Tips That Can Help You Manage Stress During A Baseball Tryout
Whether you are a professional baseball player who was part of the team last year or a prolific member of the high school baseball team, a baseball tryout can be nerve-wracking.
The stress and nervousness get worse if you have never been to a tryout before. There’s always the self-doubt that each athlete goes through and the fear of failure or the coach realizing your lack of talent.
All this can cause a lot of stress and pressure and even the experienced players still need to find ways of dealing with the physical and mental stress baseball tryout causes.
How To Overcome A Baseball Tryout
Here are a few baseball tips to help you handle any stress that a baseball tryout throws your way:
1. Prepare For The Game
You may be a fit athlete who regularly visits the gym and performs various exercises. However, each activity has its own challenges and needs preparations unique to the task.
For instance, wrestlers need to train for large biceps and arms to efficiently perform maneuvers such as headlock. Baseball players, on the other hand, need elongated muscles for seamless extended running and swinging.
In simple terms, you should focus on preparations that make you ready for baseball in addition to increasing your overall fitness.
Exercising using the rowing machine is a popular preparation for professional baseball players. There are several other workouts available to improve your fluidity and fitness for a baseball tryout.
2. Prepare Mentally
Tryouts offer a chance to join your dream team or become part of a bigger baseball club that will nourish your career. For this reason, you will be competing with 30-100 others who want the same thing as you.
To survive such a test, you need both confidence and mental preparation. Most people have feelings of inadequacy and will struggle to speak out freely in large crowds.
However, you can rise above this and become the voice people want to hear and the contender others have given up to. There are various tricks that have been considered when it comes to mental preparation.
It all boils down to your fears as an individual. If it is inferiority, then you should picture everyone else as immature, dressed in some silly outfits or dependent on you for advice.
This will help you rise above the fear, speak and act confidently in a manner that positions you like the best contender for the few spots.
3. Reducing Nervousness
Rising above fear goes beyond shutting your mind to the crowd and replacing them with some skewed imagination that will help you feel better or confident.
Sometimes the nervousness just breaks out and everything else you had planned collapses. As a baseball player, you already know how nerve-wracking the game itself can be especially when you come against teams that have been training all year.
Nerves are the prime culprit to failure and even the best talents will perform terribly if they are nervous. This is why you need something to take care of all that anxiety.
There are various high potassium foods that can help you calm down and reduce stress. Foods like asparagus, blueberries, avocado, milk, almonds, oranges, salmon and spinach are known to increase the production of anti-stress hormones.
You can integrate these foods into your diet a few days to the baseball tryout.
4. Eat And Rest Well
When going for a baseball tryout, you should be able to offer your best and by that, it means giving 100%. Nothing rejuvenates better than sleep and healthy meals.
Do not stay awake sharpening your strategies and skills to a point where you only have a few minutes to rest. Sleep is very important if you want to increase your energy levels and allow your body to internalize all you have learned in the preparation stage.
Make sure you eat a balanced diet that leaves you feeling healthy and nourished. Have full resting hours and taking a cold bath to refresh you before the game.
There may be other minor ways of dealing with baseball tryout stress, but the above tips will help you avoid it altogether. If followed, you will be better placed to deal with any pressure or depression of a baseball tryout.
It is advisable to use professional trainers when preparing your tryout and learn a couple of tricks that will impress the coach.
You can watch some of the games and grasp a few hints on how the coaching department wants their team to play. Lastly, make sure you have a passion for the game and give it your best shot while treating it like just another day exploring your talent.