpful to connect a word to that feeling you find at your best. Usually that feeling is practiced during training through specific triggers that switch on your intensity and ability to narrow your attention for the task at hand. Triggers that other athletes have used occur while walking through the pool entrance, jumping into the water, putting on and tying the cap, or the whistle of the game/drill. The routine you take needs to be specific and customizable to the intensity (or arousal level) and specific demands of your position's attentional cues (a.k.a. technical and tactical checklist) needed moment to moment in the game. Your cues often are trained over time.
 
What are the steps you can take and repeat as a routine to prepare for the right focus?
First, you should reflect and learn from your best past performance. Think about the level of intense energy mentally and physically you experienced before you played. You can create a number between 1-10 (1=low and 10=high) that becomes your target (a.k.a. zone of optimal functioning) until the competition's start time. Take some time to imagine the way you felt during your best past performance and replay some of the key moments in the competition using as much sensory information as possible. These are the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch from that competition, before and during. Also consider the quality and direction of your thought stream. Were you thinking about how you were going to execute in terms of process or outcome?
 
Next, bring in other steps such as music and breathing techniques to help you reach that number. Some days you need to listen to calmer music or focus on relaxing breathing to bring yourself down to your number. Other days you need to listen to music with faster BPM (beats per minute) or quicker, more intense breathing to activate and increase toward your number. It starts with an awareness of where you are mentally and physically. You also need to decide the timing of the steps in your routine relative to the start of the game or competition. The timing could range from as early as the week or night before up to one hour before game time. Some athletes prefer to deflect thoughts of the game in order to manage pre-game nerves whereas others want to play through the game situations in their mind's eye with some imagery.
 
Lastly, since water polo is a team sport, your routine cannot be all about yourself and isolating you from your teammates. During pre-game stretching or at some point when you're in warm-up swimming, you must engage with your teammates to start to share energy and connect. It's important to create a motivational climate or environment in the arena where you're competing, so connect with teammates on the pool deck or in the water. This step also helps you listen with your eyes and ears so that you can collaborate and compete on the same page with better awareness.