Understanding Performances under Competitive Pressure: An Exploration for Capabilities to Perform from the Perspective of Clutch

Clutch is a phenomenon typically opposite to choking,inferring as athletes’perfect performances at the critical moments.From the phenomenological perspective,this article is to discuss the performance under pressure and analysis the features of athletic clutcher’s capabilities to perform.The aim of this article is to provide a theoretical reference for training and selecting elite athletes.The article suggests that there is a phenomenon of polarity in performance under pressure,in which choking infers to negative results of performance and clutch reflects positive results of performance.From the perspective of features,choking explains for the state performance and clutch shows the trait performance.Clutch addresses the athletic capabilities to perform under pressure,which often occurs on elite athletes.This article suggests that there is an existence of clutch performers and discuss an explaining model of clutchers’capabilities to perform by analyzing the cases of clutch performance and reviewing related research findings.This article also suggests that the model mainly included“specific capabilities to perform sports”,“capabilities to cope the cognitive pressure”,and“athletic personalities”.The discussion is related to above three aspects in detail and proposes the directions of future research.