nate33 wrote:80sballboy wrote:?s=20
This is still really strange. They way they are progressing him in an extremely slow manner really looks like it's a recovery from physical injury, not a mental health issue.
Actually treating performance anxiety is very similar to treatment of physical injury, though for different reasons. You want normal basketball activities to become a familiar routine. As the athlete becomes re-acclimated you can increase the weight load on their expectations. Even in practice, you start with coaches etc in an empty gym, then slowly ramp them up to more exposure to team activities. Eventually you can surround them with crowds in no-pressure no-expectations situations, etc. so they get used to that as well, even working out in front of crowds before a game.
Think of it like treating a mental injury and as a fan you may be less impatient. That or treating the wild untamed part of their brain as if it were a powerful racehorse that gets spooked by crowds. Exposure lessens the fear. I don't know that this is what Rui is dealing with but if you look up sports related performance anxiety you can find a few trainers who specialize in this sort of thing, and what they say to do as therapy pretty closely resembles Rui's regimen so far.
