Posts Tagged ‘ coach ’

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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“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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“It is common knowledge that Muay Thai training is one of the toughest in the world of sport. Some sports physiologists even feel that it is too stressful for the nervous system to go through two sessions of anaerobic training a day like Muay Thai practitioners do. I believe that it is not the...
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“It is no secret among athletes that in order to improve performance you’ve got to work hard. However, hard training breaks you down and makes you weaker. It is rest that makes you stronger. Physiologic improvement in sports only occurs during the rest period following hard training. This adaptation is in response to maximal...
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“Offensive skills let an athlete dominate a competition. Offensive physical skills might include the terrific top-end speed of 400-meter runner Michael Johnson or the high VO2 Max of Lance Armstrong that allows him to pass other cyclists in the Alps. Unusual strength and quickness are offensive physical skills in a majority of Olympic sports....
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“By the time Rivera reached the mound, he had shed all of the elements of humanity inconvenient to his job. Rivera tuned out the fans, as if switching off a light, and mentally muted Yankee Stadium’s thumping sound system; Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” had been used as the accompanying music for his entrance for four...
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“Humans think around 60,000 thoughts a day, and the quality of these thoughts is becoming increasingly important in a sport where a hundredth of a second is an eternity.” From an article on About.com by Craig Townsend. Here’s the full article. Here’s another quote: “One of the best ways to overcome negative thoughts before...
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