Peter Vidmar, an Olympic gymnast, used specificity training to prepare for the 1984 Olympics. Peter's goal was to make his practice as close to a real meet as possible. He wanted to practice with the same distractions and emotions that go with competition. Peter and his teammates simulated the
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sports tips for athletes
Don’t Forget About Practice Goals
Setting goals are an important part of structuring practice and improving the quality of your performance. You wan to have clear goals about what you want to achieve in sport. However, when it comes to training and practice sessions, many athletes do not have well defined goals and this can help you
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Crunch-Time Strategies
The best athletes in the world use pressure to their advantage and can perform their best in crunch time. However, even the best athletes in the world sometimes struggle with confidence and closing out a match. The athletes with the most confidence in crunch time and willing to lay it on the line,
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Result-oriented Thinking
Athletes today focus too much on results, rankings and position on the team. Doing so makes it hard to reach their potential, let alone feel satisfied with their game. Result-oriented thinking leads to: fear of failure, fear of success, performance anxiety, and tension.
How can you possibly get
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Coping with Distractions
Coping with distraction is a part of sports every athlete must learn. Top athletes have the ability to focus under pressure and cope with external distractions by using routines that help them stay tuned into the right performance cues. For example basketball players dealing with hecklers when
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Welcome Pregame Jitters
Every competitive athlete experiences pre-competition jitters. Your jitters may be positive and helpful or induce anxiety and apprehension. Pregame jitters can cause some athletes to not sleep well the night before competition. Some athletes can’t eat the morning before a big game. Your
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How to Win Ugly
Many of the athletes I work with focus too much on having the perfect performance or fixate on how they will appear to others (such as teammates, parents, coaches) when performing. The need to execute flawlessly or to look good in competition undermines performance during competitive
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Breaking Free From a of Slump
Every athlete, at some point in his or her career, experiences a slump in performance. A slump is a noticeable decrease in your performance for a prolonged period of time. To break free from a slump you must first determine if your slump is from physical or mental game causes. Once you determine the
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