Feature Mental Game Article

How to Stay Focused When Your Warm Up is Sub-Par

Many wrestlers allow self-confidence to be thrashed around easily by their immediate performance. These same athletes let their warm-up prior to a match set up their mental game and attitude prior to competition. If you have a poor warm up, your performance is sub-par pre-match, or you don't feel 100%, do you doubt your game or ability for the day?

Does your mental game suffer when your prematch is not up to your expectations? Does a poor warm up throw you off before a match?

If your warm up is less than ideal...

    * Do you doubt your ability to perform and undermine your confidence?
    * Do prematch jitters turn into anxiety and worry?
    * Do you worry about your performance and results for the day and thus become tense?
    * Do you think you should try harder because your performance was not perfect in warm up?
    * Do you think you must have a perfect warm up to feel like you can have a good match?

If you said "yes" to any of the above questions – then you need to read on! If you said "no" to all of the above questions, what other mental game challenges do you have when your warm up is not up to your personal standards or you do not feel 100% physically?

I know it's comforting to have a good warm up before a match. When you are "on" in warm-ups, you get confirmation that everything is working and your training is paying off, right? This is ideal, but not always what happens....

Anyone can feel temporarily confident for a few moments during practice or warm up, but can you remain confident when your warm up casts doubts? Enduring self-confidence is the mark of a champion. However, you should not have to RELY on a good warm up to have confidence in the match.

"you don’t have to win warm-ups." Too many wrestlers self-destruct even before they start the match.

What should you do to react better to a sub-par warm up? The first strategy is to remind yourself that the prematch warm up is only a time to get ready for competition and it does not count toward the final outcome of the match. You want to use this time effectively. The warm up should be used to get physically and mentally ready for competition.


I suggest that you do not make any judgments about the quality of your warm up. Judgmental behavior leads to making comparisons based on your preconceived standards. When you judge your warm up, you are comparing an expectation of how you SHOULD perform with what is actually happening during your warm up. If you conclude that your warm up should be better in order to perform well in the game, this is the start of self-sabotage, such as doubt and worry. And this can drag down your mental game performance.

Discard any notions you have formed in the past about a poor warm up and the quality of your performance (called over-generalizations). Use the warm up to get ready for competition. Remind yourself that you will - and have in the past - performed well in competition even after a poor warm up.

Most athletes sharpen their focus when they get into competition. Why? A warm up does not count. In competition, athletes' focus improves because of the additional adrenaline or competitive intensity. Be confident that you will focus better when the whistle blows.