Do you want to help the athletes become more confident and self-assured when they find themselves in different game-time situations? Do you want them make better decisions? Perform at a higher level? Learn how to teach your players visualization or mental rehearsal.

This article was provided by Coaches Network

By Anthony Lanzillo

When you are coaching athletes, it’s very important to provide mental skills training along with the physical conditioning program and overall development of their athletic skills. One essential tool for all athletes is what we call visualization or the mental rehearsal. It’s showing your athletes how to use mental imagery and using such senses as sight and sound to mentally practice how they want to perform in the actual game. It is a fairly simple process to teach and learn.

This process will strengthen their mental skills, and thereby, help the athletes become more confident and self-assured when they find themselves in different game-time situations. It gives the athletes a stronger mindset, and assists them in making smarter decisions. By mentally practicing how they plan to perform, they will be focused on themselves, on what they control, on being task-oriented and what they want to accomplish.

For athletes who don’t use this process, they are often distracted and overwhelmed by negative feelings or fears. They can easily think about things they don’t control and worry about what they don’t want to do or have happen to them in the game.

The mental rehearsal is something that you can introduce and incorporate into team practices. Let’s say you are at a football or lacrosse practice, and running through different plays on offense or defense. After you have the offensive unit physically run through a play, you have the players get back into their positions at the beginning of that play. Then you ask the players to do the following five-step exercise:

• Take a deep breath and slowly close your eyes.
• Identify the play you just ran through.
• Identify your primary role and responsibility in this play.
• Identify a personal strength that will help you in this play.
• Identify the performance objectives during the play (a short series of visual and verbal cues that highlight specific moves you are making in the play).
• Identify a positive feeling from a successful performance.

You can even give your players a “mental prep playbook,” a notebook with single-page forms called “mental prep playsheets” where they can take a moment to write down their answers to the five steps for each play. After writing it down, you want to encourage your players to review their mental rehearsals of the different plays on a regular basis. They need to understand that the more they do their mental rehearsals of these plays, the more confident they will be when they find themselves playing in the actual games.

Also, during the team practices, you can talk to your players about how to plug into a short list of visual or verbal cues during a game. The moment a player finds himself in a particular play he can simply focus on:

• Role
• Personal Strength
• First Performance Objective
• Positive Feeling

In fact, during practice when the team is scrimmaging, you can blow the whistle to stop the scrimmage, yell a player’s name, say “cue” or “plug in,” and have that player verbally state his five steps in his mental rehearsal for that play. You want your players to immediately go to the key mental prompts or cues when they find themselves in different plays during competition.

 

A mental health professional for over 20 years, Anthony “Tone” Lanzillo has more recently been exploring how athletes can use mental skills in their practices and games. He works with athletes in such sports as softball, boxing, field hockey, football, soccer, basketball and lacrosse and writes for FirstDown Playbook, Coaches Training Room, Ultimate Hockey Source, Lax Playbook, Online Soccer Coaching, World of Basketball, Lacrosse All-Stars, Coaches Clipboard and Coach Book. Click here for more information on his ideas and services.

This article was provided by Coaches Network

Too much emphasis on winning can distract from the true value of sports. Longtime soccer coach and internationally known speaker Reed Maltbie explains why it’s important to develop what he calls a “warrior” culture as opposed to a winning culture.

Coaches can often become blinded by the desire to win. This single-minded focus forces people to sacrifice their values and can hurt the growth of young athletes. But as Maltbie explains in an article on Changingthegameproject.com, the goal should be to achieve excellence. Winning is just a by-product of this commitment to positive values and embracing the challenge of competition.

“In a values-based, purpose-driven team or mindset winning is not the focus, but the expectedly pleasant by-product. It is not ‘wanted’ as the main desire but simply expected as something that may happen if things are done right,” Maltbie writes. “Winning and losing are both mere waypoints on the journey and both should be viewed with the same desire to learn from and grow from them.”

Like many coaches, Maltbie struggled with this approach when he started out over 20 years ago. He had winning mentality and all he cared about was acquiring as many trophies and accolades as possible, often bragging about not having a losing season as a major part of his success. But after seeing the way that this mentality left him feeling empty and took away from the experience of his players, he began to change his approach.

What he discovered was this: “All warriors are winners, but not all winners are warriors. The simple commitment to personal excellence, high standards, and an ethereal quest to be better than the day before makes a warrior a winner.”

With this mentality he stopped treating winning as the ultimate goal and started treating it as a simple step on the path to excellence. Since then his goal has been to help athletes develop into “warriors.” He does this by encouraging athletes to live by unbending values, strive for improvement every day, take challenges head on, and respect the nature of competition.

Here is his guide for changing your focus from winning trophies to striving for excellence:

• “Warriors are purpose-driven WHILE winners are trophy-driven.” Winning a competition is a fleeting moment. What lasts longer is developing the desire and drive to always do your best and to seek excellence everyday. This motivation goes far beyond the pursuit of a piece of metal.

• “Warriors are internally motivated WHILE winners are externally motivated.” When you focus on being the master of yourself, true excellence can be achieved. Competing for the sake of winning is an external motivation that relies on comparing yourself to others rather than seeking self-improvement.

• “Warriors have a growth mindset WHILE winners have a fixed mindset.” People focused solely on winning often think they are entitled to the trophy, while those with a growth mindset understand how much work it takes to get there. Even when the competition doesn’t go your way, the value lies in the opportunity to learn and grow.

• “Warriors are process-oriented WHILE winners are outcome-oriented.” Instead of worrying about the endgame, stay in the moment and enjoy the journey. When you always have your eye on the goal, it can be easy to miss what’s going on around you.

• “Warriors are values-based WHILE winners are glory-based.” It’s important to develop the values that you want to fight for and then to instill these values in your athletes. When acquiring trophies is the focus, you are looking to boost your own ego rather than create a legacy of excellence.

“We have a chance to teach our children and our athletes the awesome joy of being a warrior. Of seeking challenge, battling for personal excellence, of striving to be a better person each day, and living and playing with a purpose and embedded in values,” Maltbie writes. “They have the opportunity to experience deep satisfaction in mastering the game, enjoying the journey, and being part of something bigger than themselves. We make this choice to create warriors not winners and we may not fill our mantle with trophies, but we will fill the world with happy, resilient, purposeful people who will make an impact beyond the game.”

Click here to read the full article.

By Deron Sorrell

Poise is an emotional peace which is seemingly inconsistent with the challenge at hand. Poise is developed rather than learned. Poise permits practice to render expected results.  Poise is nearly invisible at its strongest, but obvious to all when absent.

Poise does not improve our physical skill, but rather is the state of mind with which a performance is offered. Poise is understood by few. Poise is leased by many but owned by none. Poise is relative. Everybody has a little, but few have enough. Poise is not always passive. Poise is ready to fight, but always within the rules. Poise provides us with the ability to remain focused on our objective rather than aimlessly gazing at distractions. As our temptation to become distracted intensifies, our needed amount of poise increases. It is impossible to have too much poise.

Poise is readiness. Poise is not a fancy word for composure. Poise may choose to avoid conflict, but does not equate with passive play. Poise is more concerned with winning a game than with merely avoiding a fight. Poise is capable of an aggressive play. Poise does not conflict with intense play. Poise is capable of being physical. Poise does not preclude giving your all. Poise allows us to execute the demands of the game while maintaining an awareness of the rules and a genuine respect for the competition.

Poise lessens the impact of pressure. Poise is the buffer which prevents pressure from damaging our performance.  Poise removes all competition except the other team. Our preparation and strategy will prepare us for a particular opponent. Poise can either be a key component to winning or a major cause of defeat.

Poise is always needed. There is not a good time to be without poise. Everybody is aware that poise is needed on occasion, but few realize that it is called upon constantly.  Poise must be a great strength in order for teams to achieve greatness.

There is little, if any, correlation between talent and poise. We all can develop poise if it is perceived as important and worthwhile to do so.

Poise provides us with the opportunity to do our best.  Without poise, distractions will serve to detract from our performance. You and your teammates must develop poise in order to make any sincere effort toward achieving meaningful objectives. Anything other than our best is not acceptable. Poise is a necessary component to any pursuit within a competitive environment.