Arousal in Sports

In sport psychology, there are many factors involving in each sport player ’s

performance. An essential factor controlling the players’ performances is arousal which

can be divided into four categories. As a rock climber, the theory that is suitable for me

is the optimum arousal theory which will be discussed later in this essay.

As mentioned, optimum arousal theory, also known as individual zone of optimal

functioning (IZOF), was created by Hanin in 1997. The model of IZOF presumes and

hypothesizes the relationship between emotions and optimal performances that will

function best for each individual athlete, and aims to foretell the upcoming performance

according to the pre-performance emotional state of the athlete. The model

indispensably requires a probabilistic approach to reliably define the boundaries of the

IZOF which also associating with emotional intensity and varied performance quality

(Kamata, Tenenbaum and Hanin, 2002). The IZOF theory is undeniably suited to sport

climbing due to the fact that every single athlete is different, they have different

techniques while competing which require different pathways to reach the goal

performance—and since rock climbing is an individual sport, coaches and sport

psychologists can easily identify relationship between personal level of anxiety and

performance. For instance, people who do rock climbing will have their own optimal

point of arousal and need to be specifically on their zone to maximize their performance

according to their experiences. When it comes to competition, some might need to be

very calm to concentrate with the routes and to figure out how to top out while others

might require higher arousal to push themselves through their limits and top out the
route in time. This conveys that each athlete has his or her own optimal zone of arousal

to perform best.

The IZOF model is created for an individual athlete along with their performance

records. Such model are very varied and can be drawn as a bar chart. It starts with the

lowest level of arousal from the left to the highest arousal level from the right. Each

individual will have their own specific zone. For instance, a rock climber who performs

best with low level of arousal will have a bar chart that highlighted the left area of the

bar, in which the area highlighted is according to the range of the arousal level that the

athlete can obtain. The strength of this theory is the adjustability of the model. The chart

can be adjust and recreate from every performance of the climbers even though it

might not be similar in every competition but the approximation can be assumed. On the

other hand, the weakness is that the performance does not depend only on the level of

arousal, but also on other factors such as diet and resting which can alter the result of

the performance.

In conclusion, rock climbing is a sport that has various styles of athlete, therefore,

IZOF is the most suitable theory for rock climbers. The IZOF not only designate to an

individual but also flexible which help the climbers to estimate their own zone of optimal

arousal.
References

1. Kamata, A., Tenenbaum, G., & Hanin, Y. L. (2002). Index. Individual Zone of Optimal

Functioning (IZOF): A Probabilistic Estimation, 24(2), 189-208. doi:10.1016/

s1469-0292(02)00030-4

2. Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://

academy.sportlyzer.com/wiki/arousal-and-performance/individual-zones-of-optimal-

functioning-izof/