Can Mental Toughness Really Help Athletes?

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Last week, I talked about how hormones can affect injury in women athletes. This whole research has also been about how mental health can affect injury/ recovery, but this week, I wanted to look at it from the other side because there is a major debate about mental health vs mental toughness, and how we balance it. A topic that challenges my original argument is, what if we trained our minds before the injury even happens? My question going into this was: Can mental toughness training actually help athletes handle pressure, pain, and setbacks better?

Understanding where others are coming from connects a lot to this topic because athletes and coaches a lot of times see “mental health” and “mental toughness” as opposite sides. But actually, they can both exist together if we listen and understand each other’s experiences.

I found a study by Andreas Stamatis and other authors (2020) that looked at a bunch of research on mental toughness programs for athletes. They found that most of these programs really worked.  “Mental toughness scores increased by 0.80 SD following MT intervention” (Stamatis et al., 2020). That’s a pretty big improvement. It made me think that maybe if athletes learned these skills through these programs and ways to become stronger mentally earlier, we could handle tough moments (like injuries or losses) with a little more confidence and control.

Another part that stood out said, “The likelihood of successfully improving may be enhanced if mental toughness training initiatives are implemented gradually over a longer period of time” (Stamatis et al., 2020). This was good for the people, including me, who are looking for a quick fix, and it is a good reminder of how patience matters, especially with this complicated topic. Building mental strength isn’t something that happens overnight; just like a physical muscle, it takes time and energy to build that type of strength. 

The study also said that “Physical training-only approaches were not effective in building MT,” while “psychological ones were more successful” (Stamatis et al., 2020). This proves evidence that toughness isn't just something physical, like how many sprints you can do or how much you can lift; it’s about your mindset that matters the most. How you talk to yourself, how you handle pressure, and how you stay afloat and grounded in your values when things go wrong is what will make you most successful.

For me, tearing my ACL was way more of a mental battle than a physical one. It’s crazy how much losing your sport can mess with your identity. I spent months feeling frustrated, lost, invisible, and stuck. What really helped me was focusing on the little wins and what I am thankful for in life. Also, since my relationship with God is the most important in my life, I trust that God had a reason for it. Having that faith and reminder that I am way more than an athlete and that's not my identity, it's just what I do, made me feel like I could handle the pain and still grow through it.

I do think teaching mental toughness could help athletes prepare for those tough moments, but it’s also important not to confuse that with ignoring real mental health struggles, especially in college athletics. Being “tough” doesn’t mean pretending everything’s fine. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is admit you’re struggling and ask for help. I have seen and heard of so many athletes, including myself, bottle up their emotions because a lot of coaches say to be “mentally tougher,” even though we put our entire selves, energy, time, and dedication into the sport. It can be detrimental to ignore how much stress and mental strain come with being a student athlete because sadly, there as been so many suicides in athletics. I think if we can do mental toughness programs along with mental health check-ins, it can give athletes the best of both worlds. That way, athletes know how to handle pressures, but also know we have someone to vent to.  

I think this idea of balance is like what we learned about in the reading notes about arguing and not being open to other sides. It shows how it is important to try to find common ground instead of choosing sides because that is usually where the right answer is. Mental toughness and mental health don’t have to compete with what is right and wrong; they can work together if we actually understand what each side is trying to say.

New Questions for Next Week

1. If mental toughness training really helps, why don’t more college teams teach it?

2. How can coaches teach toughness without making athletes feel like they have to hide how they feel?

3. What’s the real difference between being mentally tough and being mentally healthy?

Citation

Stamatis, A., Grandjean, P., Morgan, G., Padgett, R. N., Cowden, R., & Koutakis, P. (2020). Developing and training mental toughness in sport: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies and pre-test and post-test experiments. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 6(1), e000747. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7299040/

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