Watching videos of yourself and World Cup racers is a powerful tool for strengthening important mental muscles such as confidence, intensity, and focus. It can also be used, when combined with mental imagery, to improve technique and tactics. Another benefit is that watching yourself ski fast and top World Cuppers ski faster just gets you [...]
Watching videos of yourself and World Cup racers is a valuable tool for improving technique and tactics, getting inspired, and increasing motivation, confidence, and focus. If you’re like most racers, you use it a lot during the winter as part of your training. Video enables you to more clearly understand and see what you need [...]
One of the first questions that I ask athletes and coaches I work with is: Should you compete like you practice or practice like you compete? By far, the most frequent response is: You should compete like you practice. This answer seems perfectly reasonable if you think about it. When you practice, you’re relaxed, feel [...]
Not long ago, I completed what has turned out to be a three-week international tour of sport psychology. During my trips, I have worked with athletes and coaches from the U.S., Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Russia in Argentina, California, Oregon, and Switzerland. One question that has emerged during my travels involves the role of mental preparation in athletic development. But before I get to that question, let me provide some back story. Whenever I speak to athletes and coaches, I ask them how important the mind is to sport success. With few exceptions, the response is that the mind is as or more important than the physical and technical side of sports. I am obviously biased given my work in sport psychology, so I won’t take a position on which I believe is more important. But I will say that the mind is an essential piece of the sport performance puzzle. Consider the top-10 athletes, male or female, in any sport. Are they all gifted? Yes. Are they all in exceptional physical condition? Yes. Are they all technically sound? Yes. Do they all have the best equipment? Yes. So, on game day, what separates the best from those who are close, but can’t quite get to the top? All of these other factors being equal, it must be what goes on in their minds.
Great video of why Ted Ligety, the 2014 Olympic gold medalist in giant slalom, is so dominant. He just skis better than everyone else!
I just returned from Europe where I spent a week working with a group of highly ranked U.S. athletes during their off-season prep period. After a few days, the feedback I was getting from them was that I was really getting into their heads and causing them to think a lot, in fact, to a few of them, think a bit too much. This wasn’t a surprise to me as I hear this frequently. Between my mental skills work with athletes during practices, one-on-one sessions, team talks (in which we discussed a relevant sport topic each evening), and daily imagery sessions, the athletes were getting their minds stuffed with the mental side of their sport. I was definitely making them think more than they were accustomed. But that is, in fact, my job: to get the athletes I work with uncomfortable, push them outside of what they are used to, and think about things that will take them to the next level. Yes, admittedly, it can feel a bit overwhelming at first, but after a few days, they got used to it and figured out how to incorporate my approach into their usual training regimen.
Note: This article is an encore presentation of an article that never gets old. The race season is finally over. After a long and demanding winter, you're probably tired of skiing (regardless of whether the season was a triumph or a disappointment). It's time to hang up your skis, pack away your gear, kick back, [...]