Importance of Instructions in Sport and Exercise Psychology

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Instructions are a fundamental tool of communication in sports, for example, for coaches and physical education teachers. In this chapter we analyze instructions in different settings from the perspective of sport and exercise psychology. Traditionally, sport-psychology instructions have been written for experts and novices. The application of sport psychology in schools or in physical education has been less well covered and needs to be looked at, as well. Furthermore, with well-formulated instructions it is possible to achieve supportive effects in health behavior. One of the main aims of this chapter is to present an overview of studies in (1) motor learning with competitive athletes and novices, (2) physical education, and (3) health. We focus on examples from our own research to explore whether implicit and explicit instructions have different effects on performance and movement patterns. These findings extend the literature by accentuating the role of implicit learning for novices and pupils and in areas of health, as well as explicit learning for experts.