Showing titles in Sports Psychology

The Thursday Speeches pulls back the curtain to put listeners in the room with exclusive access to the compelling pregame speeches from one of the best college football coaches in history. The book reveals the exact words James used to inspire the Huskies to slay the football giants of his day. It features the inspiring stories and invaluable life lessons that Coach Don James used to transform the University of Washington football program from obscurity to the national championship.

In the world of elite sports, victory is often attributed to physical and athletic prowess alone. But what if the key to unlocking your full potential lies not in your physical abilities, but in your mindset? In Extreme Balance, three renowned experts on performance, motivation, and competition dive into the unexplored territory of the mind, paradoxically revealing the one mindset that can truly elevate your game: the ability to embrace an unfixed mindset.

Being able to prevail over obstacles and opponents gives you a boost in confidence that carries over to your school and personal life, improving your performance in those areas as well. Unfortunately, you can’t win all the time. Sometimes, you have a bad day, or you simply get outplayed, and you end up doubting yourself and your athletic abilities. These feelings of worry, uncertainty, fear, doubt, or anxiety will make it difficult for you to perform consistently well. But with time, some effort, and the right knowledge, you can take control of your confidence.

Has your mind sabotaged your tennis game on more than one occasion? Have you struggled to maintain inner peace when engaged in competitive play? Have unnecessary fear and worry robbed you of the pleasure you once experienced playing the great game of tennis? If you have answered “yes” to any of these, then this book is for you. This special edition has 10 additional chapters devoted to improving the junior and adult competitors’ mental strength during play. These chapters will continue to give you practical strategies and tips, keeping you on the path to play your best tennis!

The power to become better, greater, more refined versions of ourselves is something that each one of us possesses. It is a power with which we are born, like infinite gold inside the equally infinite mine shafts that are our minds. Now, to get at that gold - there is the rub. Since time immemorial people have struggled to manage the darkness within themselves. How do we reckon our possibilities with our capabilities? How do we overcome the difficulties within? How do we shake off the invisible sandbags that seem to drag us down and run faster, jump higher, push harder?

Gary Bloom is a sports psychotherapist. He works with footballers, cricketers, rugby players, jockeys, Olympians and many other athletes besides. They might seem like superheroes on the pitch, but in the dressing room they're just like anybody else, subject to the same emotional pressures that affect us all. In Keeping Your Head in the Game we peer into this highly confidential world.

John Callahan is a man who has spent his life following his calling as a high school football coach just like his legendary father. But his dream life is suddenly being crushed. Just days before the state championship game, John receives news that his beloved school is declaring bankruptcy and will be shutting down at the end of the year. Everything John has worked his whole life for is being taken away from him. John is now questioning all his past decisions and he's angry at himself for not taking more "practical" opportunities when they came along.

Kenneth Fuller, MD, an avid weekend warrior and leading psychiatrist, shares his performance enhancement skills to lead you to better, more enjoyable golf. This established authority on mental triumph delivers a methodology that uses autosuggestion to help you master your thoughts and induce a conditioned reflex. The human brain creates focus and finds the best performance zone. Playing only with the body limits the golfer. A genuine golfer plays with body and mind. The golf artist plays with mind, body, and heart. The professional golfer trusts every element unconsciously.

Being mentored by Chrissie Wellington would be a dream for any triathlete. In To the Finish Line, Chrissie presents her distilled wisdom, hard-won over the course of her extraordinary career, to give all triathletes the chance to learn from the very best. Chrissie writes with emotional honesty, and her warmth and sense of humour also shine through. She speaks frankly about her own experiences - both good and bad - from her career. Such stories will be a source of great inspiration to listeners.

The Athlete’s Ascent shows how you can harness the wisdom of martial and Zen arts to develop the profound connection between mind, body and breathing that leads to the coveted flow state. Drawing on a lifetime of deep practice, Jayne Storey has streamlined centuries-old disciplines – including Tai Chi and Zazen meditation – into a simple, proven and trusted Performance Practice that helps both amateur and professional athletes ascend to higher levels of enjoyment and performance.

Instead of concentrating on how to improve your technique, Timothy Gallwey starts from the understanding that 'every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game'. The former is played against opponents on the court, but the latter is a battle within ourselves as we try and overcome self-doubt and anxiety. It is often won or lost before a ball has been hit. In his revolutionary approach, built on a foundation of Zen thinking and humanistic psychology, Gallwey will teach you how to trust the intuitive wisdom of your body and achieve a state of ‘relaxed concentration’.

Long before Paul Rabil had become the most acclaimed lacrosse player of all time, the sport’s first million-dollar man, and started his own professional league, he knew he wanted greatness. The problem was he lacked a manual. So, he went out and created one. He asked Bill Belichick how to prepare, Steph Curry how to practice, and Sue Bird how do be resilient in the face of adversity. The Way of The Champion is the synthesis of everything Rabil learned on his path to becoming the greatest lacrosse player of all time.

The penalty shootout is the most intense drama in sport. The anxious wait, the building dread, the lonely, heavy-legged walk towards the penalty spot. One kick while the world holds its breath. Even the most casual observers cannot escape the nerve-wracking suspense. What happens to a footballer's brain and body in these heart-pounding moments of pressure? Why do some thrive while others choke? In this ground-breaking book, sport psychology Professor Geir Jordet dissects each agonising element of the shootout's duel and the universal human stress mechanisms that it triggers and illuminates.

Courage Over Confidence offers a new approach to conquering the mental game of sports. Written for competitive young athletes, as well as professionals and Olympians, it is also a game changer for coaches and parents looking for ways to further help their aspiring athletes. In this book, renowned clinical and sport psychologist Dr. Mitchell Greene explodes one of the field’s most common and malicious myths—that confidence is a prerequisite for athletic success.

In spring 2018, England cricket had a performance problem. The Test team hadn’t won a Test match overseas for nearly two years. Recently crushed in the Ashes, England teams were world ranked 5th, 4th and 2nd across the three formats. The England and Wales Cricket Board approached Ed Smith, asking him to bring in a whole new philosophy. Over the next three years, England’s teams won 7 out of 10 completed matches—better than England had ever performed in the board’s history. Making Decisions shares Ed’s approach to finding success.

In this inspirational fable, Bob Flanagan represents the voice of old school grit. A legendary college basketball coach who thinks like John Wooden and talks like Mike Ditka, Flanagan is entering the final days of his coaching career. While his team tries to advance through the NCAA postseason tournament, Flanagan uses his last days as a coach to write his grandchildren letters revealing the rules for a successful and happy life. The rules of grit.

'If you carry on like this, you'll do nothing but play football and cricket all your life.' These were the exasperated words of Mike Brearley's mother, as he once again trod mud into the family home after a long day playing outdoors. They were also an unwitting but half-accurate prediction, for Brearley would become one of the most successful sportsmen of his generation by playing cricket for Cambridge, Middlesex and then becoming one of England's finest captains. But for Brearley, cricket wasn't just a physical activity, it was also an intellectual game.

Personal trainer to the stars Jono Castano draws upon his own experiences as a non English-speaking new migrant, professional sportsman and celebrity trainer to cut through the noise and share the key skills which will help make your own fitness transformation both sensible and sustainable. Detailing the five key pillars to great health and his own success--Mindset, Exercise, Nutrition, Sleep and Balance--It Starts Today provides evidence based advice and achievable plans to help motivate you for change and overhaul your life, both inside and out.

This superbly narrated and insightful audiobook follows the paths of thirteen ravaged champions in solitary crafts such as cycling and running, bowling and boxing, hiking and golf. These men work at and master their sports, driven only by a burning need to prove themselves. Movingly detailed here are their painful journeys to grace, and their eventual realization that no victory brings lasting happiness. In short, here is the human experience, told in seconds and miles, scorecards and records.

Is your temper getting the best of you? Are you too timid or conservative to go for it when it counts? Is your personality keeping you from playing your best golf? Every golfer, whether amateur or pro, has a dominant golf personality: a set of traits that sometimes helps you win - but sometimes lands you in the rough. By carefully observing professional golfers' behavior and analyzing his own students' successes and failures, leading mental golf expert Darrin Gee has identified seven basic personality types.