Resilience in Sports From a Dynamical Perspective

On the road to excellence, it is essential to develop resilience, that is, to be able to positively adapt within the context of significant adversity. Researchers tend to agree that resilience is a complex process with a multitude of underlying variables. To stimulate research on the process of resilience, we propose the dynamical system approach that provides a theoretical perspective on mapping out and understanding how resilience unfolds over time. Furthermore, we will demonstrate how the findings of previous research on resilience in sports fit with several dynamical properties, including complexity, iterativity, and the formation of attractor states. New findings on the dynamic properties of resilience will result in in-depth knowledge about, and in the understanding of, the process of how individuals adapt to adverse events. Practitioners might benefit from this approach by being able to detect early warning signals of critical transitions (e.g., critical slowing down) and take preventive actions before breakdowns in performance occur.