Showing titles in Sports Psychology

The Brave Athlete solves the 13 most common mental conundrums athletes face in their everyday training and in races. You don't have one brain - you have three; your ancient Chimp brain that keeps you alive, your modern Professor brain that navigates the civilized world, and your Computer brain that accesses your memories and runs your habits (good and bad). They fight for control all the time and that's when bad things happen. What if you could stop the thoughts and feelings you don't want? You can.

Evoking days gone by when coaches were respected as much for their off-court performances as for their success on the court, Wooden presents the timeless wisdom of legendary basketball coach John Wooden. In honest and telling passages about virtually every aspect of life, Coach shares his personal philosophy on family, achievement, success, and excellence. Raised on a small farm in South-Central Indiana, he offers lessons and wisdom learned throughout his career at UCLA and life as a dedicated husband, father, and teacher.

In The Champion's Mind, sports psychologist Jim Afremow, PhD, LPC, now offers the same advice he uses with Olympians, Heisman Trophy winners, and professional athletes, including tips and techniques based on high-performance psychology research, such as how to get in a "zone," thrive on a team, and stay humble; how to progress within a sport and sustain excellence long-term, and customizable pre-performance routines to hit full power when the gun goes off or the puck is dropped.

Golf is a beloved yet technical game, so a sound swing and precise technique are essential. Most golfers who want to improve their skills go to the range and work painstakingly on their swings, not realizing it's often their performance state on the course that needs work, not their technique. Simple things such as awareness of your balance, tension, and tempo, as well as the ability to control mental, emotional, and social variables you encounter while playing, can quickly take your game to a new performance level.

Noted sports psychology consultant Gary Mack explains how your mind influences your performance on the field or on the court as much as your physical skill does, if not more so. Through 40 accessible lessons and inspirational anecdotes from prominent athletes—many of whom he has worked with—you will learn the same techniques and exercises Mack uses to help elite athletes build mental "muscle". Mind Gym will give you the "head edge" over the competition.

In Every Moment Matters, renowned coach educator John O'Sullivan has collected hundreds of interviews with top coaches, sport scientists, psychologists, and athletes and distilled them into a blueprint for becoming a more effective and inspiring leader. Great coaches realize something that others do not: Every moment matters!

To be a golfer is to tinker-with everything from equipment to grip to swing. But one thing most players don't give enough attention to is the mental game. Psychologists aren't a new phenomenon in golf, but Dr. Michael Lardon is a different breed of performance coach. Instead of sending his players into a losing battle against emotion, indecision, and fear on the golf course, he shows them how to organize their thoughts and use them for maximum performance.

Building on the core concepts introduced in Every Shot Must Have a Purpose and the strategic thinking in The Game Within the Game, Play Your Best Golf Now takes the mystery out of the soft skills of golf and shows golfers how to add these skills to their game for peak performance.

In this book, authors H.A. Dorfman and Karl Kuehl present their practical and proven strategy for developing the mental skills needed to achieve peak performance at every level of the game. The theory and applications are illustrated by anecdotes and insights from major and minor league players, who at some point discovered the importance of mastering the inner game in order to play baseball as it should be played. Intended for players, managers, coaches, agents, and administrators as well as fans who want a more in-depth look at the makeup of the complete baseball player.

Written by the late, beloved Dr. George Sheehan, Running and Being tells of the author's midlife return to the world of exercise, play, and competition, in which he found "a world beyond sweat" that proved to be a source of great revelation and personal growth. But Running and Being focuses more on life than it does, specifically, on running. It provides an outline for a lifetime program of fitness and joy, showing how the body helps determine our mental and spiritual energies.

Joe Ehrmann's coaching philosophy was described by Jeffrey Marx in the best seller Season of Life, and since the publication of that book, thousands of coaches have looked to Joe for advice about putting his philosophy into practice. InSideOut Coaching provides the critical information and tools they've been waiting for - the information to help coaches everywhere create more meaningful experiences for themselves and to maximize their impact on the lives of the athletes they coach.

Golf is a Zen sport. If you leave the present moment, you will likely feel the immediate karmic consequences like a hammer hitting your thumb. In The Mindful Golfer: How to Lower Your Handicap While Raising Your Consciousness, Stephen Altschuler helps you nail it all right - hard and true and into another level of surrender, satisfaction, and, self-awareness. He uses the tools of Zen to raise the game several notches on the ladder of consciousness.

This phenomenally successful guide has become a touchstone for hundreds of thousands of people. Not just for tennis players, or even just for athletes in general, this handbook works for anybody who wants to improve their performance in any activity, from playing music to getting ahead at work.

As a therapist, physician, and mental coach, Dr. Michael Lardon has dedicated his career to helping athletes understand and better achieve peak performance. In Finding Your Zone, he shares with listeners what he's discovered about reaching the state in which "thoughts and actions are occurring in complete synchronicity" and how this state is accessible to all, not just the few. In 10 key lessons - illustrated by personal anecdotes from his clients - Lardon teaches listeners how to access the zone not only in sports but in all aspects of their lives.

Every sports fan loves a great comeback. Is there a special quality shared by top athletes who triumph over great challenges? And can anyone acquire it? In The Comeback Quotient, celebrated sports writer Matt Fitzgerald supplies the answer to both questions. He identifies these mega-achievers of astounding athletic comebacks as "ultrarealists", men and women who succeed where others fail by fully accepting, embracing, and addressing the reality of their situations.

This book is aimed at giving pool players the mental skills to conquer their inner game, improve their pool game, and take them to higher levels of play. Topics include Mental Skills of Successful Athletes, Awareness, Positive Thinking, Performance Anxiety, Focus, Visualization, Self-Criticism, Learn By Feel, Winning-Losing, Goal Setting, Slumps, Consistency, Motivation, Confidence, Big Game Pressure, Physical Exercise, Mental Toughness, Decision Making, Practice, Strategies, Pool Journal, Competing, Good Sportsmanship, Post Match Learning, Mental Training Plan, Pro Player Insights, and ...

Over two unbelievable decades, the New England Patriots were not only the NFL's most dominant team, but also - and by far - the most secretive. How did they achieve and sustain greatness - and what were the costs? In It's Better to Be Feared, Seth Wickersham, one of the country's finest long form and investigative sportswriters, tells the full, behind-the-scenes story of the Patriots, capturing the brilliance, ambition, and vanity that powered and ultimately unraveled them.

There's more to getting into the right headspace for the big game or event than trying to think like a winner. In Sports Psychology for Dummies, 2nd Edition, a team of athletic performance experts and psychologists walks you through the mental side of intense competition and training. From the importance of focus to the tactics designed to restore and improve confidence after a loss, you'll explore ideas such as goal setting, self-perception, and self-talk.

World-famous competitive skydiver and coach Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld presents proven tools and techniques for success and explains how they can be used in everyday life. Dan survived a plane crash from which 16 of the 22 people on board were killed. He was left critically injured and woke up from a six-week-long coma with a broken neck, broken skull, severe head trauma, a collapsed lung, and other serious internal injuries. Against all odds, Dan recovered and went on to become one of the greatest competitive skydiver in the world.

Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule. David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel.