Athletes Corner

  by Stephen E. Walker, PhD, NCC, CC-AASP, USOC Registry of Sport Psychology and  Bill Walker, JD.   Athlete’s Dilemma: With So Many Variables in Training – Overwhelm is a Common Occurrence Not too long ago Podium Sports Journal conducted an interview with Dr. Sam Maniar, former staff Sport Psychologist with The Ohio State...
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by Dr. Stephen Walker – Editor-in-Chief - Podium Sports Journal No one ever wants to go there.  No one wants to see it happen.  As brutal and grueling as sport is there is one huge likelihood….and that is that we will experience injury.  Hopefully, it is just a ding…sprain…bruise…contusion…bug…or require a simple brace, ice...
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Consistent with other Posts on Podium – this article helps define mental training skills and priorities in being able to practice with a purpose and take those skills onto the field of play, in this case, the golf course.  Matt does a great job emphasizing the key elements to accomplishing just that.  Enjoy! –...
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by Matt Long, MA, MEd, and Stephen Walker, PhD “What wins championships?” Kobe Bryant: “Togetherness.  Finding a way to play that maximizes each other’s talents.  It’s not about speed, it’s not about athleticism.”              Kobe Bryant knows a little bit about winning championships.  With five NBA titles under his belt and two Olympic gold...
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Podcast of the Week – Dr. Larry Lauer – Keys to Coaching Youth Hockey Dr. Larry Lauer is the Director of Coaching Education and Development at Michigan State University’s Institute for the Study of Youth Sports.  He has played hockey for many years and continues to coach the game.  As a AASP certified sport...
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  Podcast Interview with Dr. Andrea Becker on Perceptual Differences in Optimism & Coaching Effectiveness Coaching is a tremendously dynamic process.  One who studies coaching effectiveness is Dr. Andrea Becker from California State University at Fullerton.  She will be the first to tell you that there are many different variables to coaching effectiveness.  She’s...
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Dr. Lenny Wiersma is faculty at California State University, Fullerton and has long been an admirer of Big Wave Surfing.  So he decided it might be good to understand more about the mental skills involved in this remarkable endeavor.  He got a great sense of what these incredible athletes experience, train, and go through...
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by Earl Poteet, MSW Background After spending the 2011 baseball season as the team psychotherapist for the Colorado State University-Pueblo Thunderwolves – (see “Performance Work with College Baseball Pitchers, A Case Study,” Podium Sports Journal July 2011) – I continued to have contact with several of the players who had not graduated the previous...
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Part One in the Series – Using the Body Report by John Beeby If you want get straight down to using the techniques jump to the ‘Techniques’ section below. For a little more background read the Introduction first…… Introduction From the outset, research and practice around the use of mental imagery or visualization in...
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Podium Sports Journal’s Podcast of the Week – An interview with Drs. Noah Gentner and Vanessa Shannon by Dr. Stephen Walker, CC-AASP Sport Psychologists recognize the importance of mental skills & preparation strategies used by coaches and athletes before key athletic events.  Most athletes understand their importance as well.  But, what do these athletes...
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