Sports Psychology Helps Female Athletes Reach Peak Performance, Compete, And Win

The success of United States female athletes in the Paris 2024 Olympics was remarkable, winning 67 of the 126 total medals (with one still in question) and 26 of the 40 total gold medals. Their achievements were the highlight of the first gender equal Olympics.

Their talent, life-long dedication and sacrifice are inspirational. Yet, it’s important to recognize that it takes both physical and psychological strength to be a champion. The psychological makeup of an athlete, male or female, is most likely as important in determining that individual’s ability to persevere and perform than physical traits.

Female athletes face unique challenges based on their gender. Much like high potential female executives, they encounter a ‘double double’ standard; a mixed message of the expectation of being intense, aggressive, dedicated, single-minded, and at the same time, warm and welcoming, which adds to their stress and anxiety.

My recent conversation with clinical psychologist Dr. Joshua Klapow, focused on the challenges many female athletes face both physically and psychologically. Klapow’s training as a clinical psychologist is critical to helping female athletes reach peak performance and thrive in a highly competitive environment.

When the larger social context and prevailing social views are pervasive and when they’re ignored, athletic performance and overall development is often compromised, leading to a significantly higher rate of mental health challenges for elite athletes than the general population.

Klapow emphasizes that all sports performance work should integrate the broader psychological and social challenges athletes face. The social pressures of being an athlete permeate deeper than game execution. For both female and male athletes, optimizing sports performance often means learning to navigate broader psychological challenges.

Challenges for female athletes

Female athletes must meet the expectations of achieving the same peak performance level as a male athlete, be as regimented, obsessive and dedicated, sacrifice as much, and navigate the societal expectations for femininity, accommodations, compromise, emotional insight, and empathy.

These expectations for women, along with the pressure to succeed in highly competitive environments, can potentially lead to an increase in anxiety and depression.

With the presence of NIL (Name, Image Likeness), the stakes for female athletes today are astronomical. No longer is the emphasis solely on sports achievement or scholarship attainment. At the high school and collegiate level, athletes are positioned to receive significant financial compensation based on their marketability. Media presence and business savvy are now a much more prominent consideration for elite athletes. Klapow emphasizes that is especially true for female athletes, who must navigate issues around body image, societal expectations of beauty and attractiveness, and pressures to present as brand ambassadors and athletes. The psychological pressures to excel in sports, media image and business are what Klapow helps athletes navigate as much as the pressure to perform in sports alone.

We witnessed how an athlete’s physiological functioning can combine with strong emotions that sabotage the ability to perform with Simone Biles’s withdrawal from the 2020 Toyko Olympics. Her public description of how her body was responding and the admission of needing help to overcome her personal psychological barriers has opened the door to honest conversations about the pressure female athletes face and the importance of sports psychology and mental health interventions.

Klapow cites an example of twin beach volleyball teammates playing for one of the top Universities in the country, where national championships were an expectation. The twin sisters, two of the most gifted physical athletes in the sport, needed to always hit their highest potential and beyond. Despite working tirelessly to optimize their physical performance, it was the non-physical factors including expectations, emotional regulation, anticipation of emotional response and body language on and off the sand that created challenges. When the twins decided to intentionally focus on mindset, as a routine part of their training, they developed a set of cognitive and emotional tools that helped them navigate some of the most high-pressure sports situations imaginable, a set of skills that will extend far beyond their athletic careers.

The Keys to Sports Performance Optimization

Managing Emotions

According to the Association of Applied Sports Psychology, “There is no construct of human psychology and functioning more prevalent in sport than emotion. Mood, emotions, and general affect can influence every movement in every sport.” Klapow adds, “When emotions dictate an athlete’s reasoning, they frequently misjudge the needed actions to successfully navigate a challenge.”

When pressure is high, emotions become front and center. They become the most prominent part of one’s consciousness. The internal dialog of “I feel (insert emotion), therefore this is why this is happening to me” is often a fallacy, according to Klapow. He added that emotional intensity doesn’t equal better outcomes. “Relaxing and dialing back intensity to allow the body and mind to leverage the skills an athlete has already developed is what opens the door for peak performance. When intensity is dialed up and back to the challenge of the situation, performance is optimized.”

Going Beyond Compartmentalization

Compartmentalization is a defense mechanism in which people mentally separate conflicting thoughts, emotions, or experiences to avoid the discomfort of contradiction.

Athletes often rely on the defense mechanism of compartmentalization to perform under pressure, though it is a short term and often failed approach. However, not acknowledging worries, fears, and insecurities while denying their existence creates anxiety that keeps the mind from performing optimally.

“Our thoughts are always present and when we try to push them out as a primary source of navigating a high-pressure situation, they often push back harder and become more prominent. Deny your truth and it will emerge in your stress and lack of optimal physiological responses. Call them out and name them, then you can move forward,” Klapow explained.

Calling out the challenges, the doubts, and the insecurities that every athlete experiences but are often labeled as taboo to discuss, changes how they impact the athlete. Klapow explains “These aversive experiences turn into learning opportunities for managing emotions.”. He adds, “Learning how to manage the anxiety and distress associated with athletic challenge (vs pushing it away) allow athletes to perform well under any situation, not just situations where all the stars align, and they are feeling optimal.”

Managing Expectations

Athletes often believe that they must perform at their best to succeed. However, setting “best” as the only acceptable outcome is an irrational belief system because there is a distinction between best effort and best performance.

Klapow shared with me. “When we set ‘best’ as the criteria, we often fall short because our best performances are rare (otherwise they wouldn’t be the best). An athlete expects their efforts will produce good and great can rely on those to win. Expecting your best performance versus your best effort sets you up for frustration and failure. An athlete who expects ‘the best’ will often fall short.”

Every athlete at the highest levels will lose and fail. But the athlete who accepts that failure is ever present and is part of the equation of excellence is an athlete who moves towards winning versus running away from losing.

Klapow stresses that “learning to lean into emotions, separate them from the situation, trust and rely on skill building, and accepting that failure is a part of life allows people to tap into their true potential in every aspect of life.”

Every athlete who wants to perform at their best needs equal parts physical skills and psychological skills. And that is not a gender specific requirement. Yet, beyond the normal physical and psychological challenges that athletes face, female athletes have a unique set of challenges due to their gender. The double double standard for women, seen across the board from sports to business, contributes to additional stress and anxiety and needs to be addressed for them to reach their peak performance. Klapow notes “any athlete who is dedicated to performing to their physical peak must be equally dedicated to developing a peak mindset. The best of the best, the highest performing athletes are ones who see this, train accordingly, and ultimately reap the benefits of their efforts.”

Bonnie Marcus, M.ED, is the author of Not Done Yet! How Women Over 50 Regain Their Confidence and Claim Workplace Power and The Politics of Promotion: How High Achieving Women Get Ahead and Stay Ahead. An executive coach and speaker, Bonnie is also host of the podcast, Badass Women At Any Age.