Forced retirement transition : a narrative case study of an elite Australian Rules football player
- Authors: Demetriou, Andreas , Jago, Andrew , Gill, Peter , Mesagno, Christopher , Ali, Lutfiye
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology Vol. 18, no. 3 (2020), p. 321-335
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- Description: Retirement from elite sport is a complex and often-problematic process. The current study explores a negative case study of an athlete recently retired from a team sport (Australian Rules Football) in order to generate knowledge on how to improve the retirement process. Three semi-structured interviews were undertaken less than 5 years post retirement, and archival career records were gathered from online sources. Data were coded to construct a narrative account of the participant’s career and retirement. Narrative analysis also revealed that the retirement transition from elite sports for this athlete was problematic and caused considerable personal distress. We suggest that the means of improving retirement transition and reducing harm to players include fostering alternative life narratives and increasing self-complexity, utilising norm appropriate communication strategies, and recognising retirement as a potential grieving period for loss of community. © 2018, © 2018 International Society of Sport Psychology.
Imagery training for reactive agility : performance improvements for decision time but not overall reactive agility
- Authors: McNeil, Dominic , Spittle, Michael , Mesagno, Christopher
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology Vol. , no. (2019), p. 1-17
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- Description: This study investigated the effects of imagery training on reactive agility and whether reacting to unpredictable stimuli could be improved using imagery. Forty-seven female athletes (Mage = 21.51, SD = 2.32) were randomly assigned to either a three-week physical training, imagery training, or control condition. Physical training condition involved physically rehearsing the reactive agility task, whereas the imagery training condition involved imagining the presenting stimulus and performing the reactive agility task. The control condition did no reactive agility training. A 3 (training conditions) x 7 (reactive agility performance components) mixed-model MANOVA was conducted to examine changes in reactive agility performance from the training interventions. Physical training improved decision time components and overall reactive agility performance. Imagery training improved Stimulus-Decision Time and Stimulus-Foot performance, but not overall reactive agility performance. No performance improvements occurred for the control condition. Findings support imagery use for the decision time variables associated with lightstimulus reactive agility performance. The lack of overall reactive performance improvement may indicate that imagery training is not effective for all components of perceptual-motor performance. Performance change inconsistencies appear to indicate that participants may not have generated unpredictable stimuli during imagery. Future investigation as to whether imagery improvements translate to sport-specific reactive tasks is needed.