FLOW / 001 [WHAT IS FLOW, AND WHAT ARE CLUTCH MOMENTS?]

Question
What actually happens in your head during your best performances?

Study
In this book chapter, researchers reviewed decades of flow research and presented a new model. It is mainly based on interviews in which athletes described their best performances.

Findings
The researchers describe two different states behind top performance. Flow: everything feels effortless and automatic, you are fully absorbed and it gives you energy. Clutch: you are fully and deliberately focused, you choose to push harder because something is at stake, and it drains you. They seem to start differently. Flow tends to come with open goals, like "let's see how good this can get", after something goes well and your confidence grows. Clutch tends to come with specific goals when the outcome is on the line, like the last kilometre of a race. Athletes keep flow going by not overthinking, and manage clutch by talking to themselves, setting short goals and keeping track of how they're doing. In the only experiment so far, open goals led to more flow and specific goals to more clutch.

What It Means for Athletes
Peak performance doesn't always feel easy. Sometimes it feels like hard, conscious work, and that's fine. Both states can lead to great performances, and you can switch between them. Note that this model is still young: it's mostly based on interviews, and scientists don't yet have a reliable way to measure or create these states.

Try this: in training, use an open goal ("see how smooth I can make this") and let it flow. In the decisive moment of a match, switch to a specific goal and a short instruction to yourself, like "next 200 metres, full power".

Source
Swann, C., Goddard, S. G., Jackman, P. C., Schweickle, M. J., & Vella, S. A. (2021). Flow and clutch states. In E. Filho & I. Basevitch (Eds.), Sport, exercise, and performance psychology: Research directions to advance the field (pp. 46 to 60). Oxford University Press.

BEHIND THE SCIENCE
Translating sports science into information athletes can actually use.