Is there a Home Court advantage? (& How does the mind play into it!?)

August 22, 2011 By

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Recently minted Masters in Sport Psychology, Brian Levenson of Washington DC, and CoreMentalTraining.com joins us today to talk about his fascinating research on Home court (or field, or ice, or gym) advantage. Brian interviewed a number of NBA players as a part of his research, and shares that with us on the Athlete’s Audio Academy. Brian, along with the writers of Scorecasting have discovered that it does in fact exist, and can be a factor of referees, different routines, and rituals, different sleep habits, and even different game plans that contribute to playing differently at home, and on the road.

Brian Levenson is a mental training consultant based in the Washington D.C. area. Born and raised in the D.C. suburbs, Brian moved to San Francisco to get his M.A. in Sport Psychology.

Brian is also partnered with the Center for Athletic Performance Enhancement (CAPE). CAPE was founded by Julie Elion who is one of the premier Sport Psychology Consultants in the Nation. CAPE specializes in working with professional and amateur athletes who seek to enhance their athletic performance through a focused approach to the mental aspects of their sport.

A super-energetic guy, and prolific writer on his daily email newsletter, and twitter, enjoy Brian’s work to help your game, at home OR on the road!

 

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If you’re thinking negatively, you might as well punch yourself in the face.

August 15, 2011 By
Dr. Taryn Morgan | IMG Academies

Dr Taryn Morgan, PhD, of IMG Academies (and the business manager of two previous guests!) joins the Athlete’s Audio Academy today to talk some Mental Skills Conditioning.

Dr. Morgan outlines the basics of mental skills in a concise, easy to understand, and friendly manner. (Oh, and she’s DR. Morgan…so you know that she knows her stuff).  She was also a collegiate Tennis, and Volleyball athlete, of some repute, too.  She’s been there.  Done that.  Bought the T-Shirt.  Used it to wash her car.

Taryn has consulted with numerous junior, collegiate, and professional/Olympic athletes and teams. She has been the mental conditioning consultant for Texas A&M Women’s Soccer, University of Tennessee Women’s Soccer, Rowing and Swimming/Diving, Maryville College Volleyball, the Southeast Florida Figure Skating Club (including Amanda Evora, Olympic Pairs skater) in addition to all of the IMG sports.

 

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Why is the mental game such a mystery when we see it MASTERED!?

August 15, 2011 By



…even in what’s called a ‘loss’

The CBS (and All of the networks’) golf announcers all seem to be just amazed at how together, non-plussed by pressure situations, calm, fearless, and able to execute the current crop of young PGA Tour golfers are when wrapping up a tournament.  I’m sure that Gary McCord, David Feherty, Johnny Miller, and Jim Nantz all place themselves in the shoes of those young players when they were that age, and remember how they’d have felt in that situation…

But Keegan Bradley mentions Dr. Bob Rotella in his post-round interview….

…and Jason Dufner works with another BIG TIME (albeit elusive) Sport Psychologist.

Hey, announcers (and fans, and amateur players)…It’s not a shock that they can be calm at crunch time!  THEY PRACTICE THEIR MENTAL SKILLS EVERY DAY!  It’s just like a bucket of balls, or a putting drill.  Practice makes permanent.

The PGA Championship was another study in the importance of mental toughness.  ESPN’s headline read ‘Jason Dufner reflects positively on loss’.  To hear Jason talk about it…sure it was disappointing, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a loss to him..(Even the headline ‘reflect positive’ is a mental skill…reframing!)  Here’s the rest:

 

Frequent visitors to our Athlete’s Audio Academy video interview series will hear the themes that our Sport Psychology professionals bring up all the time.

  • Focus on controllables
  • Remaining Positive
  • Keeping an even keel
  • Learning from non-ideal events
  • Persevering
  • Doing what you love, and having fun
  • Letting go, and relaxing…

…gust to name a few of the key mental skills that Keegan and Jason showed as the round wound down.

Kudos, young guns.  You’re teaching everyone about mental skills training without even trying!

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Wait…WHAT was I just thinking?? | 4 types of Focus | Tomas Adalsteinsson

August 1, 2011 By
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We loved what he said about failure so much that we had him back to talk about focus!  Meet Tomas Adalsteinsson, the founder of TheSportBrain.com.

Tomas joins us to talk about his graduate work on sustained attention for athletes.  You WILL lose your focus in competition, as the research shows that optimal focus only exists for 1-4 seconds.  We fluctuate in various degrees of focus throughout all of our activity.

Your focus moves and switches all the time between the following four types of focus:

1.)  Attentional Orienting – Where am I generally looking?

2.)  Selective Attention –  I’m going to choose to direct my attention towards in that environment or direction?

3.)  Divided Attention – I’m focused on a couple of things…

4.)  Sustained Attention – How long can I maintain my gaze, or attention to that (or those) things?

He works as a Sport Psychology Consultant and College coach in Minnesota, having recently relocated. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Iceland (2007) and is a candidate for a Master’s degree in Sport Psychology from John F. Kennedy University (April, 2011). He helps teams and individuals develop a strong performance plan.

Tomas is a member of the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). He has experience working with athletes in sports such as golf, tennis, softball, and soccer, and has also taught life skills to incarcerated young men. He is a certified youth soccer coach from the Football Association of Iceland, and has coached golf at the beginner, intermediate, and junior levels.

Follow Tomas on Twitter

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A 5-point system to make you a Star | Dr. Jack Bowman | Mind Plus Muscle

July 25, 2011 By
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Wouldn’t it be AWESOME if there was a quick visual reference for optimal mental performance??  Something that would keep  you from having to read, remember, and think about a bunch of things…when you’re trying to NOT THINK!?

We’re lucky to be joined today by one of the most recognized Sports Psychologists in the profession, and a pioneer in distance learning programs for mental training.  He’s created (and describes here) the ‘Perform Like a Star’ program for athletes of all ages, and ability levels.

UPDATE!!  Dr Bowman has published a pdf of the Perform Like a Star program on his Facebook Page.  Here’s a link to the pdf.

Meet Dr. Jack Bowman, Founder of the Mind Plus Muscle Institute in Suffolk County, NY.

Dr. Bowman has been a guest with us twice before, discussing internships for young Sport Psychologists, and trying to separate the good info from the hooey with regards to mental training on the web.

He’s a certified consultant with the Association of Applied Sport Psychology, and he’s listed on the United States Olympic Committee‘s registry of Sport Psychologists.  An advocate of Sport Psychology Training at all levels of sport, Dr. Bowman has been a pioneer in the application of Telecommunications and Information Technology to make Mental Training and Sport Hypnosis accessible to all athletes

In addition to the ‘Perform Like a Star’ program, Dr. Bowman created the Mental Training Room, an online learning program in 1993.  Yep…1993, and he’s been involved in numerous programs at AASP, and at the Suffolk County Psychological Association, including the creation of a Mental Training manual for marathon preparation (which you can download here), and a podcast with Dr. Richard Lustberg on Sports Psychology.  Dr. Bowman is also board certified as a clinical hypnotherapist, and offers customized Sports Hypnosis recordings.

Dr Bowman details two important components to any mental skills training program, Goal Setting, and Mental Rehearsal(or Imagery).  At the Mind Plus Muscle Institute, Dr. Bowman offers Mental Rehearsal programs for Baseball, Ice Hockey, Basketball, Lacrosse, Body Building, Running, Football, Soccer, Volleyball, Sped Training, Wrestling, Triathlon, Tennis, and Swimming.  He’s also got some good advice for athletes to know what to look for in mental training, and what to look out for.

Dr. Jack Bowman is the Director of the Mind Plus Muscle Institute for Applied Sport Psychology in Port Jefferson Station, New York. Since 1980 Dr. Bowman has served on the graduate faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook where he teaches the Psychology of Sport. In 1981 he founded the Mind Plus Muscle Institute where he has developed numerous performance enhancement programs, including the Mental Training Room that is currently being utilized by athletes at major universities and Olympic training centers world wide.

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Utopia for Athletes | Angus Mugford of IMG Academies

July 11, 2011 By
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I think of it as the ‘Walled City of Oz’.  That magical place where nobody really knows what goes on inside, but we all suspect that it’s pretty amazing and magical.

Even the people who are there call it a ‘Sports Utopia’.

Meet Angus Mugford, PhD of the IMG Academies.  He joins the Athlete’s Audio Academy to give us a peek inside the tent.  The IMG Academy was started by Nick Bollettieri, and among the sports represented with physical skills and strength training, the IMG Performance Institute houses Angus, and the other 7 mental skills coaching professionals.

Angus also shares some info about Combine360.com, an new online community  that IMG, and UnderArmour have started to create a benchmark for measuring and improving athletic performance. Cool. Here’s the assessment and philosophy.

Angus holds a PhD in Sport Studies (specialization in sport/counseling psychology) from the University of Kansas,(and I published the interview EVEN THOUGH I went to Mizzou!) and is a Certified Consultant with Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) and British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences (BASES), which are two of the world’s top sport psychology professional organizations. He is also a member of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Sport Psychology registry.

Find more information on twitter for Angus & IMG, and dial in to the IMG Performance Blog, or Facebook page.

 

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Sports Choking, explained by a psychology pro

July 6, 2011 By
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Picture this situation as an athlete…and see if it’s ever happened to you:

‘Like two minutes ago, I was playing GREAT!  Now I can barely hit the ball!!  WHAT HAPPENED!!’

Framed through the Masters collapse, and US Open triumph of Rory McIlroy, PhD Sport Psychologist from the Minneapolis area Dr. Justin Anderson joins us today to talk some mental toughness, resiliency, and how the brain works (and changes) when faced with the ‘zone’ or faced with everything falling apart.  (As documented in this article in the BBC)

There are changes at the neural level in high pressure situations.  Flow, Self 2 (in the language of the Inner Game of Tennis), Muscle memory is the goal…but when the pressure cooks up…the chemistry in your head moves to different areas of your brain.  Your brain chemistry actually changes, and a new alchemy kicks in that the athlete doesn’t experience very often…let alone their normal state!

Your brain changes, your body tenses up…LOTS of inhibitive changes all at once.  Imagine how hard it is to hit a shot in THAT mindset!

Dr Anderson gives some GREAT tips on how to recognize some of your own self-talk, and tension growing in yourself, and how to get refocused on the present & the goal!  Even setting appropriate goals for learning from experiences, or reframing, are tips that you’ll hear in this Athlete’s Audio interview.

Dr Justin Anderson is a licensed Sport Psychologist in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. He specializes in sport and performance psychology, organizational psychology (primarily with family-owned and privately held businesses), and counseling psychology.  He publishes a blog on Sport Psychology topics, and can be found on twitter.

As an aside to our interview…preparation, and practice in all of the different physical and mental conditions that you’ll face is key to staying focused in competition.  Check this out to see how Rory practices.  The money quote is the last sentence: “So I can prepare…just like I’m there really.”

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What can you learn about a riders’ mind from watching the Tour de France?

July 2, 2011 By

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Ahh, July, when a cyclist’s thoughts turn to Northern France for the start of Le Tour. Shots of fields of sunflowers…Phil and Paul on TV at ungodly hours of the US morning ramping up the excitement for the finale. “Pedals turned in anger”…The Tour de France is upon us once again.

Computer screens in offices all over North America are avoiding work with one TDF streaming package or another. All seems right with the world.

That’s what’s in our minds as we watch…but what’s in the rider’s mind? (The effective rider at least!)?

Carrie Cheadle knows. She’s a Sport Psychology consultant in the Bay Area, and she works with lots of endurance athletes, adding mental skills to their toolbox.  She is to mental training for endurance athletes what @dwuori is to cycling comedy…that is, a top flight pro.

We discuss the different mental challenges of different kinds of stages, Flat stages in the first week; (where the challenge is focus, concentration, and attention), the high mountains (where confidence, the psychology of suffering, and imagery come into play), and the time trial stages; (again, suffering, pacing, pushing yourself, and goal setting are the skills).

Carrie is sponsoring Neil Browne’s (@neilroad) Online ‘Roadside’ Chats during the Tour (Athlete’s Audio is too…stage 12!) , and has more information about the skills mentioned in our Athlete’s Audio Academy interview on her youtube channel. Check her out at CarrieCheadle.com and follow @FeedTheAthlete on twitter.  I was lucky enough to interview her last year at the Association of Applied Sport Psychology conference on the topic of race-day fears.

Click & check out Carrie’s deeper dive on mental skills specific to cycling.

Carrie Cheadle lives in Petaluma, just north of San Francisco, California and has been consulting with teams, organizations, and individual athletes since 2002.

She has written a number of articles for many organizations including Nimble Training and Team Swift. She has been interviewed as an expert resource for articles that have appeared in VeloNews, Outside Magazine, Bicycling Magazine, Sporting Kid, Snowboard Canada, Men’s Fitness, as well as various local media outlets. She has been on the “Form & Fitness” expert panel for Cyclingnews.com since 2007.

Carrie received her Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and Sonoma State University and her Master of Arts degree in sport psychology at John. F. Kennedy University. Her professional affiliations include membership with AASP (Association for Applied Sport Psychology) since 2002, becoming an AASP certified consultant in 2007. She is also a member of IDEA Health & Fitness Association and a member of APA (American Psychological Association) Division 47, Exercise and Sport Psychology. Carrie is also adjunct faculty for both Dominican University of California and John F. Kennedy University teaching undergraduate and graduate level sport psychology classes

 

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Have you ever been in the zone?? What did it feel like (and how do you get back?!)

June 27, 2011 By
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Or what does it feel like when you’re on FIRE?  What would it be like to be able to get into that space more often?

Meet super-energetic, and engaging Justin Su’a, of Su’a Sport Psychology, a consultancy in Utah, focusing on improving and improving mental skills, and performance.  Justin consults with NFL Teams, Major League, and College Baseball players, youth athletes, even competitors on Dancing with the Stars!

Justin shares with us some of the mindsets that can help young athletes (and their parents) and performers overcome thinking that’s holding them back from their best performance, and we discuss the misconception that an athlete has to have something wrong with them to benefit from Sport Psychology.

…and that many of the things that will benefit you on the field are things that will help throughout life.

Justin is also a prolific social media voice for Sport Psychology.  You can get additional mental skills training tips and information on his facebook page, and he regularly posts quick tips on twitter.

Here’s Justin’s bio.

Justin Su’a, MS is a Sport Psychology Consultant specializing in peak performance and confidence enhancement. He is also a key-note speaker and CEO of Su’a Sport Psychology, LLC.  He uses mental skills training to teach NFL athletes, university teams, elite dancers and other individuals how to think and perform at a high level.  Justin is a former All-American baseball pitcher from BYU and is one of the Sport Psychology Consultants on staff for the Sports Agency Corporation based out of Miami, Florida. He is a member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) and the official Sport Psychology Consultant for the American Samoa National Olympic teams and athletes. He received his Masters Degree from the University of Utah in the Psycho-Social Aspects of Sport with an interest in the nature of peak performance.

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Mental Skills Training for Leadership

November 1, 2010 By
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What do you get when you cross a former college baseball player, an AASP-Certified Sports Psychology Consultant, an SMU MBA candidate, a Licensed Professional Counselor-Intern, and a small business owner?

You get Glenn Pfenninger of Ignite Performance Group. (Perhaps his topic should be multitasking?!)

Glenn joins us at the AASP Conference in Providence to talk about using mental skills training, and Sports Psychology principles to leadership and business challenges.  Noticing emerging leaders (instead of prescribed leaders), and getting team goals and individual goals aligned are just a few of his suggestions.

The Ignite Performance Group employs a four-phase approach to develop the inner spark within each of the businesses, athletes and teams with whom they work and help them reach their full potential.

Phase One: Assessment Phase Two: Individual Development Plan Creation Phase Three: Mental Conditioning & Skill Development Phase Four: Re-assessment & Maintenance

Ignite is based in the Dallas Fort Worth area, but works with clients throughout the United States.  Glenn publishes a newsletter that you can get here, and you can contact Glenn here for more info.

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