Psychological skills training (PST) is regarded as mental training that can lead to performance enhancement for an athlete, it means developing the mind in terms of an athlete's skills. PST is now being used more than ever with athletes due to the realizations of its rewards. PST is now being considered a much more important role for an athlete than ever before, athletes don't just rely on physical skills but some rely heavily on psychological skills. For example, such as a footballer taking a penalty kick in a world cup final being a prime example, it requires more than just kicking a football. It requires the player holding their nerves, keeping concentration and their mind focused on the job in hand, this is where PST would benefit the player considerably. There are many different methods or applications of PST not just the one, different applications work on different levels for each type of athlete and their associating sport. Applications can include; progressive muscular relaxation (PMR), concentration cues, goal setting and imagery, which is seen as the most effective technique of PST. .
Psychological skills training (PST) allows an athlete to perform better and more consistently by mental training. Although the athlete needs to be committed and motivated with the concept of PST in order to get the most out of it because it will benefit the athlete in terms of performance enhancement "it is mental power that separates the exceptional from the very good" Frank Dick. The importance of PST is due to the fact that all sporting people can fall prey to mistakes, misfortunes and mental let downs, PST can reduce the occurrences of these factors happening and further enhance the performance of these sporting people. PST is not a quick fix job on an athlete's performance, they can not be expected to learn PST to enhance their performance after a couple of sessions and expect it to stay with them, and it takes time and is a learning process.
