The reason you get shaky at the start of a game is due to your nervous system responding to a pressure-filled environment.
This is something a lot of athletes experience, but very few actually understand. And because they don’t understand it, they end up reacting to it in a way that makes their performance worse.
To really understand why the shakiness happens, and more importantly, how to handle it, you need to break down what’s going on beneath the surface.
What’s Actually Happening When You Start Shaking Before Games
There are three key factors involved in sports performance anxiety, and shakiness is one of the physical symptoms.
The first factor is cognition. This is your mental response to what you’re seeing.
When you show up to a game:
- You see the opponent
- You see the environment
- You recognize the situation
That immediately triggers a cognitive response. You begin thinking about the game, about your performance, about what could happen.
That mental response leads directly into the second factor: autonomic arousal.
This is the physical side of things. This is where the shakiness comes in, your heart rate increases, and your body starts to feel different.
Your nervous system is responding to what you’re seeing and what you’re thinking about.
This is your fight-or-flight response.
Your sympathetic nervous system is reacting to stress—the thought of the game, the thought of messing up, the thought of how good the opponent is.
And because of that, you experience physical symptoms.
These symptoms are real. They are physical. But they are also involuntary.
That’s a key point: this isn’t something you’re choosing. It happens automatically, often in a split second.
Why the Shakiness Feels Like a Problem
Where most athletes get stuck is not in the fact that the shakiness shows up, but in how they react to it.
Have you ever tried to stop the shaking, calm your body down, or force the nerves away?
In most cases, that actually makes it worse.
The more you focus on the feeling, the more you try to fight it, the more stress you bring into the situation.
And that matters because the shakiness itself is already a symptom of stress. So now you’re adding stress on top of stress.
You’re not just nervous anymore—you’re reacting to being nervous.
That’s when the feeling intensifies. That’s when it starts to feel overwhelming, and that’s when it begins to impact how you play.
What Actually Hurts Your Performance
There’s a third factor here that matters more than anything else: your behavioral response.
This is what you do after you notice the nerves.
For a lot of athletes, this response looks like:
- Playing timidly
- Playing tight
- Avoiding situations where they could mess up
- Continuing to focus on the shakiness
And this is where performance really starts to break down.
Because when you view the situation as stressful, you naturally feel pressure.
You want to do well.
You don’t want to mess up.
That pressure turns into forcefulness, and you start trying to control the result. And when you try to control the result, you stop playing freely.
You play tight, hesitate, and hold yourself back.
So while the shakiness might feel like the problem, what actually hurts you more is:
- Focusing on it
- Letting it control your mindset
- Changing how you play because of it
That’s when it becomes a real distraction.
What Helps You Perform When Anxiety Takes Over
If the problem isn’t the shakiness itself, then the solution isn’t getting rid of it.
The solution is changing your response to it.
Instead of panicking when you feel shaky, the goal is to accept the feeling and shift your focus.
That means:
- Not trying to resist it
- Not trying to force it away
- Not treating it like something is wrong
Because nothing is wrong.
Your body is doing exactly what it’s designed to do in a high-pressure situation.
Once you accept that, you can redirect your focus to something that actually helps you perform.
A simple, controllable objective.
For one athlete, that might be running loose.
For another, it might be:
- Seeing the ball clearly
- Staying aggressive
- Moving freely
- Focusing on the next play
The specific objective doesn’t matter as much as the principle.
You are shifting your attention away from the feeling—and onto what helps you perform your best.
What This Looks Like When Applied
I’ve worked with many athletes who experienced intense shakiness before competition.
One track athlete I’m currently working with had the biggest meet of her year. She felt incredibly anxious leading into it, just like she had for smaller meets earlier in the season.
What changed wasn’t the feeling.
What changed was her response.
Once she noticed the anxiety and the shakiness, instead of trying to fight it, she accepted it. She told herself it was okay to feel that way, and then she focused on running loose, because that gave her the best chance to perform well.
She still felt nervous, and she still shook before the race.
But she didn’t let it control her.
She ended up getting a PR, finishing first, and becoming number one in her state.
The difference was not that the nerves went away. The difference was how she responded to them.
The same shift applied to a figure skater I worked with. He used to focus heavily on the shaking, try to fight it, and then carry that tension into his performance. That led to being off balance and underperforming.
Once he stopped fighting the feeling and instead accepted it, he then focused on a simple objective, his performance improved.
The pattern is the same.
The feeling stays, the response changes, and performance improves.
The Shift You Need to Make
When you feel shaky before a game, it’s because your body is interpreting the situation as stressful.
And when that happens, you naturally want to perform well, while also not wanting to mess up, which creates pressure.
That pressure leads to forcefulness, tightness, and overthinking, and that is what actually hurts your performance.
So the shift is not trying to control how you feel.
The first part of the shift is acceptance.
Instead of fighting the shakiness, trying to get rid of it, or telling yourself it shouldn’t be there, you accept it. You recognize that it’s a normal, automatic response, and that it doesn’t need to go away for you to perform well.
Because the moment you stop resisting the feeling, you stop adding more stress on top of it.
Now you’re not dealing with stress about stress. You’re just dealing with the initial response, and that’s much easier to handle.
From there, you shift your focus.
Instead of asking, How do I stop feeling this way?, the better question becomes, What actually helps me perform my best right now?
That’s where your attention needs to go.
Because yes, the shakiness can be uncomfortable, but what hurts you far more is when you focus on it, let it distract you, and allow it to dictate how you approach the game.
That’s when it takes over.
But when you accept the feeling and redirect your focus to something simple and controllable, you take your attention back, and that’s what allows you to perform freely rather than tightly and hesitantly.
Final Thoughts
Shaking before games is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It’s a sign that your nervous system is responding to a high-pressure situation.
The response is automatic. It’s involuntary. And because of that, trying to eliminate it in the moment is not the most effective approach.
What matters is how you respond once you notice it.
If you can accept the feeling instead of fighting it, and then shift your focus to a simple, controllable objective, you give yourself the best chance to perform freely.
That’s the shift that allows you to move from playing tight and hesitant to playing the way you know you’re capable of.
And this is exactly what I work through with athletes in 1-on-1 coaching.
We don’t just talk about this concept. We build it into how you actually approach games.
We start by identifying exactly what’s triggering your nerves, whether that’s fear of messing up, pressure to perform, or overthinking in certain situations.
From there, we build a clear mental approach you can rely on before and during competition, so when the nerves show up, you’re not reacting to them; you know exactly how to respond.
That includes:
- Learning how to accept the feeling instead of fighting it.
- Training your focus onto simple, controllable objectives.
- Developing a consistent way to reset when you feel yourself getting tight.
So instead of hoping the nerves go away, you become someone who can perform with them.
If this is something you’re dealing with consistently, this is exactly what I help athletes work through in 1-on-1 coaching.
Learn more about my one-on-one mental performance coaching program.
