Why you play better in practice than in games

By Relentless · Updated October 18, 2026 · 3 min read

If you're great in practice and tight in competition, you're not alone. Here is what research says about choking under pressure and how to close the gap.

Why do athletes perform worse in games than in practice?

Practice and competition can look the same from the outside, but they feel different. In a game or race, the result counts, people are watching and you care about how it goes. That pressure changes how your brain handles a skill. When performance drops because of pressure, researchers call it choking.

What happens to your skills under pressure?

Research points to two main explanations, and both can be true at once.

You start thinking about things you normally do automatically

Well-practiced skills run mostly on autopilot. Under pressure, many athletes start paying close attention to the mechanics of a movement, step by step, to make sure it goes right. Sian Beilock and Thomas Carr studied this in golf putting and found that for skilled performers, that kind of attention can disrupt a skill that usually runs smoothly. Rich Masters made a similar point in 1992. In his golf putting experiments, people who learned with a lot of explicit rules and instructions were more likely to break down under stress than people who learned more implicitly.

Worry uses up attention

The second explanation is distraction. Worries about the outcome, your teammates or the crowd take up attention and working memory that the task needs. This tends to hurt skills that involve decisions and thinking on the fly.

How to close the gap between practice and games

1. Practice under some pressure

If pressure only shows up in games, your skills never get used to it. In a 2009 study, Raôul Oudejans and Rob Pijpers had expert basketball players practice free throws for five weeks. The players who trained under mild anxiety held their performance when the pressure was real, while the group that trained without it did worse. You can add pressure to practice with stakes, a scoreboard, a teammate watching or a timed challenge.

2. Focus on the result of the movement, not your body

An external focus means putting your attention on the effect you want, like the target, the line you want to run or the push off the ground, instead of on body parts. Gabriele Wulf's 2013 review of fifteen years of research and a 2021 meta-analysis by Lee-Kuen Chua and colleagues both found that an external focus generally helps performance and learning more than an internal one. A 2024 reanalysis argued that reporting bias in the research may explain much of that effect, so treat it as a useful habit rather than a proven fix.

3. Use the same routine every time

A pre-performance routine, such as the same breaths, the same cue word and the same steps before a serve, putt or start, keeps your attention on the process and gives you something familiar when everything else feels different.

4. Accept the nerves instead of fighting them

Trying hard not to feel nervous usually pulls more attention toward the nerves. The Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment approach from sport psychology trains you to notice the feeling, let it be there and put your attention back on the task.

5. Review your competitions

After games and races, write down where your attention went when it got tight. Patterns show up quickly, and they tell you what to practice next.

Is it normal to be better in practice?

Yes. Almost every athlete has felt it. A performance drop under pressure isn't a sign that you lack talent or toughness. It's a sign that you haven't trained your skills under the conditions where they need to work, and that is something you can change.

How Relentless helps

This exact problem comes up in Relentless programs. Grant Chiasson's 30-Day Sprint includes a lesson called "Why You're Better in Practice Than Games," and Iaia Colella's The 8 Mental Dimensions of Performance is built around the gap between how athletes train and how they compete. Each lesson takes a few minutes and pairs the idea with an exercise you can use in your next practice.

Train this with Relentless. Short daily lessons from mental performance coaches, on iPhone. Free trial for new subscribers.

References

1. Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001). On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(4), 701-725. doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.130.4.701
2. Masters, R. S. W. (1992). Knowledge, knerves and know-how: The role of explicit versus implicit knowledge in the breakdown of a complex motor skill under pressure. British Journal of Psychology, 83(3), 343-358. doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1992.tb02446.x
3. Oudejans, R. R. D., & Pijpers, J. R. (2009). Training with anxiety has a positive effect on expert perceptual-motor performance under pressure. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(8), 1631-1647. doi.org/10.1080/17470210802557702
4. Wulf, G. (2013). Attentional focus and motor learning: A review of 15 years. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 6(1), 77-104. doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2012.723728
5. Chua, L.-K., Jimenez-Diaz, J., Lewthwaite, R., Kim, T., & Wulf, G. (2021). Superiority of external attentional focus for motor performance and learning: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 147(6), 618-645. doi.org/10.1037/bul0000335
6. Gardner, F. L., & Moore, Z. E. (2004). A mindfulness-acceptance-commitment-based approach to athletic performance enhancement: Theoretical considerations. Behavior Therapy, 35(4), 707-723. doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(04)80016-9

This guide is for general education and isn't medical or mental health advice. If you're struggling, talk to a licensed professional. In the United States, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.