The Sports Doc Chalk Talk

Stress that occurs very quickly and prompts us to respond in an emergency-like fashion (like moving out of the way of an oncoming car) is often referred to as burst stress. Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics deal with burst stress everyday, as it is not uncommon for these people to receive emergency phone calls and quickly go from 0-100 MPH on the adrenaline scale.  Granted, athletes do not usually deal with burst stress anxiety in the same, life threatening ways as helping professionals do, but athletes do regularly deal with a wide range of stressors and emotional responses.  Athletes are especially at-risk for burst stress in fast-paced, tempo-changing sports, as well as those pressure moments in all sports when the outcome of a game hangs in the balance (Sport Success 360).

Being able to control and moderate arousal (or human energy) is a very important skill according to sport psychology research, and it is often what allows people to stay cool, calm, and collected while in the middle of otherwise stressful situations (like a police officer responding to a crime, or an athlete keeping his cool after receiving a cheap shot from an opponent).  As with most things in life, some people do a good job adjusting their focus and arousal appropriately (mental toughness), while others struggle trying to stay relaxed and focused when things become chaotic.  In sports, athletes who master mental toughness and keep it together in pressure situations are known as “clutch players,” while athletes who succumb to the pressure they experience are known as “chokers.”

If your son or daughter experiences great distress while trying to maintain focus, concentration, and calmness during pressure situations, consider the following ideas that can help:

• First, talk openly about things like stress and pressure – as well as provide examples of people (maybe even yourself) who have failed under these conditions.  Normalizing the fact that people commonly make mistakes and aren’t always perfect will help your child become more understanding and tolerant of himself when he, too, makes a mistake in a game.
• Practice stressful situations whenever you can.  For example, if you are working with your child trying to improve athletic skills, be sure to throw in surprise situations and gauge how she reacts.  Praise her hard effort and success, and shape her failures so that she can learn and improve the next time she experiences the situation.
• Use stress inoculation techniques.  Talk to your child about the reality that there will be bad games, errors, mistakes, and failure to be experienced while playing sports.  When these situations occur, teach your child how to improve his mental toughness by responding to the mistake with positive thinking and problem solving skills.  Remember, it’s not how many times we fall down, but how many times we get up.
• Dismiss the notion that only some people are gifted enough to handle pressure, while others have no control over it.  It is a myth that athletes who perform well in the clutch were “born that way,” and that other athletes can never improve in mental toughness because they weren’t born with the DNA to succeed in pressure situations.  Self-fulfilling prophecies can be quickly developed when young athletes think they “can’t” and well as they “can.”

www.drstankovich.com

Test YOUR mental toughness by picking up a copy of the worldwide popular Sport Performance Assessment app for the iphone – a real game-changer for athletes!

Sports might be the best place to observe “the intimidation factor.”  Whether it trash talking on a basketball court, a high-and-inside fastball from a baseball pitcher, or an after the whistle purposeful shove in football, it’s quite commonplace to witness athletes trying to get in the heads of their opponents and knock down their level of mental toughness. Interestingly, intimidation comes in many different forms, ranging from perfectly legal (and even strategic), to downright unsportsmanlike and dangerous.  An inside fastball in baseball is an example of the former, while a purposeful cheap shot punch after the whistle is an example of the latter.  As sport psychologists often note, controlled, sportsmanlike aggression may be a good thing, but uncontrolled, illegal, and unsportsmanlike behaviors are never warranted.

In the 1970′s, Jack Lambert was the perfect example of a scary dude.  Lambert was a middle linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers and was known as much for his aggressive tackling as he was for his missing front teeth.  While not the most imposing guy physically, Lambert seemed to always be in the heads of NFL quarterbacks for his fearless play.  In hockey, The infamous Broad Street Bullies (Philadelphia Flyers) of the 1970′s were also known for their rough-and-tumble play, and in basketball the Detroit Pistons of the 1990′s were known as the “Bad Boys,” primarily for the aggressive play of Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, and Dennis Rodman.  And in baseball, just about any pitcher who throws around 100 MPH and isn’t afraid to come inside gains instant respect from hitters.  As you can see, intimidation plays a part in nearly every sport — but the big question still remains: Does it work? That really depends on your definition of “works” and how far you will go to win games.

When intimidation “works,” it’s usually because of the following reasons:

A.) It leads to an opponent purposely being knocked out of the game.  Obviously this is nothing I would ever encourage, and I hope no coach would ever instruct players to purposely knock an opponent out of a game because of a cheap shot.  The reality, however, is that it has now been revealed that some coaches and teams do in fact encourage players to do whatever is necessary to win – including KO’s of the opponent – as evidenced in the recent New Orleans Saints bounty-gate. It goes without saying that intentionally looking to hurt an opponent is at the very least unsportsmanlike, and at worst could even be illegal.  As you can see, this type of intimidation “works” only in the sense that it lessens the abilities of the other team, although it also completely circumvents the assumed fairness, integrity, and sportsmanship we should all expect in sports.  Fortunately, coaches and athletes that ascribe to this type of “winning” are, in my experience, a very small percentage of sports participants.

B.) The more accepted form of intimidation is when it is kept within the rules of the game – like the pitcher who pitches inside to gain back the plate, or the boxer who engages in a stare down before the start of a fight.  In these examples intimidation may work if it does one thing – takes an opponent off his or her game. For example, if an inside fastball prompts the batter to give up more of the plate on the next pitch, most baseball purists would say that makes perfect sense.  Similarly in boxing, if the pre-fight stare down leads to the opponent being anxious and scared (and subsequently “off” his game), then most would agree the intimidation “worked.”  Conversely, examples of crossing the line would be when a pitcher intentionally throws at a guy’s head, or a boxer takes an unobstructed  cheap shot at his opponent during the pre-fight instructions.

Whenever an athlete is able to throw his or her opponent off by legal, sportsmanlike intimidation, then it is left to the individual to decide whether he or she would find it appropriate to do.  The potential “payoff” in using intimidation in sportsmanlike ways occurs when the opponent stops thinking about what he is supposed to do (and loses focus and confidence), and starts thinking about how afraid he is of the opponent (and thus increases sports anxiety).  In sports, this is known as taking a player “off his game.”

Are sports intimidation tactics good, and do they “work” by increasing the chances for sports success?  As you can see there are different ways in interpreting that question, ranging from intimidation being inappropriate and possibly illegal on one end of the spectrum, to smart sports strategy on the other.  What we do know is that when an opponent is far more worried about you than he is about what he is supposed to do on the next play, then you can make an argument that intimidation “works.”  This does not mean to imply that every athlete should look to intimidate his or her opponent, but to instead illustrate how the mental aspects of sport competition can enter into and impact the outcomes of games.  Many factors go into how an athlete should prepare for his or her sport, including how their personality traits are best used to both stay within the rules of the game and get in the head of their opponent (if they feel that is even necessary).  Even the type of sport enters into whether to develop intimidation skills — meaning you are far less likely to see evil stare-downs in bowling than you might in football.

www.drstankovich.com

Check our our high performance sports apps — many are listed just to the right of today’s column!

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.

www.drstankovich.com

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

Roger Clemens is in court again, trying yet again to discretely exit out the backdoor and maintain his innocence while facing mountains of empirical and circumstantial evidence that clearly link him to banned and illegal steroids and performance enhancing supplements.  Once known to baseball fans as a role model, winning pitcher, and fearless competitor, today Clemens comes across as a coward — a person so terrified to ever being discovered having been a cheater that he has gone to unimaginable lengths to protect his less than glamorous past.

While countless baseball peers of Clemens have come clean and admitted to their guilt (even if they were essentially forced to do so), Clemens continues to hold a poker face and maintain that he never used any kind of performance enhancement supplement during his career.  Of course, Clemens, like anyone charged for a crime, is “innocent until proven guilty,” but there is so much going against Clemens denials and so much evidence supporting he used that it’s almost comical watching how far a man will go to preserve his name and reputation — that at least partially was built upon cheating.

I would imagine many MLB players, especially those who played during the time Clemens played, are quite bothered by the position Clemens is taking.  I would also suspect that those players who were caught during the steroid era in baseball are really troubled by the fact that there’s a good chance that Clemens will somehow squirm out of the charges against him, while they had to pay a terrible price through public humiliation and a tarnished reputation.  But not Roger Clemens — rather than “manning up,” as he used to do in pressure game situations, he continues to take the cowards route of denial.

While there is an extremely remote chance that Clemens never cheated, there are many factual pieces to this case that certainly refute his innocence, including the following:

• Clemens played in the steroid era — legions of players from this time have already been busted, and many more have talked about how widespread usage was amongst players.  We have learned in retrospect from players during the steroid era that the baseball culture during that time was filled with steroids and PED’s — and the ridiculous power numbers that have yet to be duplicated since the steroid era certainly support this claim.
• Clemens clearly became more fit as he aged, and his pitching numbers improved dramatically as well.  Never before – nor since the steroid era – have we witnessed baseball players getting bigger, stronger, and better as they aged. Father Time didn’t tap Clemens on the shoulder and grant him “special” abilities.
• There are stacks of medical reports and even DNA evidence connecting Clemens to steroid paraphernalia and unprecedented medical rehabilitation success.  In fact, every claim that Brian McNamee (Clemens former trainer) has made has been confirmed – even his claims about injecting Clemens wife with human growth hormone - but somehow he is lying about only one man – Roger Clemens?
• McNamee admitted under oath about Clemens’ usage, and Clemens former best friend Andy Pettitte has also confessed that Clemens used.  Pettitte has nothing to gain by making this claim, and is (was?) actually a friend of Roger Clemens. His testimony may end up being the most damaging in the end if Clemens is found guilty of using.
• Outside of Clemens and Barry Bonds (another player who squirmed out the back door rather than admitting his usage), nearly every player from the steroid era in baseball who used has either: a) been caught, or b) admitted to using.
• Finally, even though there is enough evidence out there already that shows Clemens is almost certainly lying, ask yourself how your gut feels about his innocence?  Is there any part of this case where you feel Clemens didn’t use?  While I would never suggest a person rely exclusively on intuition and “gut feelings,” I would encourage onlookers to trust those feelings, especially as they add to the already existing evidence that is almost impossible to refute.

Is Roger Clemens a role model?  Hardly.  Is he a coward who looks foolish trying to shirt from the truth, when he could simply come clean and help millions of young athletes learn about the dangers of steroids and performance enhancing supplements?  In my opinion, yes.  Is he an extremely wealthy former athlete with a good defense team that will probably get him off from these charges against him?  Sadly, probably so.

“The Rocket,” as artificial as that name now sounds, will probably remain intact and ride off into the sunset never admitting to cheating the game of baseball.  Unlike one of his former teammates, Alex Rodriguez, Clemens will not admit to any wrongdoing; and unlike Rodriguez and other players who have admitted using (including Andy Pettitte), he will never have the opportunity to be forgiven for his mistakes and poor decisions.  The truth is we all make bad choices in life, and none of us are perfect — but we have witnessed that by coming clean (like Rodriguez and Pettitte did), people do forgive and forget.  What people don’t like, however, is when a person is so obviously guilty yet still stands proudly rather than admitting to his crimes.  That’s exactly the position Clemens has taken, and it’s not only cowardly, but also a terrific missed opportunity for a fresh start and means to help better educate kids about playing right, playing safe, and playing with integrity.

www.drstankovich.com

Play right, play safe, and play with increased mental toughness — learn more at Advanced Human Performance Systems

Athletes commonly experience an emotional roller coasting while competing — perhaps put no better than the late ABC Wide World of Sports weekly introduction that depicted the sport experience going from “the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat.” The point is that sports prompt athletes to become emotional — and herein is where aggressive and unsportsmanlike acts often originate (Sport Success 360).

Examining the recent Ron Artest incident where he blind-sided James Harden with his elbow —moments before the elbow, Artest felt excitement — and subsequently made a cognitive decision about how he would demonstrate his emotion. Rather than giving a positive and emphatic fist pump to the crowd, he decided to channel his emotion into a terrible cheap shot.  Think about what a “teachable moment” this can be for kids when they begin to learn that the emotions they feel from playing sports are great, but how they channel their emotions makes the difference between being a positive leader or getting thrown out of a game for displaying unsportsmanlike behavior.  Ironically, and simplistically, the direction in which Artest threw his elbow made all the difference — had it gone in the direction of the crowd rather than the back of Harden’s head, he likely would have helped his team continue to pick up energy, confidence, and mental toughness – variables linked closely to sports focus and athletic success.

Sports parents and coaches can teach student athletes to develop the sport psychology mental toughness skills needed to control emotions while competing and re-direct negative thoughts (that often lead to negative actions) into positive, facilitative, team-building emotions and actions (like giving high-fives to teammates).

Young athletes can learn early in their careers that how they think on the field will directly impact how they play.  By understanding that mistakes will happen, games will be lost, and possibly injuries will be experienced at some point, kids can prepare emotionally ahead of time by developing positive thinking routines to use when these situations eventually occur.

When adults take time to process with kids the teachable moments commonly experienced in sports — like effectively handling adversity — many really terrific things usually occur.  Perhaps the biggest change you will notice is a surge in confidence, which often triggers motivation, focus, and goal commitment. As you might guess, these are the athletes that reach their full athletic potential as a result.

The next time you go to your child’s game, keep an eye out for when a young athlete throws a glove, curses, or pushes an opponent after a play ends.  Remember, that same energy you witnessed in those acts could have all been turned into much better outcomes, like smacking a glove emphatically, telling the team “lets get them next time,” and helping an opponent up in the spirit of sportsmanship. Your child can learn vicariously from these experiences (meaning she can learn by watching others rather than being directly involved in the unsportsmanlike act), and quickly improve her mental toughness through your teachings.  As you help kids make these pro-social thought-behavior connections, talk about the many other ways these skills can be applied (or transferred), like toward academic success.

www.drstankovich.com

Got an iphone, ipod, or ipad?  If so, be sure to check out our high performance sports apps just to the right of today’s column!

Athletes and coaches often obsess on the mechanics involved in perfecting a sport skill (like a golf swing or batting stance), usually doing so at the expense of fully understanding the impact mental toughness has on executing a sport skill.  For example, the average golfer will spend an inordinate amount of time watching videos, taking lessons, and hitting balls at a driving range in an attempt to “perfect” a swing, yet spend no time at all in learning how human arousal impacts confidence, focus, fine motor skill movement, and the ability to master and execute golf shots.  My point is that if you are tense and tight, it doesn’t matter how much you study sports techniques as your real problem is one of anxiety control, not sport knowledge.

What often gets lost in the pursuit to master muscle movements is the degree that confidence (or self efficacy) impacts how successful athletes are at their sport.  It’s ironic, but having confidence can actually help an otherwise “imperfect” athlete (poor athletic form) still go on to become a great athlete.  Hideo Nomo (pictured pitching) used a style no baseball pitching coach would recommend, and Rick Barry (pictured below) had the unorthodox method of shooting free throws underhand.  Neither athlete’s style was anywhere near “textbook,” yet each went on to have outstanding careers in their respective sports.

Think about it for a moment – when you feel really good, you usually perform well, too.  Unfortunately, many athletes feel good when practicing alone, but then experience a loss of focus, increased anxiety, and decreased self-confidence when playing against serious competition. If the athlete performs poorly, he usually goes right back to perfecting the techniques involved in his sport, while never making the connection that the technique he is learning is largely dependent on being confident when doing it in real games and matches.

What all this suggests is that while technique is important, it may not be as important as you first think.  It also means that athletes who take the time to learn how to control human arousal, improve their focus, and bounce back from stress when not playing well, are often able to still play well – even at the expense of having textbook form.

Don’t believe me?  Watch a baseball game on television tonight and note how different each pitcher pitches, as well as the varied batting stances you will see from hitters.  Then keep in mind that these are all professional baseball players, and they have all made it to that level by having very different technical approaches to the game.  Herein is the “proof” to my point that technique, while important, may actually be secondary when it comes to the confidence needed to play at a high level.

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!

Tiger Woods bombed at The Masters this weekend, even after ESPN did everything they could to manufacture his championship-caliber abilities again by promoting him far more than any of the other more deserving players in the field.  With only 1 win in the last three years, Woods was the main man in every ESPN promo of The Masters, yet still lost by 15 strokes.

I have been critical of Tiger’s excuses over the last few years as he regularly blames everything from caddies to injuries, but his biggest problem by far is probably something most sports fans take for granted – his mental toughness. Tiger Woods does something that most athletes do, and it’s actually a really big hindrance to getting better at a sport – more simply, he obsesses over a specific technical part of his game (his swing) while completely disregarding his anxiety, poor focus, and loss of confidence. Read the following from SI.com and follow up with some solid sport psychology advice (bold emphasized):

>Now his problem is his swing. He’s been reworking it with Sean Foley for more than 18 months, and it remains a work in progress.

”What’s frustrating is I know what to do, and I just don’t do it. I get out there and I just don’t trust it at all,” Woods said. ”I can get it on the range, I can get it dialed in there. We’ll work on the same things and it feels really good, and I go to the golf course and I just don’t quite trust it. It just means I just need to do more reps.”<

Woods is actually like most athletes – poor play only means more practice, right?  Surprisingly, the answer is NO! Lets take a closer look at passage above and how revealing it really is.

• First, it is reported he has been “reworking” his swing for 18 months.  While this dedication might sound admirable, it’s actually terribly counter-productive and can lead to focus and anxiety problems.  Remember, we are talking about arguably the greatest golfer of all time – his muscle memory is so refined and established that he certainly doesn’t need to rework a swing for a year-and-a-half!  A calm, focused, and confident Woods could make beautiful golf swings again (probably even blindfolded) IF he obsessed less on the swing and focused more on reducing his anxiety, improving his confidence, and refining his focus.  This is a very important message to all athletes because the common thing athletes do is practice more, even when the true skills they need to improve are actually cognitive/emotional skills, not physical skills! Sadly, most athletes simply “practice more” and never target their true areas of weakness, and the result is, in Tiger’s case, and 18-month long “search” for I don’t know what.
• Woods actually makes my point in his quote about playing well on the range but blowing it on the course.  Think about that for a moment – he gets “dialed in” when there is nobody around and no pressure, then seemingly loses it in match play.  Do you see the problem?  It’s almost impossible to “solve” an anxiety issue by simply going out and hitting tons of balls in a controlled, non-anxious condition (i.e. driving range) — is it any wonder all the old habits happen again?  You see, he hasn’t “solved” anything by playing beautifully on the range but never learning any skills to control his anxiety and sharpen his focus in real play. Take another example for a moment — lets say you have a child in Little League that is afraid of getting hit by a pitch.  Taking your child to the batting cage might help some, but batting cages throw precise pitches and usually do not present the real fear (of an errant pitch hitting the kid).  For more rapid and long-lasting improvement, the child needs to actually face his fear by gaining confidence against live pitching in real games – where there is a possibility he could get hit by a pitch.  The point is it’s tough to overcome anxiety by simply going back and practicing in very controlled conditions that do not represent the true anxious situations.
• Finally, Woods explains that the only way to improve his situation is “more reps.”  Actually, this is probably the worst way to improve athletic skills if you are really dealing with anxiety.  Don’t get me wrong, more reps won’t hurt (and it can actually help with muscle memory), but if you are anxious, unfocused, and have a tendency to get angry when making mistakes in games/matches, then you are really not addressing the true problems.  An analogy might be using a screw-driver to hammer a nail — if you hit the nail enough times with the handle of the screw-driver it might eventually drive the nail into the wood, but wouldn’t using a hammer make the job that much easier?!

Athletes who recognize their true areas of weakness and address the real problems are the ones who bounce back very quickly.  In the case of Tiger Woods, simply hitting a thousand balls a day at a tranquil driving range does little – if anything – to prepare him to make clutch shots during pressure times of matches.  Instead, a better way to go is to balance reps with cognitive/emotional skill building, like learning how to use relaxation strategies when pressure begins to set in during match play.  Unfortunately, the mindset of “more=better” still exists in sports, hence the reason why so many athletes still practice harder, not smarter – and see limited results from their efforts.

www.drstankovich.com

Help the kids in your life learn how to reduce anxiety, increase self-confidence, and win more games! Check out the our line of performance products here!

The reality is that very few athletes will go on to play college, much less professional sports, making the sport experience a very temporary life endeavor for the majority of young athletes (Sport Success 360).  Still, there are countless skills that can be used beyond sports that can help with personal development, academic pursuits, relationship building, and career success.  Unfortunately, far too many kids “bottle up” and compartmentalize their sport experiences, often distilling them down to fun childhood memories without ever identifying the utility of their sport skills beyond the baseball diamond, soccer field, or swimming pool.

Aside from the countless athletic transferable skills that can be used in every experience in life, youth sports also teaches kids how to work with others on a team, how to develop self-confidence and mental toughness, and how to win and lose with dignity and respect.  In fact, it could be argued that participating in sports may be the best life “primer” when it comes to adequately preparing youngsters for many of the future challenges in life that they will inevitably face.

When young people cull from their sport experiences and apply what they have learned toward academic challenges, difficulties with interpersonal relationships, and various other life difficulties, they may be surprised to learn about the utility of their sport skills.  In essence, the sport experience can serve as a vehicle for future life success.

Have fun this summer with youth sports, but don’t leave all the life lessons behind at the field after the game has ended.  Sit down and process the sport experience with your child, and work together to come up with creative ways he or she can use the lessons learned in sports to become a more successful person, and not just a better athlete.

www.drstankovich.com

Learn more about our performance products for athletes, coaches and parents @ Advanced Human Performance Systems!