The Sports Doc Chalk Talk

I believe the time is now that we make concerted efforts to better educate and prepare families for their child’s eventual sport retirement.  With sports being as big as they are in this country, its a shame that so many athletes are still left to themselves to figure out who they are, what their talents are beyond sports, and what future paths exist for them when in the midst of the sport retirement transition.  Fortunately, most athletes do not fall into the worst-case scenarios of suicide (as with the recent passing of Junior Seau), but literally millions of athletes from various sports, backgrounds, and types, experience great distress during sport retirement – often resulting in depression, anxiety, role confusion, and poor future planning.  In order to cope with this distress, many athletes turn to drug and alcohol abuse, aggression, and reckless behaviors (like gambling).

The message I am sending today is designed to promote more action in the ways of better educating sports families about the athletic identity, and how kids often develop an exclusive athletic identity that hinders them when they end their careers in sports.  With so many kids now specializing in one sport and playing it nearly year-round, it becomes easy to see how athletes develop their self-worth around “athlete.”  Their social identities (or how others view them), are also constructed around the athletic identity, too (like when we immediately ask about the game before anything else).  None of this is “bad” necessarily, but it all leads to the fact that most kids never play beyond high school (only about 5% do), making the sport retirement transition usually an abrupt and unplanned one. Without better educational efforts, families will continue to struggle when their kids (who are often just teenagers without great coping skills due to their youth) experience distress during this period — making it that much more important that we make things better.

Help is Here!

One approach that we have developed is Sport Success 360, a licensed educational system designed to help schools and youth sport leagues by providing key psychosocial information, tips, and strategies designed to help kids have a safe, fun, and meaningful athletic experience.  I encourage you to learn more about Sport Success 360 by watching this introductory video — Sport Success 360 includes a broad range of topics (including sport retirement), complimentary videos, and free downloads of Sport Success 360 and Sport Success 360 PLUS audio program.

If you are reading this blog, then it can be assumed you have an interest in youth and interscholastic sports (probably as either a parent, athlete, or coach).  While you may not be a decision-maker in your school or youth league, you can help raise awareness by mentioning Sport Success 360, or other great sport education programs out there that can help kids not only better prepare for sport retirement, but also learn about key psychosocial issues like the dangers of performance enhancing supplements, youth sport burnout, hazing, and many more issues.  In all likelihood you have also experienced more traditional issues, like playing time, cuts, sportsmanship, tough coaches (or parents), and travel leagues – Sport Success 360 covers those topics, too.

Education Helps On and Off the Field

Mental toughness is needed on the field, but it’s not limited to just wins and losses — we need to help families learn the culture of sports today, and successful strategies to help kids cope with the pressures they commonly experience in sports.  Just as important as the X’s and O’s are, we need to help kids with performance anxiety, as well as the resiliency needed to bounce back from adversity.  Ironically, these are really life skills and not limited to sports, making these kinds of sport education efforts that much more vital.

Better and more prevalent education does not imply that sports are bad, or that all kids who play sports have terrible experiences — far from it.  Instead, we need to realize that the days of a handful of casual summer games played on the local sandlot are long gone — replaced by high-level, intense, pressure-filled travel league sports schedules for kids who sometimes struggle to keep up.  Of course, these are not bad kids, either – they are just that, kids, vulnerable to kid mistakes when trying to deal with pressure.

Helping Kids – Even the Ones that Don’t Speak Up

Kids don’t always speak up when they feel pressure – be it from their parents or team expectations.  In some cases kids have a talent for a specific sport, but don’t love playing the sport — yet still refrain from speaking out because the see the time, money, and energy being invested in their athletic career.  Some kids have a lot of trouble multi-tasking other activities – like school and social activities — while others have difficulty dealing with resiliency that sometimes manifests into unsportsmanlike behavior and/or uncontrolled aggression.

When we view youth sports through the lens of it being an often intense, complex, and radically different experience than generations of the past, it helps us better frame the educational approach to youth sports as being one of “keeping up with the times” than one that needs to be done because of “problems.”  Introducing new and more advanced ways of delivering contemporary sport education is not an admission that an athletic department or youth league has gone out of control, but instead an example of sports leaders making important budgetary decisions that go beyond the traditional basics.  Of course, finding new revenue streams is never easy, but when issues become important enough people become resourceful – this is often referred to as a “tipping point.”  Are we there yet?  I think so, and from my experiences with many sports people, it sounds like there is increasingly more support to improve future efforts.  I personally believe this will happen, and I hope you do, too.

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Sport Success 360 is the premier sport education system, designed to improve the culture of your youth or interscholastic team/league!

This week I wrote about the potential increased risk for injury associated with sport specialization, and how so many coaches and athletes search for perfection in the mechanics of their sport, while at the same time dismissing the importance of learning mental skills that help with confidence, focus, resiliency, and reducing anxiety.

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In today’s youth and interscholastic sports world, the sport specialist (an athlete who plays a single sport rather than sampling different sports throughout the year) has become an increasingly more common sighting (AHPS).  In some cases the child makes this decision, while other times parents, coaches, and other influential people encourage the student athlete to specialize rather than sample different sports.  The main reason for sport specialization, according to most sport psychologists and physicians, is to devote more time and energy toward a specific sport with the idea that more training = better athletic skill acquisition for that specific sport.

While it is likely true that most kids who specialize in a sport will get better at that sport (and at a faster rate), it’s also true that the chances for youth sport burnout increase dramatically as well.  In addition to sports burnout, kids who specialize (and train year-round) might also be running a significantly higher risk for physical injury as a recent Yahoo story revealed:

Repetitive stress injuries are also on the rise. The days of lettering in several different varsity sports are gone; instead, students are encouraged to focus on a single sport starting at a very young age — as early as kindergarten, in some places — and stick with it throughout high school and college. Sometimes, they’re urged to do so by coaches hoping to hone a particular skill. Other times, they’re pushed by parents or driven to land a rare college scholarship. But the intense training in one sport over a long period of time can take a toll, even on young and fit bodies.

“Probably the thing that we’re seeing the most right now is any type of overuse injury, from stress fractures to low-level muscle injuries,” Charlie Thompson, chair of the NATA College/University Athletic Trainers’ Committee and the head athletic trainer at Princeton University, told Yahoo! Shine. “Off-season programs start too soon after the end of a long season, and we’re not allowing recovery to happen.”

So what does this all mean for the typical American sports parent?  The short answer may be that “more doesn’t always = better,” especially if ongoing injuries prevent a young athlete from actually benefiting from specializing in one sport.  It appears as though more sports medicine physicians, trainers, and other helping professionals are becoming aware of the health concerns surrounding sport specialization, and if you are a sports parent today, maybe you should pay attention to this news, too.  As with any important decision, pros and cons should be examined within your family before deciding whether to specialize or sample youth sports.

www.drstankovich.com

Sport Success 360 is designed to help you with the contemporary issues in youth and interscholastic sports – like sport specialization — check it out today!

Sport Success 360 is the premier sport education system on the market today, designed to provide coaches, parents, and student athletes with key information pertaining to today’s commonly experienced problems, issues, and trends in youth and interscholastic sports.  Whether its youth sport burnout, dealing with irate parents, playing time, travel leagues, or the decision around sport specialization vs. sampling, Sport Success 360 delivers professional advice designed to help kids use sports as a vehicle for life success.  Improve the sports safety at your league or school by delivering easy-to-understand tips and advice specific to coaches, student athletes, and parents – providing the “360″ advantage!

Benefits of Sport Success 360

• A 24/7 resource for coaches, student athletes, and parents
• Immediate and practical advice, as well as short videos to help with even deeper insights around today’s psychosocial issues in sports
• A built-in coach exam to test for proficiency
• FREE Sport Success 360 book and audio file downloads
• Finally, a product designed to help with the overall culture of your athletic department or youth sport organization!

Visit Sport Success 360 today and watch the short demo to learn more about individual purchases as well as school/league licensing.  Do your part to help the kids in your league or sport organization have a safe, fun, and meaningful athletic experience – check out Sport Success 360 today!

www.drstankovich.com

Athletes and injuries are nothing new, but did you know that the ways in which athletes recover from injuries today — and the potential problems that often follow after being prescribed pain pills — is very new, and quite alarming.  With sports being physical (and athletes becoming bigger, stronger, and faster), it’s not uncommon for an athlete to deal with an injury at some point in his or her career.  The problem, however, is usually not the injury itself (most heal successfully over time), but instead the injury recovery aftercare process that often includes prescription pain killer medication (i.e. oxycodone, vicodin, and other opiates).  Ironically, as the injury begins to get better, the pain pill addiction often becomes worse, all leading to very serious problems for athletes caught in this predicament (AHPS).

Athletes At-Risk

Delving deeper, it may not even be the pain pills that are the real problem these days, as pain pills have been prescribed by doctors to athletes for many years.  The real problem, it seems, is that increasingly more athletes are being left on pain pill prescriptions far beyond what is needed, creating a very strong physical addiction to the medication. It’s at this precise point where the real problems develop — where the athlete has become addicted to the opiate high, but his or her script has been terminated and the cravings still persist.  Sadly, more and more athletes are turning to hard-core street drugs like heroin (a relatively cheap opiate) to continue and satisfy their cravings.

For most people, the thought of a heroin-addicted person is very different than the thought of a current or former athlete in fantastic physical condition and widely popular with his or her peers.  Instead, most people think of a heroin addict as a strung-out junkie, dirty and homeless, hanging around on a street corner soliciting for a few cents.  In 2012 those folks still exist, but so, too, do a new breed of addicted heroin addicts that used to be amazingly skilled athletes.

When athletes become addicted to pain pills and their prescription runs out, their cravings do not end.  It is at this point where they have the following three choices:

a) Try to ween themselves off their addiction

b) Purchase pain pills off the street (they have become widely available, though not cheap)

c) Move onto to a more readily available, and cheaper, street drug (usually heroin)

Unfortunately, when athletes don’t stop using yet no longer have a prescription to fill, they often turn to buying pain pills and/or heroin to prevent them from getting sick from not having the drug.  In other words, they need the drug just to stay well. In these examples, athletes will sometimes sell things or even steal just so they can stay high and not experience the terrible withdrawal effects of “coming down.”  This is why we sometimes see previously upstanding people do things we could never imagine them doing (i.e. stealing, holding up banks, and even prostituting for money) just so they can feed their addiction.  And with heroin becoming so widely available, and relatively cheap, it’s easy to see where this story is headed.

Tips to Help

If you are a parent, coach, or an athlete who has a direct experience with pain pill (or heroin) usage/addiction, please consider the following tips and insights to help:

• First, if you are an athlete dealing with an injury talk to your doctor directly and explicitly about what alternatives there are (beyond opiates) to help manage and control your pain.  Pain pills are extremely addictive, so please consider them only as a last-resort option.
• If pain pills are prescribed, work with your doctor to explore the differences amongst the available medications, as well as pill strength (milligrams).  It goes without saying that you should always choose the lowest amount of pill strength to manage your pain, if possible
• If you are feeling better yet still have refills available, talk to your doctor about destroying the prescription so that the temptation to refill the script will no longer exist.
• If you are feeling addicted to pain pills (or heroin), STOP AND GET HELP.  Every medical expert agrees that these are drugs that are incredibly difficult to stop using on your own, and it is likely that you will need professional assistance to help with both the physiological and psychological symptoms and side effects.

Final Thoughts

As a clinician who regularly assists athletes, I have personally seen a spike in the number of athletes caught up in pain pills (and a few that moved onto heroin as a cheap alternative).  It’s astonishing how quickly this type of addiction occurs, and once it does it seems as though it is almost impossible to beat.  Unlike other non-opiate drugs, athletes who are innocently prescribed opiate pain pills to help manage an athletic injury are unknowingly rolling the dice with what could be a precursor to bigger future addiction problems.  It is for this reason that the entire athletic community – including athletes, coaches, parents, administrators, and sports medicine physicians – all need to tune in and take seriously the tragic potential consequences of pain pills and injured athletes.

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ESPN premiered “The Marinovich Project” last week, offering up close and personal views of the way Todd Marinovich was raised to play football under his father Marv’s relentless training.  This story was especially interesting to me, as I am about the same age as Todd, and even back in the 1980′s (before the internet!) I remember hearing about this “bionic QB” being built out in California by his dad.  Unlike today, where high school athletes are regularly talked about on ESPN and other national sport outlets, for us to even hear — much less watch video — of a high school quarterback from the west coast was simply unheard of.  I remember seeing Marinovich on television and hearing about all the hype surrounding how he was literally “built” to play football – and how his dad controlled his every meal and put him through unbelievable training workouts.

Since first hearing about Marinovich in high school, I continued to watch from afar as he went on to play college and professional football, and I went on to graduate school to study human thinking and behavior.  While I never obsessed on Marinovich, he was always in the back of my mind, especially later in my professional counseling career when meeting with parents at my office that seemed to be obsessed with their kid’s athletic development. After watching Marinovich burn out from football, his story (sadly) served as an example I used with parents who were clearly going too hard with their kid.

What one famous behaviorist once said…

Interestingly, I remember in graduate school learning about the famous behaviorist John Watson, and specifically learning about his claims that if he could control all the surroundings of a kid from birth onto adulthood, that he could essentially develop the kid into anything he wanted (i.e. a doctor, artist, accountant, etc.).  His argument was that environment, not genetics, play a much bigger role when it comes to human development.  In the Marinovich example, one could easily say Watson’s theory may have held up – at least for a short while.  While Marv did seemingly develop his kid into an elite-level QB, the price they both paid for the efforts seems to have been a hefty one indeed (ESPN revealed their personal struggles in the program – Todd with drugs, and Marv with failed marriages).

Some of my other observations from the Marinovich program included:

• This was a perfect example of erroneous human thinking – we often believe if somebody is “good” at something, they must also love doing it.  Todd admitted he liked playing football, but to objectively parse out that he “loved” playing was rather difficult, especially with his militant-style father never giving him a chance to experience life without football.
• The pursuit of playing in the NFL seemed to serve as a utopia for the Marinovich’s, leaving Todd in no-mans land once he finally made it to the league.  What do you do for the rest of your life once you have played in the NFL at the age of 21??  Todd struggled with this, and admitted on the program he really didn’t know what to do “next” as this was his end-all, be-all lifelong pursuit.
• Marv Marinovich appeared to be a very loving and caring father, but also a troubled one.  He clearly obsessed with Todd’s development, even to the point of losing jobs and marriages.  Supporting your child is one thing, but living your entire life through your child is another.
• It was really no surprise for me to learn about the drug usage Todd admitted to while playing football.  Of course, it’s never advised to recklessly use street drugs, but in the case of Todd Marinovich it’s easy to see why he would turn to drugs (or anything for that matter) that would provide a respite from all the pressure and expectations placed upon him.  Again, this doesn’t excuse or endorse the behavior, but instead hopes to explain it.
• I found Todd to be a very interesting, thoughtful, and caring guy.  Most of us simply saw him as some kind of super-human machine when we first heard of him in the 1980′s, but after all that he has been through he came off in the program as a level-headed and cerebral guy.  No bitterness, no animosity, and no hatred toward his dad (or anyone else).  If anything, he appeared more confused by all that has happened the last 25+ years of his life – almost as if he had been on the sidelines watching his life play out based on a story written by his dad.

I’m sure there are other parents out there today similar to Marv Marinovich, obsessed with their child’s athletic development to the point where all other life pursuits are thwarted.  This is unfortunate for a number of reasons, the least being the fact that even with 24/7 training the pursuit of one day becoming a professional is still an unbelievable long-shot for most kids (even if John Watson would think differently if he were alive today!).  Not only are the odds against “making it” (even Todd Marinovich admitted to his God-given talents being just as, if not more important as his training was), but leading an imbalanced life as Todd did often sets people up to be unprepared in many other important ways.  Even in the best-case scenario when an athlete does “make it,” the average professional sports career is only 3-4 years, making holistic life skill development that much more important than exclusive sport training.

Every sports family should watch the Todd Marinovich story and talk openly as a family about the tradeoffs that often come part and parcel with 100% devoting to sport development.  At the end of the day, we should, at minimum, learn a few basic things from this story:

- While it sounds great in theory, John Watson’s original idea of creating a persona (i.e. a football quarterback) is really more of a talking point for balancing nature vs. nurture when it comes to personality development. To try an control a young persons surroundings like Marv Marinovich did is not only unhealthy, but potentially dangerous.

- When people feel overwhelmed, pressured, and don’t see a way out of their circumstances, it is very common for them to turn to drugs, alcohol, or a number of other reckless and dangerous behaviors.  The short answer for this is that they provide a temporary “break,” or respite, so that the individual doesn’t have to continue to stress out over his or her circumstances.

- Perhaps the biggest oversight by Marv Marinovich was that while he taught his son how to succeed on the field, he apparently stopped short of teaching Todd how to use his athletic skills off the field.  When an athlete compartmentalizes all his learning through sport into only being useful in sports, he has missed an incredibly invaluable learning opportunity.  Ironically, Todd Marinovich learned countless athletic transferable skills (i.e. discipline, teamwork, goal setting, etc.), yet was never taught how to parlay those skills into everyday life experiences (like learning how to successfully deal with stress).

Check out our entire line of sport and life skill products at the AHPS website!

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I have very exciting news to report – now, for the first time, Sport Success 360 is available to individual users including parents, coaches, and student athletes!  Previously only available to sports leagues, Sport Success 360 is now offered to anyone involved in youth sports wishing to learn more about how to make sports a fun, safe, and meaningful experience.

Benefits of Sport Success 360

• The most comprehensive sport education on the market today, offering professional tips and advice for parents, coaches, and student athletes
• A state-of-the-art interface that allows you to quickly learn about specific topics that are most important to you
• Unique learning system that provides perspectives to issues from multiple views, including coach, athlete, and parent angles (providing the 360 degree learning system)
• Videos to compliment each learning module
• Bonus Sport Success 360 pdf and Sport Success 360 audio program offered FREE with the program (a $25 value!)
• Built-in assessment that certifies users after they complete the Sport Success 360 quiz (great for getting everyone uniformly certified)
• The easiest way to quickly learn everything you need to know about youth sports, including sports burnout, communicating effectively with coaches, quitting, performance supplements, the mental aspects of injuries, hazing, travel leagues, sport specialization, plus much more!

Never be left out of the loop again when it comes to successfully handling the many challenges commonly seen in youth sports today.  Sport Success 360 is designed to help you navigate the sports landscape and prevent problems from occurring, while at the same time equip you with the knowledge needed for kids to maximize their athletic experience.

Easy, convenient, and affordable – that’s Sport Success 360!

while leagues and schools slowly implemnt training, you can stay ahead of the curve

Nearly every athlete who competes in sports understands that injuries are always possible, especially in contact sports.  Interestingly, sport psychologists note that when athletes experience injuries almost all focus is directed toward the physical aspects of the injury, while the mental (or emotional) aspects of injury recovery are typically overlooked.  That’s both ironic – and troubling – as most athletes actually suffer far more from the emotional aspects of injury than they do the physical pain and discomfort they experience (Sport Success 360).

Interestingly, the physical pain associated with injuries usually subsides within the first 24-48 hours of the injury, yet the emotional anguish associated with injury rehabilitation can last days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years.  When athletes first learn that they will likely miss a good number of upcoming games, this news is often met with shock, disbelief, denial, anger, and/or depression.  These emotional responses can, in turn, lead to poor coping strategies (i.e. drinking or recreational drug usage), unusual behavioral patterns (i.e. isolating from teammates, friends, and even family), and even risky behaviors (over-spending on credit cards, gambling, speeding, etc.).

If you are a parent, coach, or other helping professional involved in youth/interscholastic athletics, be sure to take a wide lens view of all the issues the injured athlete may be experiencing – physically and emotionally.  Some of the more common issues injured athletes experience are listed below:

• Loss of Personal Identity – When athletes experience injuries, especially long-term injuries, they often experience a loss of their athletic identity.  Not only do others temporarily stop viewing them as athlete (the athlete’s social identity), but their self-identity is also impacted where the role of being an athlete fades into the background of the person’s overall personality.  This change in perceived personality can cause distress for athletes.
• Isolation – Injured athletes often miss out on practices and other team-bonding experiences, leaving them to feel as though they are no longer an important part of the team.
• Fear of Losing Starting Position - In the old days injured athletes never lost their starting position because of an injury, but this old-school coaching mentality may be an antiquated way of thinking anymore.  Unfortunately, some coaches today don’t hold starting positions for injured athletes, making the injury recovery process that much more stressful.
• Ambiguities About the Injury – While most sports injuries are well understood to team physicians, athletes do not always understand their injuries and/or the length of their rehabilitation, making the recovery that much more difficult.
• Sport Retirement - Athletes who experience a career-ending injury are by far the most at-risk for future psychological issues.  Unlike other traditional jobs where retirement is planned for, with sport retirement the transition can be quite abrupt and unexpected, leaving the athlete to deal with a host of problems related to personal identity, future career plans, and overall self-worth.

Learn more about the mental aspects of sports injury recovery by picking up your copy of Sport Success 360 here.

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As parents, fans, and coaches who appreciate sports, we often marvel at those special athletes who develop the necessary fortitude and perseverance to be the best (Advanced Human Performance Systems).   Specifically, I’m talking about athletes who are the first ones to practice and the last ones to leave; the athletes who “keep their eye on the ball” throughout the season by doing all the little things necessary in order to be successful (hitting the weight room, prioritizing adequate rest, living a clean life, etc.).  In fact, it is this prototype of athlete that coaches often point toward when looking for positive examples for the team to model.  Ironically, while this strong mindset can be advantageous, it can also lead to future, unforeseen problems as well (Sport Success 360).

The mental toughness and perseverance that makes some athletes great champions can also lead to a “machismo” mindset, making it almost a double-edged sword.  In other words, doing it alone and better than the competition might work on the field, but what about when these types of athletes experience trouble, problems, or even just an inordinate amount of life stress?  Do they seek help, or do they use the same do-it-alone mindset to figure out the problem?  While having great perseverance in life can be a wonderful thing, it can also cause and/or exacerbate problems as well.

In my experience, athletes who have learned the value of going longer and harder than their competitors very often are the last to reach out and ask for help.  Of course, this does not mean every athlete who shows great perseverance and fortitude will reject the notion of seeking help when needed, but instead illustrates that certain athletes may be more at-risk to certain specific problems than others (like dealing with sport retirement).

What may be most important is for athletes to compartmentalize their mental toughness and fortitude and use it for on the field success, while also allowing themselves to be human and realize that in some situations in life seeking help from others may be a very healthy thing to do (and not a sign of weakness!).  It’s funny, but oftentimes when I raise the subject of sport psychology to athletes, their first reaction is to back away and dismiss the notion that they themselves “need that kind of help.”  The initial knee-jerk reaction seems to be that outside help is for losers or people who have problems – which couldn’t be further from the truth.  As you can see from this simple example, athletes who think this way may be overly confident in their own stress-coping abilities, which may actually hinder their sport (and life) success.

Success in life comes as much from being determined to succeed as it does being savvy enough to know when to let the guard down and accept feedback and advice from others.   Unfortunately, some athletes feel as though it is a sign of weakness to talk about the challenges they face, which usually leads to bigger problems if the initial concern is dismissed or overlooked.  Athletes, in particular, can be difficult to convey this message to as they are literally taught at an early age to “be tough” and reminded that “no pain = no gain.”  It is for these reasons that we pay attention to warning signs of trouble for athletes, and find creative ways to encourage them to seek help when needed.

Looking for more advice on how to successfully work with athletes?  Click here to learn more about products that can help!

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There is a theory in psychology that can be directly applied to sports and really help athletes with their on-field success.  I am talking about Locus of Control, a theory developed by Julian Rotter , refers to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them.  Generally speaking, some people believe their fate is more in the hands of others, while other people feel as though they are largely responsible for the things that happen to them – good or bad.  Locus of control has a dramatic impact on youth, interscholastic, college, and professional sports, and can be the difference between one athlete’s success and another athlete’s failure (Advanced Human Performance Systems).

In sports, it is very easy for athletes (and parents) to quickly point the finger and blame everyone (i.e. the coach) and everything (i.e. the “politics” of the selection process) when dealing with sport adversity. Of course, blaming others provides immediate comfort during stressful times, but in most cases it is not the fault of others when we fail.

Athletes who develop an external locus of control tend to immediately point the finger at all the reasons why they came up short in a game – the coach didn’t play me the right way, the officials were terrible, etc.  On the other hand, athletes with more of an internal locus of control first look inward when they face adversity, and begin by asking themselves what they could have done different or better so that they wouldn’t have failed.  Guess which athlete is more likely for future success?

Developing an internal locus of control can dramatically help with sport success, as resiliency and mental toughness are dramatically enhanced as a result of rational thinking.  When athletes (and parents) stop pointing the finger outward and begin to realize that sports aren’t “perfect,” nor are they always fair, only then can a healthier sport-training paradigm develop.  rather than blaming others or situations, athletes will benefit more by learning mental toughness skills, including skills around focus, concentration, and bouncing back from adversity.

It goes without saying that there are sometimes “politics” in sports, and that sometimes athletes get a raw deal while playing.  But in the big picture is it really worth it to dwell on those unfortunate experiences, or would it be more advantageous to simply move on and focus on the next play/game?  For young athletes, developing an internal locus of control can really help with on-field sport success, as well as life success.

Our growing line of iphone sport performance apps is growing – check them out here!

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