A Mental Training Plan for an Individual Who is in Need of an Improvement in an Exercise Program - Case Study Example

A Mental Training Plan for an Individual Who is in Need of an Improvement in an Exercise Program Mary was 28-year-old female, a housewife, and had kids, the oldest was 7 and the youngest was 2 years old. She was struggling to lose the extra weight gained during her pregnancies. Even though she had tried several types of diets as liquid diet, fruits diets and others, she used to lose weight but soon gained it after a short time. Exercising was in her schedule, but she was not consistent and quitted after the first month. During her efforts to lose weight, her average weight was 60 kg but now she measured 80 kg. She mentioned the challenges of being on a strict diet without her husband support. Mary showed signs of low self esteem and used negative terms as “she will never look skinny again” and “she is not able to exercise because she has no time” also she felt mentally exhausted and was in bad mood. For these reasons she came for a consultation to help her lose weight and adhere to an exercise program. I listened to her with interest and expressed understanding over the challenges she went through with the kids and the daily life demands. I explained to her how these demands could affect mental health and psychological well being, leading to anxiety, depression and mood disorders. Session1 Before starting our first session, I clarified some important points. I emphasized the importance of bringing a daily journal with her at each visit; this will be used for follow up and homework that will facilitate her progression and feedback. Moreover, in collaboration we agreed to meet twice a week (Monday and Thursday), for five sessions, at 10:00am for one-hour, at my home office. The goal was to teach Mary some psychological skills that will help her in her exercise program. In addition, a prior 48 hour cancelation notice was a necessity and failure to comply would attract charges. Since Mary was in the preparation stage and according to the transtherotical model, it was important for her to realize the benefits of exercise to help her move to the action stage then maintenance by using motivational methods. I explained to her that physical activity enhances feelings of well being in particular by reducing fatigue, anger, depression and anxiety yet increasing vigor. Also it is the most effective technique for changing a bad mood (Welnberg and Gould 402). Exercises helps individuals to change their self-concept, self esteem and hardiness to enable them withstand or cope with stressful situations. Exercises also promote control, a sense of commitment, improve cognitive functioning and enhance quality of life (Welnberg and Gould 409). So exercise can help protect against stress related illness. To emphasize and bring to the attention of Mary concerning the importance of mental skills, I illustrated to her about the traffic light analogy to enable her think about her performance in three ways: green light, yellow light and red light situations. In green light athlete performing well as driving a car without awareness, in yellow light performance situations where struggling and needs to beware of destructive thoughts and the way they can interfere with performance. In these situations she needs to use refocusing strategies to get back on track. Finally, in red light situation, she is in real trouble and performance very poorly. By knowing this Mary can learn how to self monitor her mental state (Weinberg and Gould 255). To give an answer to Mary’s question about which type of exercises produce better mood enhancement, I explained that both aerobic and anaerobic exercise can be effective. The most important thing is to ensure generation of rhythmic abdominal breathing easily achieve through walking, running and swimming. These exercises also produce rhythmic and repetitive movement that encourages introspective or creative thinking, or both during exercise. However, they should be at least 20 minutes in duration and for moderate intensity and that it should be done regularly (2 time/week), and that it needs to be enjoyable (Welnberg and Gould 403). At the end of the session, I gave her homework seeking five reasons for exercise and five important day to day priorities. Session 2: In the beginning of this session, I discussed with Mary about her journal. She had indicated in her journal the reasons to exercise were to lose weight and become fit so she would not be judged as overweight. Another reason was because her husband wants her to exercise. With regard to her priority, exercise was fifth, which indicates it is the least important. I showed my appreciation for her input and how I thought that this information is reliable to what we are going to do next. After figuring out Mary’s ambivalence regarding exercise, we decided to work on changing her extrinsic motivation (exercise because other people want her to) and find ways to make it more intrinsic (exercise because it is healthy and beneficial) for utmost benefits. We agreed to plan an individualized exercise program focusing on increasing frequency, intensity and duration respectively. In that respect, I explained to her about the outcome goals that focus on a competitive result of an event such as losing weight more than a friend. The performance goals, which focus on achieving an objective comparing to one’s own previous performance, and not the performance of others (Weinberg and Gould 344). I also explained to her the importance of both short and long term goals (Weinberg and Gould 350). The goals set for exercise should receive just as much attention as do other important goals in life, so it should be placed as high priority (Weinberg and Gould 439). I told Mary about SMARTS to help her remember principles of effective goals. I informed her that S stand for the specific goal defining what should be done. M stand for measurability of the goals while A for action that needs to be taken in attaining the goals. R represented realistic and T, timely both demanding setting up of realistic goals to be achieved within the particular set time. Finally, S stands for self-determination and focus in attaining the goals. In this session I taught Mary more mental skills, starting with an example of well-known sportsman who uses mental skills such as Tiger Woods. During the training process, I asked Mary to make records of her depressions and relaxations together with the techniques she used to make herself relaxed and the effectiveness of the techniques (Welnberg and Gould 255). This was destined to give her a sense of internal locus of control by using self-regulation techniques (Welnberg and Gould 257). I emphasized the importance of using positive self-statements and replacing negative self talk with more positive self talk. In that line, I commissioned Mary to decide upon what long and short outcomes goals she would like to achieve using the goal-setting stair case approach. Session 3 In the beginning of this session, I red Mary’s Journal to find out what was her long and short term goals. Her short term goals were to attend gym on a daily basis and perform exercise for 20 minutes at least 3 times a day and lose 5 kg per week. Her long-term goal on the other hand was to improve her health and fitness. After reading, I gave Mary my feedback on her homework and we decided to set up more specific and making them more realistic as well as to integrate a strategy to record goals (Weinberg and Gould 349). In collaboration, we decided that she would start by going to the gym preferably with a partner or a personal trainer as she is able to afford it, for maximum benefit. She would start exercising for 20 minutes, three times a week in the morning. She would later increase her frequency, duration and intensity with time. For example, every 2 weeks increase the minutes of workout from 20-30 eventually reaching a full one hour of exercise. To be realistic, we agreed upon a common goal of losing 2 kg/week to achieve a goal target of weight loss of 20 kg in 4 months. To achieve the set goals, I advised Mary to record the goals by writing them down on a card and posting the card on the bedroom’s mirror where it could easily be seen. This would let her husband know what her goals are and support her. I understood Mary’s concerns about making this decision and adhering to an exercise program, therefore I suggested a technique known as a decision balance sheet. This will help her be more aware of potential benefits and costs of an exercise program. In addition, we spoke about a method used to train mental skills through using the preparatory, competitive and peak phases by using imagery exercises on daily basis and going through with it until she imagines herself at the peak of her performance. After making sure Mary had no further questions or suggestions, Mary went home with homework. She had to write down a decision balance sheet. Session 4: The session commenced by giving Mary feedback about her homework. I gave her positive comments as she was specific and encouraged her work. This work had made her aware of the potential benefits and costs of an exercise program, and help her make the decision to attend and commit to the program. In addition, I emphasized the importance of self regulation by teaching her the acronym PAR to remind her about the three critical self regulation components: P is for plan, A standing for apply and R for react (Weinberg and Gould 258). This plan would help her improve her emotional control and positive self talk as well as performance. I also taught Mary about imagery and its usefulness (Weinberg and Gould 305). First, I asked her to practice this technique by starting in a quite setting with few distractions and once proficient at imagery, she could practice it in many different settings such as in an exercise class and during a cool down period. I proceeded to explaining how she should use imagery to see herself achieving her goals especially through appearance and technique imagery. We then implemented a controllability exercise for practice. I asked Mary to imagine working on a specific skill that has given her trouble in the past. Then, to take careful notice of what she was doing wrong and imagine herself performing that skill perfectly while seeing and feeling her movements. For example, doing 15 pushups without interruption and with ease and in control (Weinberg and Gould 308). I taught Mary some important technique to implement when she feels in doubt about her exercise ability; this included the relaxation training (for both mental or physical), positive thinking (which is tied to a multimodal relaxation procedure such as cognitive-affective stress management) and visualization (Weinberg and Gould 283) Session 5: Mary told me that she felt motivated more than ever to start an exercise program and to commit to it, everything is clear in her head and her goals are waiting for her to accomplish. I encouraged her enthusiasm and complimented her reaction. After compiling feedback from the questionnaire, I determined which areas to incorporate into Mary’s daily training regimen. In collaboration we set out imagery program that fit well into Mary’s daily routine. I gave her some tips and guidelines for implementing imagery, emphasizing the need of practicing imagery including exercises in vividness and controllability at many settings (Weinberg and Gould 309). Starting by relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and the use of all her senses to feel the movements as if they were actually occurring, I advised her that both the execution and outcome of the skill should be images. I also reminded her that imaging should occur in real time with realistic expectations. Furthermore, I told her about famous athletes who use imagery and how effective it had been for them. Moreover, I demonstrated to Mary the importance of self confidence and positive thinking (Weinberg and Gould 366). I informed her that positive self-talk should be instructional and motivational rather than judgmental. In fact, positive self-talk can keep motivation and energy high as well as self confidence, therefore, Mary decided to practice positive self-talk and discard negative thoughts Weinberg and Gould (336-337). I emphasized the importance of dissociation when exercising, by focusing on the environment instead of the muscle feel or how she is breathing, improves exercise adherence rates because it would distraction reduces a person’s boredom and fatigue (Welnberg and Gould 439). Another source of sport confidence and exercise adherence is social support (Welnberg and Gould 440). In that case, I proposed for the inclusion of her husband in the next session while maintain confidentiality. Mary felt she was now ready to start an exercise program and had learnt valuable mental training skills, her goals were set and she felt highly motivated to adhere to exercise program, she had decided to enroll in gym located10 minutes away from home, and had asked for a personal trainer because she felt that at her stage now. This was purposeful and meaningful to her, in addition to familiarize herself with the gym’s facility. Therefore I suggested using prompts (Weinberg and Gould 436). The goal is to increase cues for desired behavior such as placing posters, notes where they are visible, likewise having her gym clothes and running shoes at a visible place e.g. in front of the main home door. In addition, Mary has agreed to sign a contract to help her take action, establishing criteria for meeting goals, and providing a means for clarifying consequences (Weinberg and Gould 437). Work Cited Welnberg, Robert and Daniel Gould. Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology.5th Ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2010. p. 271-384. Print. Read More