What is Pressure Training?
A brief introduction to pressure training interventions
As Euro2024 approaches the knockout stages and the threat of penalty shoot-outs looms on the horizon, the conversation will inevitably turn to how teams can best prepare for this eventuality. Gone are the days of the “It’s a lottery” cliché and the belief that “anything can happen on the day”. In the era of analysis, statistics and preparation, teams are more ready than ever to handle the technicalities of the penalty shoot-outs. Goalkeepers will have watched video of the last 100 penalty kicks taken by the likely takers, and kickers will be briefed about how many times the goalkeeper has dived low to his right-hand side when facing left-footed penalty takers. They will have taken countless penalty kicks in their lifetime and will likely have set routines they follow every time. We’ve also seen increased focus on the run-up, the time between penalties and when to place the ball in recent years with the work of Geir Jordet helping to share practice.
^^Geir Jordet’s recent appearance on Sky Sports News discussing the psychology of penalty shoot-outs. ^^
But how can they prepare for doing all this when the pressure is at its highest, when the success of the kick can determine whether your team advances to the next round, or is packing their bags for the flight home?
Pressure, as defined in the literature is the presence of factors that increase the importance of performance on a particular occasion. I.e. – there is a lot on the line. That can be both the fantastic rewards (achieving dreams, winning trophies), or the devastating consequences (elimination from the competition, de-selection) that go hand-in-hand with competing in sport. This pressure can influence how athletes perform with catastrophic negative effects observed when an athlete “chokes” due to anxiety caused by this pressure. So how can an athlete or team get ready to deal with these situations and be in a position to keep performing despite some of the negative effects of pressure?
One way athletes can prepare to perform under these circumstances can be done through what is termed “Pressure training”, the systematic manipulation of pressure variables to simulate competition in training. This means trying to create opportunities for athletes to feel pressure in training so that they are familiar with the associated feelings, thoughts, behaviours and they can develop or refine coping mechanisms. Research suggests that this method is pretty useful for improving performance under pressure. Thus far, two systematic reviews and one meta-analysis have reported findings where pressure training, stress-training, anxiety training, or simulation training-type interventions have produced significant positive effects on performance under pressure.
“But how do you make pressure in training?”
So far, two main studies have explored what elite coaches do to create pressure in training circumstances and we’ll provide a brief overview of one of these studies, that of Stoker et al., (2016). At this point we should note that this is not an exhaustive account of all pressure training methodologies available but certainly provides a useful framework.
Broadly speaking, coaches in this study created pressure in one of two ways: Consequences and Demands. Consequences involved introducing consequences for failure to reach, or achievement of, a pre-set standard in training performance. Consequences could be further broken down into forfeits (e.g completing an ice-bath for failing to score your penalty), rewards (e.g. winning a new set of gloves for saving 3/5 penalties) or judgement (e.g. pinning up a leaderboard of penalty success rates in the changing room).
Demand pressure manipulations involved training the demands of the training situation to create pressure. This could be achieved through task (e.g – reducing the time available), environment (e.g – increasing the noise or temperature of the training environment) or performer (e.g. manipulating the demands on the performer, having them perform difficult task when pre-fatigued by sprints). Later work by Stoker et al., (2017;2019) suggests that consequences are more effective at increasing pressure and that demands are best paired with consequences - but further study is required here to better understand how we can best pull the levers on pressure.
However, these are not necessarily new ideas. Coaches have often added consequences for failing to meet performance standards or tweaked the demands of a training session to encourage particular responses from the performer. Nevertheless, what separates pressure training is that it involves the systematic manipulation of variables to simulate the psychological demands the performer will face in competition. It is about coping with pressure whilst performing. The following extract from Gropel and Mesagno (2019) systematic review of choking interventions describes a scene from the documentary “Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen” which follows the German national team throughout the 2006 World Cup. It provides a good example of what a pressure training session may look like.
“Tim Borowski, a German national soccer player, is ready to take a penalty kick. If he fails to score, he would have to serve tonight’s dinner to his teammates. Just before he shoots, however, something strange happens: Tim turns to his coach and teammates and shouts where he will kick the ball. To be sure, he also tells the goalkeeper. Another teammate is behind the goal jumping and waving his hands to distract Tim’s attention. As Tim strikes the ball, the goalkeeper moves immediately to the corner where Tim shouted and where the ball is kicked, but Tim still scores. This is an example of another training day for the German soccer team. By practising these types of situations, the sport psychologist working with the team aims to adapt players to the performance pressure in case the match ends in a penalty shoot-out. Only days later, Germany beat Argentina 4–2 in a penalty shoot-out to reach the semi-final at the 2006 FIFA Men’s World Cup. All German shooters, including Borowski, scored”
^^You can watch the clip above (Ability to understand German is recommended)^^
We can see the demands being manipulated in this situation whereby not only is the player being distracted but they must also tell the goalkeeper where they are planning on shooting. Add into the mix that failure to score means having to put on the apron and make dinner for his teammates (consequences), and this training situation becomes a much more serious endeavour compared to endlessly taking penalty kicks against a goalkeeper.
“In what situations would you use pressure training?”
Pressure training may be viewed as a tool and a tool can be used to serve a variety of different functions. Penalty kicks are of interest at the moment due to the EURO2024 moving into the knockout stages but pressure training can be, and has been, used for more than just training penalty kicks. One of the biggest advantages of PT is offering athletes an opportunity to practice coping skills in a relevant sport-simulating situation. Often athletes may work on coping skills away from the field and only attempt to deploy them when ‘under the pump’ in a high stakes match day situation. Looking at the literature conducted so far, PT has been used for preparing athletes to avoid choking on closed skills (eg. dart-throwing/free-throws in basketball) under high pressure but also as a general pressure and stress acclimitization method. Research has also suggested pressure training can be used to help athletes and teams in a number of other ways too:
1) Developing awareness about how they respond to pressure
2) Changing their relationship with pressure
3) Ramp up focus during and quality of training sessions
4) Improving confidence in ability to handle pressure situations
5) Promote social processes like team cohesion or leadership
“But you can’t properly recreate the pressure of these competitive situations in a training environment?”
Whilst that is true and we can’t ever truly re-create the pressure of competition, findings suggest that pressure training is still valuable. Two studies, one with dart-throwing and a partial-replication study using golf-putting, have shared findings indicating that training under mild pressure is better preparation for high pressure situations than no pressure training. In both studies, those who completed mild pressure training maintained their performance level when tested later under high pressure. Control group participants who didn’t pressure train saw a significant decrease in their performances when tested under high pressure.
Therefore, despite the inability to completely replicate the pressure experienced taking a penalty in an international tournament, and that future studies are still required to fully unpick the dose-response relationship of pressure training - it does seems that turning up the pressure dials at your disposal, is one of the best ways to prepare for high stakes situations. So the next time you’re designing a session for your athletes or yourself, consider how you can turn up under pressure and prepare for the big occasion.