Archive for August, 2007

There are a lot of reasons why swimmers regularly freeze up at meets. Probably the main reason for swimming slow under pressure is having the wrong focus of concentration both before and during your races. If you go into your meets and races with an “outcome focus,” that is, you’re worried about breaking a...
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1. Not being able to Concentrate. Focus is a huge part of fencing. Given that fencing isn’t the only thing in your life, being able to concentrate can be a huge task. If you can learn to concentrate on fencing when you are fencing, and not be distracted by other things, then you are...
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You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. - Sir Edmund Hillary, first climber to successfully summit Mt. Everest Setting goals is one of the most commonly used training tools. Goals can organize the...
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Sports Psychology is playing an ever-increasing role in influencing soccer performance. At Ajax football club in Holland, their selection policy of 18 year old players depends 80% of the time on the intelligence and personality of the footballer! A Sports Psychologist can identify weaknesses in the psychological make-up of a player and can provide...
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Dear Podium: I’ve got a young athlete I’ve been working with who trains beautifully but just can’t put it together during competition. I believe it is a confidence issue. How can I better coach him so that he doesn’t beat himself before the gun goes off? – Confidence Coach
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“Goals are effective because they influence psychological states such as self-confidence, direct attention to important aspects of the task, mobilize effort, increase persistence and foster the development of new learning strategies (Gould, 1993, p. 168).” “In essence, goal setting involves commitment and effort on the part of the coaches as well as athletes (Gould,...
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Kimiko Hirai Soldati, a 2004 Olympic diver, remembers exactly when her bulimia started. She was transferring from Colorado State to Indiana University, and one day she felt she had eaten too much. “The idea popped into my head that I could get rid of this,” she says. And so she threw up. That set...
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“The use of the word “aggression” is somewhat confusing. The term aggression is employed to describe angry violent behavior with intent to hurt a person or cause damage to property. “Aggressive” behavior is also used to depict a strong and somewhat adventurous effort. Thus an aggressive sales person or athlete, for example, may be...
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“The influence of stress on athletic performance is a legitimate concern for most coaches and athletes. Whether we realize it or not, our emotions affect every cell in our body (Tutko & Tosi, 1976). Negative emotional reactions are often caused by stress. One of the ways to deal with this phenomenon is to understand...
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Dear Podium: I've raced at a world class level for a number of years and had significant success. My best performance on the world stage was an 8th place in the Olympic Games and I was just coming off an injury. My problem is that in spite of this level of success, I sometimes...
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