Performing under pressure is what most athletes yearn for, or maybe even avoid. You may be imagining yourself in the big moment with the entire crowd watching and holding their breath as the end of the game looms. You get ready to seize the moment that you have performed countless times, but you begin to feel anxious and start to try a little harder in order to perform at your best. The tension in your body starts to increase as you are about to perform. You may take a breath to gather yourself, but as you get ready to shoot that shot or serve in tennis, you choke (i.e., performing a skill you ..read more

According to the NCAA, mental health issues have been increasing in the past few years (NCAA, 2016). As an athlete you may be experiencing some stressful events in and out of sport. These circumstances or situations may make you lose sight of some of the positive things going on in your life. Recently, gratitude has been researched in regards to athlete’s well-being in order to understand the relationship between gratitude and life satisfaction or burnout. Specifically, Gabana and colleagues (2019) examined the implementation of a gratitude workshop on state gratitude (i.e., current level of g ..read more

The following link is a video book review of The Champion’s Mind by Jim Afremow. If you are interested in reading this book, but you are not sure if its the one for you, then you should take a look at this video. Thank you ..read more

Statistics are a major part of sports. But do keeping track of statistics actually benefit performance? Many coaches incorporate stats as a way to determine how athletes are performing. Also, athletes may keep track of their stats in order to compare to previous performances or to see where they are at with their current goals. If you are a coach who wants to motivate your athletes to practice “harder” (i.e., efficiently and adequately) or an athlete who wants to improve competition performance, keep reading to see how keeping stats might enhance performance.    Goal setting or track ..read more

The following link is a video book review of Mind Gym by Gary Mack and David Casstevens. If you are interested in reading this book, but you are not sure if its the one for you, then you should take a look at this video. Thank you ..read more

Most athletes experience psychological distress during their athletic career. As mentioned in a previous blog post, athletes have a lot on their plate. Yet, one topic that has not been researched extensively is the interaction between a distressed athlete and a coach. Therefore, Bissett and Tamminen (2020) examined 15 former varsity collegiate student-athletes (2 male, 13 female) and 15 university coaches (11 male, 4 female) using semi-structured interviews that focused on psychological distress. Results from the participants’ responses demonstrated that there were five barriers athletes exper ..read more

The following link is a video book review of Ninety Percent Mental by Bob Tewksbury and Scott Miller. If you are interested and reading this book, but are not sure if its the one for you, then you should take a look at this video. Thank you ..read more

Staying focused on the present can be a challenge, especially with the times we are in now. The fear of tomorrow and the worries of yesterday may be present in your mind. If you are an athlete, you may understand the importance of being present. You may have heard a coach tell you to focus on the next play or to forget what happened on the last play. In essence, they are telling you to focus on the ‘now’, which is referred to as mindfulness. Mindfulness is defined as, “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003 ..read more

For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing posts on research relevant to coaches, but today I wanted to focus on athlete research. Specifically, coping with stress for athletes, and all individuals for that matter. Student-athletes tend to have a lot on their plate, including weight training, practices, classes, homework, studying, watching film and I guess eating, sleeping and maybe a social life too. The best word to describe their schedule in a nutshell is: busy. Yet athletes are used to experiencing stressful situations in their sport, but you may be wondering how you can apply this to your ..read more

A few days ago, I came across a study by Kim, Lee and Kang (2019) that I thought would be interesting for all you coaches out there. These researchers studied the relationship between passion for coaching and whether a coach used autonomy-supportive behaviors (i.e., providing choice for their athletes) or controlling behaviors (i.e., choosing everything for their athletes). Also, the researchers examined the perception of coaches’ relationship with their athletes. Within this study, 172 national level coaches (121 male, 51 female) from South Korea participated. These coaches on average were 36 ..read more