17-year-old Brody Hennessy is hoping to reach the dizzying heights of his chosen sport. Picture: Darren England
Source: The Daily Telegraph
KIDS as young as eight are turning to sports psychologists to get the edge on their rivals in the relentless pursuit of sporting success.
Industry experts believe today's aspiring champions have to cope with heavier training regimes than athletes of yesteryear and have the added pressures of rankings, selections, media attention and sponsorships - all the while balancing school.
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Parents are also spending thousands of dollars on the same sports psychologists used by their children's professional heroes.
While every sport warrants a different technique, experts teach kids how to deal with anxiety, how to settle pre-game nerves, build mental toughness and how to undertake pre-game rituals. They also learn relaxation techniques and how to cope when things don't go their way.
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Athletes and coaches also learn how to communicate so coaches and players can identify what's going wrong and how to fix the problem. The unprecedented pre-teen push is working, according to coaches.
Sports psychologist Paul Penna, who works with Swimming Australia and the Wests Tigers NRL club, said junior athletes make up 40 per cent of his focus performance psychology practice at the Sydney Sports Medicine Centre.
"I think there's a couple of reasons for it," he said.
"They are certainly realising that to get through to that elite level is harder than ever before. And for parents, it's a way to give your kids the best chance possible."
It is common for parents to pay up to $1400 for four to six sessions leading up to a big competition or team selection.
In gymnastics, where potential champions are identified as young as three or four, Gymnastics Australia's high performance manager Adam Sachs said psychologists helped pre-teen athletes learn "potentially scary skills".
"A lot of the work the psyche has is overcoming the boundaries the athletes set themselves," he said.
Queensland University lecturer Tracey Veivers said children as young as five or six were starting to specialise in one sport, with some kids as young as 12-13 training more than 20 hours a week.
Ms Veivers said sport psychologists tried to avoid burn-out and stop the stress and anxiety "leading to mental illness" such as eating disorders.
"There's a lot of pressure on girls generally and you can see where they've tried to be healthy but have gone a little too far," she said.