Pressure Inurement Training: Enhance Your Team's Resilience

This blog is aimed at coaches and senior leaders of sports teams who want to enhance the resilience of their group. It will take you through the process of implementing pressure inurement training and how to develop a facilitative training environment for your athletes. I hope you enjoy the read!

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Performing well under high pressure is crucial for sporting success and is a significant characteristic of a resilient sports team. It is inevitable for athletes to experience stressors during competition, but it is unrealistic to suggest that teams can eliminate these demands completely. For example, the pressure of an Ashes series or a World Cup final in any sport will bring inevitable stressors that a team cannot simply eradicate. Rather than focussing on ways to reduce the stressors, it would be more valuable to manipulate the training environment to allow athletes to train for the unavoidable psychological pressure. Therefore, with this blog, I aim to explain how to effectively implement pressure inurement training (PIT) [1] , helping coaches and senior leaders cultivate a much more resilient team capable of performing at their best when it really matters.

What is Resilience?

Recently, resilience has become somewhat of a buzzword, yet its meaning has been slightly misunderstood [3]. It is crucial to understand that resilience is not a fixed personality characteristic that somebody has, it is more of a dynamic process that can be developed. Further to this, some athletes may find it "normal" to suppress their emotions in order to enhance performance [7] , but this really is not what resilience resembles. Team resilience is defined as "a group's collective processes and behaviours in their ability to withstand or adapt to environmental demands", and can refer to the team's ability to both maintain functioning under high pressure or bounce-back from a disruption or failure [2]. For example, England's loss to France in the World Cup quarter-final will act as a disruption to their functioning, but their bounce-back ability will determine how resilient they are. Similarly, as Michael Jordan quoted below, being able to recover and bounce-back from his failure to succeed epitomises his resilience.

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"I've failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed" - Michael Jordan

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So, What is Pressure Inurement Training (PIT) ?

PIT involves manipulating the environment to induce a stress-related response whilst also maintaining high performance under this induced pressure [1]. It has been shown to be effective in increasing team resilience in a number of sports, including basketball [4], rugby [5] and cricket [6], but the concept of pressure training can be applied across any sporting context. In fact, PIT originated at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games when Team GB asked a group of Performance Psychologists to help prepare the athletes perform under high pressure [1]. Evidently, this was a success, helping Great Britain finish 2nd in the overall medal table. Essentially, PIT lets coaches gradually increase the pressure and feelings of challenge for their athletes in the training environment. It’s not about simply ramping up the pressure though. If the increased pressure becomes debilitative for both wellbeing and performance of their athletes, then coaches must modify their approach to balance the challenge with adequate levels of support.

Jonny Wilkinson training at Twickenham with the England Rugby Team in 2009.

Image by Patrick Khachfe, used under Creative Commons Licence

What is a high challenge, high support environment?

A high challenge and high support environment forms what is known as a facilitative environment. A facilitative environment is crucial for sustaining success and building resilience in a sports team. Athletes must perceive themselves to be immersed in a psychologically safe environment[1], building trusting relationships with the leaders, whilst being encouraged to seek out challenges and take sensible risks. Success and failure should be a collective team responsibility and everyone supports each other. Essentially, training needs to be pressurised, but in a controlled manner whereby challenge is applied but the support is maintained.

The Challenge-Support Matrix, as proposed by Fletcher and Sarkar (2016).

Having high challenge and high support (top right corner) creates a facilitative environment. [1]

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Now, before we get into some techniques of implementing PIT, it must be noted that skill acquisition is vital before high levels of challenge are administered in training. If the team cannot perform well under low pressure, it is unlikely they will be able to perform under high pressure. Therefore, implementing PIT within youth sessions may not be effective and could have harmful effects on both wellbeing and performance. If the sessions are too challenging too early, confidence and self-esteem may decrease rapidly. I note that this may be different for elite youth teams who already have exceptional skill levels. I would suggest consulting a psychology professional if you are unsure whether PIT will be safe to implement within your group.

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How can challenge be increased?

Process 1 - Increase the Demands

There are three main ways to increase the demands of training. The first is ensuring there is variation in the type of demand that the training brings. Essentially, coaches should introduce various competition-related demands into the training session. For example, a coach could manipulate the rules in the session to make the activity more challenging, such as introducing time constraints or focussing on specific, more difficult techniques [8]. Jonty Rhodes, a former South African cricketer, highlighted this by suggesting that training was often more demanding than actual match day.

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"I got more bruises, grass-burns and cuts in practice than in match play" - Jonty Rhodes

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The second way to increase the demands is to manipulate the properties of the stressors, by introducing novel ways of creating a sense of uncertainty that competition brings. For example, changing the set of rules such that the defenders cannot keep the ball [9] and are under constant pressure. Or, if possible, altering the surrounding temperature or playing surface could be beneficial, so that the athletes are able develop techniques of maintaining high performance in situations that are unusual to them.

Finally, coaches should increase the frequency and intensity of the training demands. Athletes should regularly be placed under physical and mental pressure to enhance the challenge environment. For example, coaches could make their team train their technical ability whilst pre-fatigued [9], or simulate an audience into training to increase the intensity of the psychological arousal. To effectively increase the demands, coaches should also look to increase the frequency of the stressors to ensure the environment gradually becomes more and more challenging.

Process 2 - Increase the Significance of the Demands

Increasing the significance of the stressors is another crucial way of enhancing challenge. The significance relates to the athletes appraisals of the stressors, so they need to have relevance to the specific sport and must be in line with the outcome goals. If athletes perceive the stressors to be irrelevant to their performance, no stress response will be evoked [10] and the effectiveness of the implemented stressors will reduce. An example could be the coach increasing the team's perceptions that they are being externally judged, possibly by other coaches or an audience, so that the players will perceive greater significance of the session and therefore more feel pressure [11].

Secondly, in order increase the significance of the demands, adding consequences into the training sessions is vital, which can be in the form of reward or punishment. For example, a coach could offer prizes to the best performers, or potentially place selection on the line as a punishment to ramp up the training pressure. However, when adding consequences it is vital that the coaches are not overly aggressive [12] and that the athletes do not feel ridiculed. As mentioned before, for PIT to be effective, the coaches must balance challenge and support, and being overly harsh may be harmful to the athletes' wellbeing and performance.

What if there is too much challenge?

There is a fine line between providing adequate challenge and going too far into an unrelenting environment whereby athletes are not thriving. If a coach starts to notice negative outcomes, such as burnout, they should increase their support by the use of motivational feedback. In this situation, it would be important for the coach to speak with their athletes, providing comfort and highlighting their successful progress so far, attempting to reverse the debilitative outcomes that the added demands may have caused. An unrelenting environment would be characterised by unhealthy competition, blame cultures and lack of care for athlete wellbeing, so it is vital for coaches to monitor whether they are excessively imposing the pressure [13].

A coach providing feedback to the group during a training session

Image by Marco Verch, used under Creative Commons License

How can support be increased?

Process 1 - Increase learning opportunities

As mentioned previously, applying more challenging stressors in training is crucial for athletes to rehearse their skills under pressure, but they must also be equipped with adequate skills to deal with the increased demands. These learning opportunities aim to build the personal qualities of the athletes, mainly being through psychological skills training. Athletes should be learning psychological skills as it has been shown to improve not only sport performance [14], but also athlete wellbeing [15]. For example, teaching athletes self-talk and emotion-regulation strategies enables athletes to develop adaptive coping strategies to deal with high pressure situations.

Secondly, athletes need to keep acquiring the physical skills required for the competition. Subsequently, by successfully performing their skills in high pressure training environments, using their psychological skills to manage their stress, a perception of increased mastery will result, bolstering their self-confidence [17] and therefore perceiving the competition stress as more manageable.

Process 2 - Increase practice opportunities

Of course, obtaining the psychological and physical skills required to deal with the challenging environment is crucial, but coaches must also continue to help athletes develop these skills. To increase support, opportunities to practice their skills must increase, whether this be their physical, technical, tactical or psychological skills. Athletes must perceive that they are being given adequate opportunities to grow and develop their skills. Coaches should not solely focus on the technical aspect of the sport, they should widen their range by implementing fitness drills and tactical sessions too.

What if there is too much support?

However, if the coaches begin to provide too much support, the environment could become too comfortable for the athletes to thrive in. A comfortable environment is where the challenge is low but the support is high, and the team is functioning inside their comfort zone. If this is the case, coaches should modify their approach by increasing developmental feedback. This would intend to spur the players on to achieve more and push themselves further. An example of developmental feedback would be to acknowledge the team's progress whilst emphasising that they need to improve to reach higher levels. It may be that the training sessions have become too easy for the team, so it is the coaches responsibility to increase the difficulty and push the players further.

Ric Charlesworth, a successful Australian coach, summed it up very well:

“The interesting thing about coaching is that you have to trouble the comfortable, and comfort the troubled.” - Ric Charlesworth

This highlights what a facilitative environment entails, assessing the current position of the team and administering challenge when needed, whilst offering support when the athletes appear to be the most troubled. To effectively implement a PIT programme, constant collaboration between players, coaches and staff (including sport psychologists) must be upheld, so that the environment can be continually monitored allowing the team to gain the optimal outcomes [16].

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Summary Points

• Team resilience refers to the group's ability to withstand or adapt to environmental demands whilst maintaining functioning under high pressure

• Resilience is adaptive and can be developed, so coaches should look for ways to develop this quality in their sports teams

• Pressure Inurement Training is a method of training under high pressure to prepare teams for competition with high stakes.

• Pressure Inurement Training aims to balance a high challenge, high support environment to enable teams to thrive under pressure,

• Coaches should look to gradually increasing the challenge, but the team must have the capabilities to actually execute the skills under low pressure. Making the sessions too challenging for the group could lead to debilitative outcomes and potentially form an unrelenting environment

• Coaches must continually monitor the psychological and performance outcomes of the group, modifying their approach by using different feedback mechanisms

• Motivational feedback should be used to support athletes if they begin to show debilitative outcomes with signs of too much challenge

• Developmental feedback should be used if the athletes appear to be too comfortable and when challenge needs to be increased.

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The model of Pressure Inurement Training for building resilience, as proposed by Dr David Fletcher and Dr Mustafa Sarkar in 2016 [1]

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References

1. Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2016). Mental fortitude training: An evidence-based approach to developing psychological resilience for sustained success. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 7(3), 135-157.

2. Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2013). Psychological resilience: A review and critique of definitions, concepts and theory. European Psychologist, 18, 12-23.

3. Sarkar, M., & Page, A. E. (2020). Developing individual and team resilience in elite sport: Research to practice. Journal of Sport Psychology in action, 1-14.

4. Kegelaers, J., Wylleman, P., Bunigh, A., & Oudejans, R. R. (2021). A mixed methods evaluation of a pressure training intervention to develop resilience in female basketball players. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 33(2), 151-172.

5. Morgan, P. B., Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2019). Developing team resilience: A season-long study of psychosocial enablers and strategies in a high-level sports team. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 45, 101543.

6. Brown, C. J., Butt, J., & Sarkar, M. (2020). Overcoming performance slumps: Psychological resilience in expert cricket batsmen. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 32(3), 277-296.

7. Tamminen, K. A., & Bennett, E. V. (2017). No emotion is an island: An overview of theoretical perspectives and narrative research on emotions in sport and physical activity. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 9(2), 183-199.

8. Thelwell, R. C., Weston, N. J., & Greenlees, I. A. (2007). Batting on a sticky wicket: Identifying sources of stress and associated coping strategies for professional cricket batsmen. Psychology of sport and exercise, 8(2), 219-232.

9. Stoker, M., Lindsay, P., Butt, J., Bawden, M., & Maynard, I. (2016). Elite coaches’ experiences of creating pressure training environments for performance enhancement. International Journal of Sport Pyschology, 47(3), 262-281.

10. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer publishing company.

11. Kent, S., Devonport, T. J., Lane, A. M., & Nicholls, W. (2021). Implementing a pressure training program to improve decision-making and execution of skill among premier league academy soccer players. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 1-22.

12. Sagar, S. S., & Jowett, S. (2012). Communicative acts in coach–athlete interactions: When losing competitions and when making mistakes in training. Western Journal of Communication, 76(2), 148-174.

13. Kegelaers, J., & Oudejans, R. R. (2022). Pressure makes diamonds? A narrative review on the application of pressure training in high-performance sports. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1-19.

14. Brown, D. J., & Fletcher, D. (2017). Effects of psychological and psychosocial interventions on sport performance: A meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 47(1), 77-99.

15. Edwards, D. J., & Steyn, B. J. (2008). Sport psychological skills training and psychological well-being. South African Journal for Research in Sport, Physical Education and Recreation, 30(1), 15-28.

16. Fletcher, D., & Arnold, R. (2021). Stress and pressure training. In Stress, well-being, and performance in sport (pp. 261-296). Routledge.

17. Vealey, R. S., Garner-Holman, M., Hayashi, S. W., & Giacobbi, P. (1998). Sources of sport-confidence: Conceptualization and instrument development. Journal of Sport and Exercise psychology, 20(1), 54-80.