Sandra Holtz – Fun in sport

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Today I’m talking to Sandra Holtz. Sandra is a sports psychologist and writes the “Psychology and Mental Preparation” articles for La Sportive Outdoor. We’d have a thousand subjects to discuss with her, but today we’ve chosen to talk about pleasure in sport. It’s a fascinating topic that I think we’ll learn a lot from. Welcome, Sandra!

Hello Laurène, thank you for the invitation. I’m delighted to be able to express my views on a subject close to my heart.

To begin with, could you introduce yourself for those who don’t know you yet?

Of course you can. I’m essentially a sports psychologist. I’ve been working at the CREPS in Strasbourg for around twenty years now , and at the Centre Médico-Sportif de la Meinau, also in Strasbourg, for almost ten years. In these two facilities, I wear two hats: that of psychological support, and that of mental preparation. At the same time, I also intervene on an ad hoc basis in certain clubs, according to specific requests. For example, recently, some coaches asked me to help them with questions of motivation and how to encourage their athletes to practice over the long term.

Thanks a lot! To get to know you better, and in terms of your personal practice, what sports do you do?

I’ve taken part in many competitive sports. Among them, artistic gymnastics, show jumping, athletics, road running (from 5 km to marathon), and a bit of triathlon. Outside competition, I’ve also explored taekwondo, climbing, couple dancing and hiking. For the past two years, I’ve been a bit “out of commission” in my favorite disciplines, as I suffer from algodystrophy in my knee. This has led me to discover indoor sport, a world I knew very little about before, which allows me to move without pain.

So, in a nutshell, although we’ll come back to this in depth: why is pleasure an essential element in sporting activities?

For me, pleasure is fundamental in sport, as it is in all areas of life. It’s what makes us want to act, what gives meaning to our actions, and what keeps us going despite the difficulties. In a few words, pleasure is what makes things worth living for, in sport as elsewhere.

Factors influencing enjoyment of sport

Well said, and a great basis for tackling the subject! What factors do you think influence this pleasure? Is pleasure necessarily linked to performance, or can it be completely uncorrelated with results?

It’s perfectly possible to dissociate sport from results. For example, you may love swimming simply for the sensations it gives you, without ever worrying about your performance in the water. You may well have no idea what your maximum 100-meter speed is, and yet continue to enjoy every moment in the water. This is a good illustration of how it’s possible to practice an activity for its own immediate pleasure, without being obsessed by results.

In my line of work, I regularly ask the question as to why a person starts a sport, and especially why they continue to do so. In the early stages, the question of performance is often less present, or even non-existent, particularly in childhood or adolescence. It’s in this period that we can identify the deep-rooted reasons for starting a sport, and thus find what we call the initial motivations .

This helps to identify the sources of pleasure linked to what is known as intrinsic motivation: practicing the activity for its own sake, and not with the aim of getting something in return. This “something” could be an increase in self-confidence, the satisfaction of pleasing one’s parents or coach, or the quest for a medal. These are all elements of extrinsic motivation. In other words, they do not derive directly from the activity itself, but are gratifications obtained through practice.

Very clear! And what are the main factors that promote or inhibit enjoyment of sport?

Once you’ve started practising a sport, ideally it should be motivated by the pleasure you derive from it. This pleasure can come from the sensations it provides, the fun, or the satisfaction of continually learning new things, all of which should be an integral part of the practice. This pleasure is the key to maintaining commitment to the activity.

Research has identified three main types of factor that enable this to happen. The first is the way we set our goals. The second is the way we analyze our results, whether in training or in competition. The third important factor is the motivational climate in which we evolve, mainly influenced by the coach, and therefore concerns supervised sporting practices.

To illustrate each of these factors, it’s interesting to note that the most motivating goals are often those we choose ourselves, rather than those imposed from outside. That’s why, during my coaching sessions, I frequently ask athletes, especially youngsters, before a competition: “But you, for this competition, what do you want?” It’s a question that’s rarely asked, yet it often enables them to reappropriate the situation.

This reflection can be questioned before each competition, because things are not fixed, nor determined in advance. I think it’s important to regularly re-evaluate your goals, even in your personal practice, by asking yourself, “What do I want to achieve in the coming weeks or months?”

When it comes to analyzing results, whether perceived as good or bad, it’s crucial to ask yourself how you understand your failures. For example, if I think I didn’t manage to finish my trail because I “suck”, this perception will undoubtedly affect my self-confidence and motivation. If I perceive myself as a failure, I feel that the situation is totally beyond my control, and this is likely to undermine motivation and enjoyment. On the other hand, if I think I didn’t finish because I didn’t manage my recovery or my diet properly, or that I went too fast, I have concrete avenues for improvement that I can act on. I’ll then be motivated to try out new strategies to improve my performance, which boosts confidence, motivation and pleasure.

Finally, the motivational climate created by the trainer plays an essential role. It has been proven that to encourage pleasure, the coach must encourage autonomy, and give regular feedback, even on minimal progress. These elements help maintain motivation and the desire to progress.

Very interesting, and already full of leads! But if we’re aiming for a goal, like running a marathon in under 4 hours, could that limit the fun by creating pressure?

Of course it is. This phenomenon is something I frequently observe in my day-to-day practice, particularly among top-level athletes or amateur competitors. In fact, I’ve given this phenomenon a name: I call it the “results trap”. I call it the “results trap”. This concept refers to the moment when, by dint of wanting to achieve a precise objective – a time, a place, a result – this quest for performance ends up taking up all the space.

This desire to measure up, to achieve a certain result, gradually turns into an almost obsessive pressure. The athlete focuses exclusively on this objective, and gradually the transition is made from “I want to” to “I have to”. I’ve got to be good, I’ve got to prove it, I’ve got to show it. This change of mentality ends up crushing the initial pleasure of practicing the activity for its own sake. We then move from intrinsic motivation, born of personal pleasure, to extrinsic motivation, where practice becomes a simple quest for external gratification.

And I imagine that this shift can happen very quickly, without us even realizing it?

Yes, we usually don’t realize it at all. It often happens just as you start to get some results, and you quickly fall into the trap.

It reminds me of a story from a good ten years ago: a judoka I had coached consulted me after about a year of difficulties, between under-performance and injuries. When we went back to the drawing board, it turned out that she had put in a magnificent performance, becoming vice world junior champion in her category. That was in Miami, I remember it well. She didn’t even expect to be selected, let alone reach the final. It was a big surprise, and up to then, everything had gone perfectly.

But once she returned to France, everything changed. She told me that the pressure was on : she wanted to prove that this title wasn’t just a fluke, that she really deserved it. From that point on, she performed one poor performance after another, completely losing the pleasure of practicing. To turn things around, I asked her to go back to basics and think about what had prompted her to take up judo and what she loved about the sport. She remembered that she’d started when she was 9, and that she loved fighting and had a lot of fun doing it.

We then agreed that, for the next few training sessions, she would go with the mindset of a 9-year-old girl, just to rediscover that desire to have fun. A fortnight later, she was back on the podium, but this time with a completely different approach.

It’s fascinating to see the effect it can have! So, you were saying that initial motivation is often stronger when you start young. Does this mean that starting a sport later in life changes our relationship to enjoyment of that sport?

Yes, I understand the question. I think it’s impossible to make generalizations on this subject, as there are no universal rules. What is certain, however, is that a person’s relationship with sport is always extremely unique and influenced by a multitude of factors. This relationship is never fixed in time: it can evolve over the course of experiences and life phases. In this evolution, the social environment can play an important role, particularly for people who find pleasure in being surrounded by others, or those who seek pleasure in the approval and recognition of others.

Especially as we live in a society that values not only sport, but also the quest to surpass oneself. It’s easy to slip into more extrinsic, results-oriented motivation. With children and teenagers, the role of parents and coaches is particularly decisive.

I often remind parents with whom I have the chance to talk, sometimes even during consultations. They come to talk about what they see in their child, and to think together about how best to support him or her. Of course, their intention is always not to put any pressure on their child, and they often tell me: “It’s up to him” or “It’s up to her, I don’t put any pressure.”

But I think it’s essential never to lose sight of the fact that a child’s first aim is to please his parents, and that he’s extremely good at picking up on what pleases them, even without expressing it. As a result, it’s vital for parents and coaches to be clear about what they want for their children, and how much space they have to express their own desires. When you feel you’re encountering difficulties in this area, it can be very beneficial to seek support. At the end of the day, it’s a precious gift to give your child to question your own expectations as an adult.

It’s fundamental, and it’s great that parents are asking themselves these questions and getting help to better support their child! So, we were talking about the pleasure-performance relationship. Does enjoying sport have a direct impact on performance?

That’s a really interesting question, as it allows me to address the common thread running through my practice in mental preparation. For a very long time, the focus in this field was on the fight against stress, based on the principle that excess stress was the main cause of under-performance. Stress was therefore seen as the number-one enemy to be eliminated.

Then, in 2001, sports psychology researchers conducted a study to understand the emotional differences between the best and worst sporting performances. They worked for an entire year with rifle shooters, objectively measuring their emotional states and physiological activation, and questioning them about their experiences and feelings during performance.

The results of this study were surprising: we expected to find more stress in under-performers and less stress in top performers. However, the first finding was that stress levels were virtually equivalent in both cases, which went against the conventional wisdom. So the researchers went a step further and asked what really made the difference at the moment of a good performance.

They discovered that the most successful performances were those in which athletes felt more positive emotions: desire, joy, pleasure, pleasant sensations, and so on. From there, the approach to mental preparation began to evolve. Rather than focusing solely on stress reduction, it was decided to focus on reinforcing positive emotions and the pleasure felt in practice.

Is the disappearance of pleasure a cause for alarm?

I think it’s a fantastic change of perspective, applicable even outside sport! But if pleasure disappears from sport, what are the effects?

If the pleasure disappears completely, it seems obvious to me that this logically leads to a cessation of the practice. And if this cessation is accepted, there’s absolutely no problem with that. At some point, we can decide to change sport or even take a break from it, without it affecting our well-being. What brings us pleasure can fluctuate over time. There are times when other aspects of life take up more space, and sports lose the meaning they once had. And this is perfectly normal.

I’m thinking in particular of a young woman I accompanied a few years ago. After a difficult separation, she had become totally involved in open-water swimming and indoor sports, and had rapidly reached an international level. But after a year, she met someone, and within a few months, she had completely divested herself of sport to devote herself to a new life as a couple, and then to building a family. When you think about it, this kind of path is not uncommon, and for me, there’s nothing problematic about it. Each person evolves according to his or her priorities and needs at the time, and there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to live this dynamic.

Exactly. But if you feel tired but want to keep going, could it be due to overtraining or overwork?

This situation is indeed a little more complex. It’s characterized by a certain tug-of-war, an ambivalence between what we feel – the fact that we have the impression of losing the desire, of feeling less pleasure – and external factors that push us to persist in spite of everything. In such cases, the first question to ask is: What keeps me going? Why not take a break, even a short one? What keeps me going, what pushes me forward despite the fact that, as you say, it’s getting slow and I don’t feel good in my practice? This can already be an important starting point. You have to ask yourself why you keep going when it doesn’t really make sense any more in terms of what you’re feeling.

Often, the fear of taking a break is present. We tell ourselves that if we stop, we might never want to come back, or on the contrary, we’re afraid we’ll regret it. There’s also the fear of disappointing others: training partners, coaches, or even those around you who seem to expect a lot from you. This leads some athletes to continue at all costs, even if it’s no longer what they really want.

In my experience, this can lead to a situation where, at some point, something finally “gives out”. This can take the form of a serious injury, a sports burn-out, or what is sometimes called overtraining, linked to psychological exhaustion. At some point, if we don’t become aware of this imbalance, something will break, and we need to ask ourselves the right questions before this happens. This can have far-reaching consequences, leading to periods that are difficult to overcome. Sometimes, getting back to work becomes a real challenge.

As far as reduced pleasure is concerned, it‘s important not to be too alarmed. Pleasure and motivation fluctuate, and it’s impossible to control them completely. Sometimes it’s just a passing phase, and if you take the time to let it go, pleasure will naturally return. However, don ‘t hesitate to take a break or readjust your training rhythmor competition schedule.

I remember a situation almost 20 years ago with a badminton player whose coach had recommended me. He was in a rollercoaster spiral of performance, with highs and lows. Talking with him, we quickly realized that he was saturated by the frequency of competitions. Competing every weekend or every fortnight didn’t suit him at all. As soon as he reached saturation point, the pleasure disappeared, and this triggered frustration and anger on the field, leading to a series of defeats.

After a discussion with his coach, who was very receptive, we reorganized the competition calendar. This made a major difference. By adjusting the rhythm, the young athlete found pleasure and performance again, and even ended up joining the INSEP. This case illustrates perfectly the importance of listening and adapting the pace to each individual athlete, which not only preserves pleasure but also promotes performance.

That’s interesting. Indeed, the load we can bear, whether physical or psychological, is extremely individual. What works for one person may not necessarily work for another. Everyone has their own pace and their own limits, and it’s essential to understand these in order to best adapt to their needs. This underlines the importance of listening to oneself and taking into account one’s own sensations and limits, without constantly comparing oneself to others.

Yes, absolutely. It’s an individual approach on several levels. First, there’s the physiological aspect, of course, but that’s just one component among many. Each person has a different capacity to bear certain loads at specific times. Secondly, it’s essential to consider our life as a whole. Sometimes, priorities such as family or work take up more space, and this has to be integrated into the overall balance of life. The idea is to be able to adjust one’s pace in line with these realities.

But there’s also an emotional aspect that plays an important role. A competition, for example, can be very demanding and generate a lot of pressure. Not everyone can cope with week after week, or fortnight after fortnight. Some people need more time to recover emotionally. It’s up to each person to find the rhythm that suits them, and this rhythm can obviously fluctuate according to the different stages of life. The most important thing is to listen to yourself, and to remain flexible in the face of changing priorities and needs, while preserving a balance that suits you.

Solutions to be implemented

And do you have any techniques or tools that can help athletes rediscover or at least maintain the pleasure they derive from their sporting activities?

Yes, that’s right, it reminds me of an article I wrote on this subject, in which I talked about what I call the “Positive Logbook”. It’s a tool I particularly like. The idea is simple: for a period of 15 days, three weeks or even a month, depending on how often you train or compete, you take a moment after each session to reflect on the experience. The first step is to assess your level of pleasure on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means no pleasure at all and 10 means an absolutely brilliant experience.

This first exercise gives you an overview, a starting point for observing your feelings. Next, it’s important to ask yourself the following question: “What stood out for me today? What did I like about this session?” The idea is to identify two or three specific elements that brought pleasure. After a few weeks, go back over your notes and analyze the trends: what comes up frequently as a source of pleasure? Are sensations stable or highly variable?

It reminded me of the story of Clarisse, a cyclist I accompanied. She had lost all pleasure in her training, overwhelmed by the pressure she was putting on herself to reach performance targets. She thought she absolutely had to be strict and do her training alone, without distractions, to be more effective. But when I suggested this logbook exercise, she realized that what she was missing was the group dynamic. Going back to group training transformed her practice: she felt much less weary, time passed more quickly and she rediscovered her desire to train.

In my opinion, this tool is really powerful, because it enables us to refocus on what we really enjoy. Once we’ve identified these sources of pleasure, we can work to reinforce them and make them more present in our daily practice. It’s a simple but effective way of reconnecting with what really motivates us.

It’s interesting because it’s a tool that seems very simple but can have hyper-beneficial effects in the short and long term, after all.

Yes, I couldn’t agree more. This logbook is simple to use, which makes it really accessible. In general, the people I suggest it to appreciate the exercise, as it doesn’t require any particular skills, just a little reflection after each workout. It’s a very concrete way of taking a step back from your practice, and often helps you to better understand what’s working and what’s not.

And sometimes, even with this tool, some people find it hard to see clearly. This is where a consultation session can really make a difference. In just a few exchanges, we can often clarify things, deepen our feelings, and bring to light avenues that we wouldn’t necessarily have identified on our own. It’s not always a question of reinventing everything, but sometimes of shedding a little more light on certain grey areas and enabling the person to take a step back from their experience. These small adjustments can have a huge impact on how you regain pleasure and motivation in your practice.

How are you going to intervene if someone has just consulted you because they’ve reached the stage where they’re no longer really enjoying their practice? How are you going to support them?

More and more frequently, I meet athletes who feel a bit lost. They come to me and say: “ I’m not in the mood, I’m not enjoying it as much, what’s going on? And often, the emotion that comes out of this situation is fear. It’s very destabilizing, especially when sport is an integral part of our equilibrium. At times like these, I think that simply talking about it is an important first step.

That’s a big step, because talking about it means acknowledging what‘ s happening, rather than burying your head in the sand and sticking your head in the sand. This isn’t always easy, especially when you’ve been practising a discipline for a long time, invested a lot of time, energy and sometimes money, and have the impression that others expect results from you.

In such cases, the setting of a psychological consultation is ideal, because it’s a reassuring space where you can say everything, without fear of it being repeated or judged. There’s nothing at stake, nothing to get involved in. That’s often what athletes appreciate about these moments. Sometimes, professional athletes come to see me and say: “No, we have a psychologist at the club or a mental trainer, but I don’t want to talk to him about it because he’s not independent; I want to be able to express myself freely.”

Acknowledging the difficulty is already a first step, and from there we can begin to think together to understand what’s going on. By asking a few simple questions, we can identify the underlying causes. When things remain unclear, I use what I call the Sport Motivation Scale, developed by sports psychology researchers, to identify sources of pleasure.

There’s also an overtraining questionnaire and other tools we can use to discuss and reflect together. Sometimes, this process can be intimidating, with people thinking, “What am I going to say?” But looking back over the last few months, I’ve noticed that this situation is becoming more and more frequent. The main cause of this loss of pleasure is often saturation, fatigue or an excessive focus on results. Sometimes, all these factors are linked.

This is particularly true in endurance and outdoor sports, where there’s no such structured framework as in team sports, where training sessions are scheduled 2 to 4 times a week. On the other hand, in disciplines such as running, cycling or swimming, you can easily stray from the framework, overdo it and end up getting disgusted with something you loved in the first place.

It’s silly, but I’d never thought about it, because you can get completely carried away, especially when you’re trail riding or cycling. You’re free, you don’t have a team to manage, so you can quickly overdo it. But in what you say, it’s true that it’s often the fact of doing too much that leads to this loss of pleasure… too much training or too much pressure linked to performance. I suppose it’s also linked to the fact that we put this pressure on ourselves, wanting to train harder, always striving to do better… ?

Yes. And the “too much”, in fact, has all these elements. Too much can be physiological, because I went too fast, too hard. But it can also come from the fact that, in my life at the moment, there areother constraints that add to the load. And that’s just too much. Or it could be on an emotional level, where I can’t cope with the emotions it generates on a regular basis.

It comes down to the fact that it’s an individual thing, and that one person’s “too much” isn’t necessarily another person’s “too much”. So we can’t compare ourselves by saying: “Yes, but my girlfriend at the club, she does this as a workout, she doesn’t have any problems, it’s not normal that I can’t keep up.” It can simply be that, individually, for us, it doesn’t add up.

Completely. It’s really important not to compare yourself to others and to trust what you feel. Say to yourself, no, something’s not right here, there’s this fatigue or drop in desire that’s going on a little too long, something’s going on. What I’ve also noticed is that taking a complete break, or really reducing the frequency of training sessions, often proves beneficial on two levels.

Firstly, it recharges your batteries, and you think much better when your batteries are full. Secondly, you can step back, look up and understand what’s going on. That’s really very effective. But then again, I’ve noticed that we often find it hard to allow ourselves this break or to lift our foot off the gas on our own. We fight with ourselves, and it’s sometimes very difficult to accept. We feel guilty and remorseful.

I recently had a sportswoman say to me: “It’s a good thing you’re telling me that I need to cut, because for me, it’s really important. I can rely on what you tell me, but if I’m on my own, I won’t be able to do it.

It’s really important to have someone from the outside telling you “no, but it’s okay to stop, it’s even good”. We often have irrational fears, like telling ourselves: “I can’t stop, I’ll lose the level I had”, when in reality, we’ll get it back. And sometimes, taking a break can be much more beneficial, because you’ll leave with a new mindset, rather than continuing to train and risk injury.

In general, if you force things, there’s always a moment when, as I was saying earlier, it’s going to give out, it’s going to crack. But if you take the time to recharge, to get back into shape, with desire and more clarity about what you really want to do, you’ll find the level again very, very quickly.

The importance of the trainer

And if you’re part of a club with a coach, what could the latter do to encourage this state of mind and help his athletes maintain this element of pleasure in their practice, even in competition?

I’d like to come back to what I said at the beginning, the notion of a motivational climate, which depends a great deal on the trainer’s practices. This climate can be either favorable or unfavorable to maintaining pleasure and continuity in practice. The ideal is, of course, to adopt training methods that reinforce what I have called intrinsic motivation, i.e. the pleasure of the activity for its own sake. Indeed, it has been found that this type of motivation generally generates more pleasure, in a more stable and lasting way, but also more performance.

In concrete terms, what a coach can do at this level is firstly to vary the exercises regularly to avoid fatigue. He can also encourage autonomy by involving athletes in certain decisions, such as competition objectives. It’s essential that the athlete can express his or her opinion on these matters, and that they’re not simply imposed without consultation. In addition, he can entrust athletes with responsibilities, thereby reinforcing their autonomy.

It’s also important to value the progress and personal qualities of athletes, while being fair in the way rewards and recognition are distributed. This is all the more crucial with teenagers and young adults, who are particularly sensitive to this kind of dynamism. Unfair management of these aspects can quickly undermine enjoyment and motivation.

Finally, a coach must evaluate progress based on criteria of personal progress and mastery of the activity, rather than focusing solely on wins, losses or comparison with others, whether in competition or training. This type of approach can be extremely damaging and counter-productive.

Advice for sportswomen

And to conclude, you’ve already given us quite a few recommendations, but if we wanted to summarize, what would be your suggestions for sportswomen who are listening to us and thinking: “Ah, I’m a bit like that, I’m starting to feel a little less pleasure”? What would be the main steps to follow? Maybe there are some things to try before consulting us. What would you recommend they do?

I’d say the first thing to do, perhaps, is to try to understand what’s going on, already yourself, by asking yourself some simple questions: Since when have I felt less pleasure? How do I explain this drop? Does it seem to be linked to weariness, overload, or perhaps successive failures?

It’s something we haven’t mentioned, but it’s important not to have one disappointment after another. It’s also essential to put yourself in training or competition situations that are accessible, or even very easy, to preserve your self-esteem. So it can also be useful to ask yourself whether successive disappointments have altered your desire to continue, or whether tensions exist within the group or with your coach.

It may also be interesting to ask whether this drop in enjoyment only affects sport , or whether it also manifests itself in other aspects of life. Does fatigue add to it? These are simple but important questions. Depending on the answers, you can either find solutions yourself, or use tools such as a Positive Logbook to shed more light on the situation. Sometimes, all you need to do is reorganize or reappropriate your practice, and everything will become more pleasant again. And for others, a short break will be beneficial. If, after this break, you don’t feel like coming back, that’s not a problem either.

In any case, get your head out of the sand, as you said, and don’t bury your head in the sand. Okay, so the first step is to ask yourself the right questions. And of course, if you can’t figure it out on your own, consulting a sports psychologist seems like an excellent idea.

Yes, completely. When you use this little positive logbook on a regular basis, you can quickly spot the moments when, for example, you notice that your pleasure scores have started to drop over the last three, four or five sessions. If it’s just one or two sessions, it’s not serious, it’s not alarming.

But when you see that this dip is setting in, then you can say to yourself, “Hang on, I’ve got to sit down and ask myself what’s going on.” This is often the key to getting pleasure back quickly. And if that’s not possible, and it’s something more complex, consulting a sports psychologist might be a good option.

Thanks for all your advice, Sandra!

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